"I think when we look at mainstream media, there's a lot of main characters missing," Molly O'Brien, former executive producer of special projects at Fork Films tells Start TV. "Whether that's women, people of color, marginalized voices, largely, just haven't had their say and their stories told. Those stories are begging to be told, they are easy to find, and anybody who says they're not easy to find isn't trying very hard."
As a producer, O'Brien makes it a priority to tell stories that other production companies may not even think to give a platform to. Her drive has helped her work her way up through the ranks to have the authority to get these stories out into the world. It hasn't always been an easy climb, though. She wishes that as she was starting out, someone would have told her that it's OK to make mistakes.
"When I was a production assistant, I crashed the passenger van into a fence post and I told the assistant director on one job that there were too many extras in the street and I got fired," she said. "There's all kinds of mistakes that I made along the way." In 2020 Molly became Head of Documentary at NBC News Studios.
Hear more about her start in the industry in the video below:
