Recent Alumnus Spotlight - Mike Mytnick, BSC '14
Hometown: North Ridgeville, Ohio
Year Graduated: 2014
School: The School of Media Arts & Studies
Major: Video production, art minor
Current job title and location: Digital Producer at WME | IMG, New York, N.Y.
What do you do? I oversee and work directly on our content strategy and execution on all our digital platforms for social, web and marketing campaigns. I create the content, such as videos, websites and fan votes, and then actually execute the delivery of those creatives. With the Miss Universe Organization, a lot of the stuff we do integrates into the TV show. Most of the digital stuff that is online or built for an app also gets turned into segments for the show.
For example, I went to the Philippines in 2014 and visited the island affected by typhoon. We have a huge fan base there. We partnered with a charity and did a documentary that helped to raise funds. It ended up getting aired on the show. We had a Miss Universe show there again in early 2017, and we went back to the islands to see how things were and to produce a follow-up segment for the show.
When we were at Miss USA in Vegas in May, we did a backstage lounge where we hired a host and went live on Facebook from the lounge on commercial break. Live production has really picked up for digital media.
What made you come to Ohio University? I was originally looking at schools for physics and was partial to doing a more Type A degree, but I had always done video and art. I always had a passion for those things. Once I visited Ohio University and found out how good the Media Arts & Studies program was, I knew I wanted to go there and follow my passion. It was totally new and far from home. Campus was all I ever wanted and an ideal setting.
Were there other places you considered? Any metros? What made this rural location more attractive? I remember I applied to Oberlin, Case Western and Baldwin Wallace. Ultimately, it came down to knowing if I stayed close to home, I may not go out of my comfort zone. So it was kind of a plunge into a new place. I knew it would be hard, but I really had so much fun and was able to bike and walk everywhere and know that I was experiencing the whole community. I loved the bricks and stopping in at a coffee shop or a park to read. I didn’t want to go home every weekend. It felt like a new comfortable home.
How did the Scripps College of Communication equip you with the skills you needed to succeed? The classes and facilities were a huge part of it, but I was really inspired by the creative freedom. I was sort of an oddball in the sense that I paved my own way because I was really interested in art and photography, so I was able to take some classes in VisCom (the School of Visual Communication.) A lot of times, I was learning a combination of both visual communication and video in Media Arts & Studies (MDIA). I was into fashion and wasn’t really seeing that so much in MDIA, so it was almost an independent study. I was very proactive and the University helped me to find my way by letting me use studios and equipment outside the school. Since then, a program integrating visual communication and video has been created. So I was kind of ahead of the curve.
Also, I really benefitted from my internship. I had heard about the Miss Universe Organization [now a WME|IMG company] internship program in class and thought it was really cool. I applied for it, it worked out, and now I’m here. A lot of the people I work with now are also Ohio University alumni!
If you could spend just one more day in classes or focus on one more skill at Scripps, what class would you attend or skill would you learn and why? I probably would want to do more with Avid, a program used for video editing. Most TV shows are edited in that software. I never got to use it in school, and it comes up in my professional life more and more.
Something I really loved was the Shootout, 48-hour short film competition hosted by the School of Media Arts & Studies. That was definitely one of my favorite things to do. The first year I participated, I met one of the judges who approached me afterwards. He told me he really liked that way I shot my group’s short film. To get that compliment as a freshman was very validating. Another year, I served as producer for the whole event, figuring out the genres, props and lines. It was cool to gain experience through that event.