“My father once told me, ‘you’re either going to be really successful, or you’re going to be a bum,” said Chris Linn, MTV’s current Senior Vice President of Production. “I thought, well I’m not going to become a bum, so I worked really hard.”

Linn graduated from the University of Florida in 1988 with a Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Arts in Theatre, a degree many including Linn’s parents would question. “My family was not thrilled about me being a theatre major. They would ask me what I planned to do with it.”

Ironically, much of Linn’s inspiration was derived from those doubts. “A lot of my motivation was defying people’s expectations and proving them wrong,” Linn said.

Linn grew up with a passion for theatre, learning the production enterprise from an early age. “I was kind of one of those goofy kids who put on plays in my backyard with the neighborhood kids.” Linn would write and produce plays as well as super 8 films for his parents and neighbors.

By ninth grade, Linn’s mother had enrolled him in a summer acting program in Orlando. “That was when I really decided theatre could be my career,” he said. “I made a lot of friends there who are now professional actors.” Linn recalls working with former The Daily Show correspondent Beth Littleford, among others.

“I kind of went back and forth between wanting to be an actor and wanting to do film production,” said Linn.

But Linn’s first legitimate production experience wouldn’t appear until he began shooting industrials and commercials in Orlando during college.

“We all have a responsibility to mentor up-and-coming talent,” Linn said. While filming commercials in Orlando, a free-lance production manager on one of the shoots noticed Linn’s interest in the production side of the business.

“I kept telling her, ‘I want to get into production’. So, on days I wasn’t shooting, she invited me to sit in on her part of the job”.

Linn’s developing passion for the production side of show business was coupled with a deteriorating interest in acting as a profession.

“I always thought in college that I could starve myself if necessary. I thought I was going to live life as a struggling actor.”

Linn was auditioning for a commercial when he first perceived the depravities of that life. “While I was waiting to audition, there was a man in his fifties begging people for information on acting jobs, and I realized I didn’t want to be in that situation.”

Shortly after graduating from Florida, Linn enrolled in Valencia’s Film Technology program, which coincidentally, Linn noted, was in the back lot of Nickelodeon studios, where he first experienced the technical aspects of production.

“We would sneak in to Nickelodeon and ask around for jobs,” Linn said. When he finally started work, however, he was hired to do payroll for production.

“There are really two parts of TV production,” said Linn. “There’s creative development and production management.”

“I came out of college with the creative side,” Linn explained. “I had taken five math classes at UF, yet I got hired on the financial, logistical, management side at Nickelodeon.”

The job, however mundane it seemed to Linn, provided him with both angles, a vision that would help him as a producer later in his career.

Perhaps the hardest part of making production a profession was climbing the ladder in Nickelodeon, Linn noted.

“Coming from Florida, getting to New York is hard,” said Linn. “I’ve had to work really hard and be really bold and know that I’ve got something better to offer.”

After five years of working with Nickelodeon, Linn moved to New York with production management, working on series such as nine-time Emmy award winner Blue’s Clues and universally acknowledged animated series Dora the Explorer.

Since his start at Nickelodeon, Linn worked as Vice President of Production for Spike TV before taking his current position at MTV.

“I certainly didn’t think I would be a senior executive in a company managing millions of dollars,” Linn said. “I could never imagine my life after age twenty-three in college.”

Linn expressed his gratitude toward UF and his college experiences. “At UF, I learned to love the creative progression. It was a great sense of community, and I learned a lot about the acting process.”

Linn cites his theatre training as a consistent contributor to his professional life. “Acting is all about objectives and creation. If you’re trying to lead people in a corporate environment, you ask yourself what their goal is, and more importantly what your goal is,” said Linn. “It gave me the skills in communicating and persuading.”

To achieve true success, Linn emphasized hard work to garner recognition. “You can’t say, ‘I’ve been here for a year, promote me’. You say, ‘Here’s what I’ve done, recognize me.”

“I’ve never known anyone who really wanted to be successful who didn’t make it,” Linn said. “You have to be diligent and persistent, and you have to support other people’s success,” he said.

“I’ve worked very hard, and I was open to the winding path, but it led me to a place where I’m pretty happy.”

Chris Linn is currently working on MTV’s newest documentary series How’s Your News? To view Linn’s full list of credits, click here: http://www.inbaseline.com/person.aspx?person_id=648002

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