SallyAnn Salsano, president of 495 Productions, never planned on owning her own production company, but when a network offered Salsano a show after dropping its old company, she didn’t flinch. Soon, she was incorporated, had a No. 1 hit and was shooting the pilot for her next No. 1.
In our latest So What Do You Do feature, the force behind shows like Jersey Shore, Nashville Star and The Real talks about the day-to-day of running a production company and why it was a good thing she didn’t know what she was getting into when she started:
The blessing and the curse is that I knew nothing. I think had I known what I was actually getting into, just the knowledge alone probably would have scared the bejesus out of me, and I probably wouldn’t have done it. You are the person on the hook for everything. If the show’s over budget, you pay for it. God forbid something happens to someone on set. There are a million different things that could go up down and around, and let’s just say all of them went up down and around.
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For more from Salsano, including what it takes to break in to TV production, read: So What Do You Do, SallyAnn Salsano, President of 495 Productions and EP of The Real?