While some people set their career goals in childhood, it took Shea William Vanderpoort a bit longer to find his future path.
He’s now a film and TV director who has helmed episodes of such shows as “First Wives Club” and “Harlem,” and he’s worked for Disney, Amazon, Netflix and other entertainment giants. Getting there took diligence, hard work and a willingness to take almost any job or fill any role on a production, Vanderpoort told students during a talk that helped kick off Comm Week, an annual event hosted by the College of Communications that connects students with professionals from across the industry to educate and inspire them.
Vanderpoort ’11 (B.A. radio/TV/film) was always interested in creative pursuits. He started his college career as an art major, and later — as a guitarist who played in a band — switched to music before changing directions once more.
It was a world cinema course at CSUF that helped him decide how he wanted to spend his working life.
“I learned about the French New Wave and German Expressionism, and I was like, I didn’t know film could be this cool.”
Next came a screenwriting class, and Vanderpoort and his friends started making their own films on the weekends so he could immediately apply the skills he was learning in school.
When the 2008 housing market crash swept away Vanderpoort’s plans to become a real estate appraiser, he leaned into film and TV work.
“At that point, I just had nothing to lose — whatever comes my way, I’m just going to say yes,” he said.
He freelanced on a variety of projects, sometimes for no pay just to get his name out there. On one job, he started out working the camera, then took on the editing because he knew he could improve it, and by the end of the first season he was directing the show.
He also focused on building relationships. When a friend asked him for feedback on a web series called “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl” (later adapted into “Insecure,” which starred Issa Rae and ran for five seasons on HBO), Vanderpoort’s no-holds-barred critique led to a call from producer Tracy Oliver, who asked him to come work on the series.
Oliver went on to create “First Wives Club” for BET, and after she brought Vanderpoort to shadow her on set, he got asked to direct an episode of the show.
Savanna Griego, a third-year student studying public relations, helped book Vanderpoort for Comm Week because she thought his story would resonate with others who want to work in TV but aren’t sure how to get there or exactly what they want to do.
“I feel like what stuck with me was just ‘take all the chances you can get, say yes to everything, get all the experience you can get,’” Griego said.
While Hollywood can still be a bit of an insiders’ club, Vanderpoort thinks this is a good time for new voices and ideas to emerge, and he sees the emergence of vertical video shows as an opportunity for people new to the business — just as web series were when he was starting out in the early 2010s.
Vanderpoort titled his Comm Week talk “Stumbling to Success as a Television Director” to describe the sometimes meandering path to a career in entertainment
“It’s been about the relationships and the hard work and not veering away from the dream,” he said. “For me, it’s just been a lot of trying to figure life out, but just making sure I leave a little bit of time to express myself and create.”