How I Got on TV
- Danny Stack
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
When I was 20, recovering from a physical and depressive collapse (culminating in an extremely under-active thyroid), I spent most of my convalescence figuring out what I really wanted to with my life. Working in a soul crushing 9-to-5 office job was part of the reason I got sick, so whatever job I chose next had to be ‘important’. I asked myself: what have you always wanted to do? The answer: do film reviews on TV. So I set out to do just that, and within 6 months, I was on the telly (premiering on my 21st birthday, neat!). Here’s how I did it:
I always wrote film reviews. And tried to get them published wherever I could. A few Dublin listing magazines were kind enough to let me try out my wannabe critiques. So I had a ‘portfolio’ of published material at least.
At the time, RTE had a youth magazine show called Jo: Maxi. Essentially their version of Blue Peter. Occasionally, they’d let a member of the public give the latest cinema release the once over. I thought: maybe that could be me.
I phoned up RTE and got put through to the Jo: Maxi office. I pitched myself as their film reviewer. They said: send a letter to the producer. I did, keeping the letter short and sweet – and somewhat cheeky, enclosing a passport photo of myself peering over sunglasses.
A couple of weeks later, I phoned the Jo: Maxi office to follow up. I was connected to the producer. He said he had my letter on his desk. He asked me to send him my reviews. Then, we agreed to meet.
We met in the RTE canteen. Very exciting for me, I can tell you. He thought I wrote well. He was willing to give me a screen test. Was I up for it? Of course!
I wrote a review of Knight Moves, the, um, classic chess thriller starring Christopher Lambert. Learned it off by heart, and sauntered in for the screen test.
Oh. The lights. The cameras. The sound man attaching a mic to my lapel. ‘What if it picks up heartbeat?’ I asked, knowing my heart was galloping like a racehorse. The sound man shrugged, ‘that’s it then, isn’t it’. Gee, thanks.
I could barely see a thing through the blare of the lights but I stared down the barrel of the camera and gave it my best shot. If I messed up a line, I would improvise and try to get back on track. After a couple of takes, the producer called me into the gallery and played me back to me. ‘You’re a bit nervous but you’re improvising, that’s good. What do you think?’ I thought: HEY THAT’S ME, THAT’S NOT BAD. But I said: ‘yeah, bit nervous’.
The producer was willing to give me a shot. Work on my presentation. But I was given the role. I instinctively managed it all myself: liaising with the distributors so I could attend the press screenings (like, OMG), and choose the various clips, and write my reviews around them.
The reviews themselves were recorded in a tiny closet room with a green screen (well, a curtain) behind me. I’d film two a week (£50 per review I seem to recall), usually Tuesday evening after the show’s normal working day. And only one of the reviews would be selected for broadcast.
The cameraman was a right prick, and made snarky comments and condescending remarks whenever I fluffed a line. That wasn’t helpful. The producer tried to encourage me every step of the way. My presentation started to improve but I never fully quite got over my onscreen nerves. Still, I did it for 3 months, right up to Christmas, and then was told the show was not going to do any more reviews.
Philip McGovern Over 30 years later (2024), attending my first Edinburgh TV Festival, I bumped into the producer of Jo: Maxi. Philip McGovern. Legend. He gave me my first break in TV. That’s me and him in the photo. And there’s a video link to one of my reviews so you can see me in action, and with a full head of hair. Ah, youth.
The whole point of this indulgent stroll down memory lane is: combine intuition with risk. Take a chance on something you want to do. Break down some practical steps that have to occur, and set that wheel in motion… that’s the real way to make things manifest, or for the universe to properly respond.
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