Chris Graham: Say yes, then figure it out

“So, Chris, can you produce videos?”

“Um … sure.”

I mean, I had produced videos, kinda, sorta. If you count pointing a Flip camera at myself and ranting and then figuring out how to get the result onto YouTube so that people could comment.

“Yeah, definitely.”

I learned a lesson a while ago from a friend in the entertainment business, Larry Vickers, who decided as a teen that he’d one day be a Broadway dancer. It didn’t daunt him at all that he’d never taken a single dance class. He was convinced … it was going to happen.

His debut on Broadway literally a couple of years later (yeah, it’s a helluva story) was delayed because he turned his first Broadway gig down. Naive as he was at the time, he’d already taken a job on a summer-stock production, so when the casting director offered him a slot on an upcoming Broadway show, he turned it down, not realizing that union rules would allow him to back out of his summer-stock contract without any repercussions.

That occurred to him later. As he walked away from the casting director having turned down the job, another dancer berated him.

“Next time don’t be stupid. Say yes, then figure it out.’

So that’s my mantra. Say yes, then figure it out. And we’ve figured out a lot in terms of video production since the day literally a year ago that I was asked if I could handle video production for a small pro-wrestling company with big, big dreams.

A series of videos that I produced helped build big-time interest in the company, to the point where demand for our product pushed us onto TV. And now I shoot and produce TV commercials for several clients, in addition to delivering sophisticated web-video products for a bigger list.

And last night, I entered a new realm – DVD producer, piecing together footage from the big wrestling show put on by Awesome Wrestling Entertainment last fall into a two-disc DVD set that will go on sale April 1.

“So, Chris, can you produce videos?”

Turns out that I was right when I said yes, even though I didn’t know that for 100 percent certain at the time.

More online at www.TheWorldAccordingToChrisGraham.com.