Michael Whyte (right) with host Eddie McGuire on the set of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’

Last week’s part of my interview with Michael Whyte ended with us discussing the poor teaching that can sometimes go on in the media industry. In a discipline where sometimes the teachers are people who haven’t quite made it in the real world of the television industry, some of the knowledge they pass on to their students can, at times, be less than authoritative….

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MW: Now, the opposite to that I think, is my son, for example. He shoots, with a digital camera, skateboarding, BMX and scootering, and he’s got his own site. He has about 15 sponsors and he shoots on a regular basis and makes short films and is now being hired by people to shoot stuff.

SH: That’s smart.

MW: Well, exactly. So when he goes to do a course like that, he’s already done the editing side of things… because he does that every day.

SH: Self-taught.

MW: And he’ll pop that up on his own YouTube channel or on his own site and he he’ll get 80,000 hits for one of those. Quite easily. So he’s got that part of it done. So the theory side of it… I don’t know if it works for him. He can actually do what people require already.

SH: Or he can be his own business, his own entrepreneur, his own TV station. And with sponsors, then you wouldn’t need to go anywhere else if you can scale it and make it bigger and bigger… and there you go. You can do what you love and get paid.

MW: Yeah. But I think if he took that to Channel 9, depending on who interviewed him, they’d say “you need a Bachelor of Communication or something like that”, whereas if you took it to a small production company and just said “Here’s what I’ve done”, they’d go “Fantastic. Go and shoot this, and I’ll have a look at it at the end and if it is any good we will give you some work”. Will it be as simple as that, you know?

SH: Is that where he sees his future?

MW: Well I think so, because he enjoys it. More and more into the extreme sports because he likes extreme sports and when he goes, he shoots. People are going “that’s really good”. He puts some music to it, chops it up and there it is. He shouldn’t have a problem getting any work – just as long as the interest is still there, he’ll be great.

SH: You mentioned a moment ago that you’re currently working on Millionaire Hot Seat, which is a version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire. Do you have any tips or hints for people considering going on either Millionaire Hot Seat or Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?

MW: First of all, get off the couch because mostly people sit there and say “Yeah, I know that”. And you would have had so many people say “Yeah, I could have done that”.

SH: Ah, yes – But you didn’t, did you?

MW: It’s fine to say afterwards “Yeah, I would have got that, no problem”. It’s those people, every time we record there’s a studio full of contestants and I say to them “you were sitting on the couch, you were watching the show and your husband or your wife or your boyfriend or whoever it was said ‘Get off the couch and go and have a go… because you are driving me mad!’”

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It may sound facetious, but I think that point IS really important; you DO have to get off the couch. “Fortune Favours The Bold” may be a cliche, but it’s absolutely true. In fact, I think the point Michael’s making was perhaps expressed most eloquently in these wonderful words from the 26th American president, Theodore Roosevelt;

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Nice one, Teddy. See you next week.