KRISTY OSBORN

I spent a lot of time in a TV studio while I was growing up. While other kids were climbing jungle gyms, my sister and I were sneaking around backstage during live productions, hiding behind the curtains, and weaving through cables and light stands at the station where my parents worked. We’d help on live productions, mostly by walking guests to the green room, which was always stocked with juice and snacks meant for the guests, not us. We were good at staying out of the way… most of the time. until the day a camera operator didn’t show up for the live show. The director, my mom, wasn't satisfied with having an unmanned camera. It put too much stress on the floor director. She made a snap decision. I would run camera 3, the wide shot. In less than 30 minutes, someone showed me how to tilt, zoom, ped up/down, and dolly. She didn't just believe in me. She was certain I would do a good job. 

 

I was terrified. And thrilled.

That moment hooked me for life.

 

Every summer after that, I ran studio pedestal cameras and filled in as a Master Control operator. By the time I entered college, choosing Media Communications felt like a natural career path.

 

Film school only fueled the spark. On a 25-plus-hour drive back from Los Angeles, a friend and I invented an episodic TV show just to stay awake. We never expected anything to come of it—after all, we were two fresh graduates with more enthusiasm than experience. But when we heard about an opportunity to pitch a pilot to a national network, we took a shot. We wrote a plan, filmed a pilot, sent it off… and to our complete disbelief, we got signed. The potential audience?500 million viewers worldwide.

 

Our road-trip idea grew into a ten-season show with 120 episodes for high school and college students. During those years, I met Cleveland filmmakers who opened the door to several movie sets—Bartleby (Crispin Glover), The Wedding Planner (Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Lopez), and A Better Way to Die (Lou Diamond Phillips, Joey Pantoliano). Those experiences inspired me to move to California and try to make a full career in film. But once I arrived, my connections dried up fast. I felt the reality of unpredictable work and realized I needed more stability.

 

I joined Premiere Radio Networks in the Traffic Department, building commercial logs for national programs like Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, and Fox Sports Radio. It wasn’t glamorous, but it sharpened my industry instincts in an entirely new way.

 

Eventually, life pulled me back to Ohio. My grandmother’s health was declining, and my mom had launched an after-school program teaching video production to elementary and junior-high students in inner-city schools. The kids were restless and loud—until they touched a camera. Something shifted. They focused. They created. They cared. For several years, we ran over 30 classes across a dozen schools… until funding cuts eliminated the program. Math and science tutoring survived. Career-building programs, unfortunately, didn’t.

 

In 2012, I returned to broadcasting at WHIO-TV in Dayton. I started as a teleprompter—just enough to get my foot back in the door. Within a year, I moved into commercial production, where I did everything: ideation, scripting, scheduling shoots, graphics, editing, color, audio… all of it. I produced commercials and long-form videos for Reid Health, Dayton Children’s Hospital, Optimus Prosthetics, and countless other local businesses.

 

A few years later, I stepped into management. Suddenly, my world expanded beyond video into digital, print, and social creative. As Creative Advertising Manager, I’ve led an award-winning team of designers, producers, and sound engineers, building cohesive campaigns across every media platform we touch—TV, radio, print, digital, and social. It’s been a journey built on cameras, curiosity, and a willingness to say “yes” whenever an unexpected door opened—even if it terrified me.