Today we’d like to introduce you to Olivia Ratinoff.
Olivia, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
When I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life I was trying out different internships related to the performing arts. I actually started in theater. I was a Stage Manager for a student-run theater group on campus and my first couple jobs and internships were at a local theater working for a producer. But I always loved TV and movies. I grew up going to see any and every movie that came out, watching TV late at night with my parents and friends. So I took an internship at Mandeville Entertainment during college, where I saw some of the development process and watched a Producer give notes to a writer, and it was the first moment I ever looked at someone and went “I want to be you.” When I graduated, I started to apply to any job I could trying to land on a desk and just get my foot in the door and I actually got kind of lucky (or unlucky if you want to think of it that way) because I went up for a job and lost it to a coin toss. But the person who would have been my boss liked me enough to help, and he passed my resume on to who would become my first boss and one of my mentors over at New Form. I worked there for three years before I moved to Future Shack Entertainment, where I’ve been for the last three years.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I can say I’ve been fairly lucky overall. There were a few hiccups, namely COVID when everything shut down and the industry became incredibly difficult for everyone for a few years. But I stayed employed through the whole thing, so even though production was down and it was harder to get things sold, I still was able to learn and grow where I was. Similarly, when the writer’s strike happened I was in a good spot and was able to keep working and keep powering through while a lot of my friends were laid off or out of work.
I’ve also been lucky in the sense that I’ve always had good people in my corner. It can be a little rough in the industry, especially when you’re just starting out, but I was able to find good mentors at both companies who helped me learn and who are still helping me. I’m eternally grateful to them. They’ve made even rougher periods seem brighter and have been voices of encouragement even when I’ve been told that it’s the toughest time to work in this business.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I guess what sets me apart from others, and what I used to joke about in interviews when I was first getting started, is that my first ever task at my first ever job was to scrape gum off the bottom of the table. It was a fairly grueling task, but it also taught me a few important lessons early on: no job is too small, sometimes you need a little elbow grease and most importantly, check your ego at the door. I think that’s what sets me apart the most from other people, even now. And it’s helped me a lot in my current job. As a junior development exec, and even as an assistant and then a coordinator, I’ve had to do a lot of checking my ego at the door because as much as I believe in our projects, as much as I think they’re amazing and will make great television, part of that also means finding the best way forward with them. And in this industry, you get rejected a lot. You have to learn not to take it personally, but you also need to be able to look at that rejection and evaluate whether or not to change your approach. And a lot of the time, I think that comes back to ego.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I’ve always been a huge nerd at heart. I loved school, to the point where when you’re in kindergarten and everyone goes in a circle saying what they want to be when they grow up, I actually used to say that I wanted to be an English Major (and when I got told I needed a day job that would actually pay me, I would tell people I wanted to be Batman. The idea that I could work in TV came much later for me). But the real thing is I loved to read. I would read everything I could get my hands on, whether that was romance, horror, sci fi, comic books. I must have read 3-4 books a week on average, and my version of rebellion as a kid was when it was “lights out time” I would sneakily turn my bedside lamp on and read. It was actually perfect that I ended up in a field where a love of reading was part of the job.
