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Photo by Jesse Chambers.
Vestavia Hills native Elyssa Garfinkle is a producer with ITV America in New York.
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Photo by Jesse Chambers.
Elyssa Garfinkle in New York before another busy day at ITV, where she helps produce reality shows.
MANHATTAN – New York City is America’s biggest and arguably most exciting city. It’s also tough, competitive and very expensive.
So what makes it worthwhile to live there?
“It’s magical,” said Elyssa Garfinkle, a Vestavia Hills native and television producer. “I can walk down any street and fall in love with the city every day. There’s something beautiful in every part of the city that you walk to.”
And it’s not just her job with ITV America, a network and production company, that keeps Garfinkle in the city. “I love New York,” she said.
Of course, her job is very cool: working on reality programs, including the popular survival show “Alone.”
“I’ve been here a year and a half, and everything’s been worth it,” Garfinkle said. "I have great friends, a great life. I enjoy my work.”
Garfinkle got her first behind-the-scenes peek at television production — and fell in love with it — during a visit to Nashville when she was 16. Her uncle David Garfinkle, a Los Angeles-based producer, was shooting a reality show, “Gone Country.”
“I left Nashville that weekend knowing TV production was exactly what I wanted to do,” Garfinkle said.
Garfinkle graduated from Vestavia Hills High School in 2008 and earned a degree in digital media production from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 2012.
She lived in Los Angeles for over three years, working on shows like “Ready for Love” and “Naked and Afraid.” She worked in Miami, Florida on “Storage Wars.” Garfinkle then went to Canada with ITV to work on “Alone” for the History Channel, and the company offered her a full-time job in Manhattan.
“Living in New York was something I wanted to do for at least a year, and I gave it a shot and fell in love with it,” she said.
Until recently, Garfinkle worked on seven shows at ITV, including “Personal Property” for Bravo, “Forged in Fire” for the History Channel and “Carspotting” for Discovery. She’s currently working on five shows, including a reboot of “Four Weddings” for TLC.
And Garfinkle was recently promoted from production coordinator to production manager. “It’s a little more responsibility, but I enjoy it,” she said.
Her department handles logistics, crew, budgets, travel, permits and rights and clearances.
“It’s awesome knowing we’re responsible for taking a show that is just an idea and making it into a show, so we see it from pre-production all the way through post,” she said.
Working in television has broadened Garfinkle’s horizons. She has made trips to India and Argentina to set up survival shows. In August, she was headed to Mongolia to set up season five of “Alone.”
“That’s been a cool learning experience — dealing with people from different countries, the language barrier, the culture differences,” she said.
The entertainment business has its drawbacks, of course.
“It's cut-throat,” Garfinkle said. “You have to be tough and have a thick skin, but at the same time you’re the ultimate controller of your career.”
That control comes from Garfinkle’s intense work ethic, something she, her sister and her brother learned from their parents, Eddie and Jan Garfinkle.
Garfinkle also said she has a “super-competitive streak” taken from her dad, a football coach, and honed as she played high-school and college volleyball.
“But as I've gotten older, I've learned that it's mostly me competing against myself and not against others,” she said.
“I use it to push me to go the extra mile and make sure I'm extremely organized and detail-oriented, so nothing is missed for any of my shows,“ she added. “That's what's helped me to achieve all that I have at such a young age.”
That work ethic is essential in New York. “Everyone is on a mission to get somewhere or do something,” Garfinkle said. “It’s all about hard work.”
Hard work is also critical for young people seeking to establish themselves in her business, according to Garfinkle.
“You have to be willing to put in so much work early on to be successful,” she said.
But the work has its rewards, including a nice apartment in Hell’s Kitchen that allows Garfinkle another great view of the iconic city she loves so much.
“I can see the Empire State Building from where I live,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”