Philip Thomas of Spectrum Fusion, right, checks a teleprompter at Houston Television studios. HTV and Spectrum have created a partnership aimed at giving individuals on the autism spectrum a chance to develop their media production skills. | Photo courtesy of Axios Houston
HTV teams up with Spectrum Fusion to help individuals on the autism spectrum feed their passion, create job opportunities.
As the City of Houston’s channel for public access, education and government, Houston Television prides itself in offering opportunities for anyone who wants to learn about video production.
That’s why HTV’s collaboration with Spectrum Fusion, a nonprofit organization focusing on people on the autism spectrum, is so vital.
“It’s all about inclusion. You never want to exclude someone, regardless of their ability, from working in an environment that you might not think they would want to gravitate to,” said Travis Leamons, producer of HTV’s program, City Pulse.
HTV not only provides job training in video production and editing, but it also provides live coverage of City of Houston meetings and original programming to inform people about matters pertaining to city government.
The collaboration with Spectrum helps people on the autism spectrum develop media production skills that could lead to job opportunities.
Spectrum Fusion founder Heidi Ham said the HTV collaboration is critical because many people on the autism spectrum often feel excluded from society and traditional jobs.
“Being included in important work at City Hall has been life-changing,” she said. “This has been a dream come true for us.”
Ham said 10 Spectrum clients work at HTV studios twice a week. They were chosen based on their level of experience, their resilience and coping mechanisms, and their ability to work fairly independently. Spectrum pays their salaries.
“They feel valued and proud to have an office to go to every Tuesday and Thursday,” Ham said.
The Spectrum clients also have an opportunity to work with the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities to help participants network and find a job, she said.
“We are so grateful for our collaboration and (HTV) Director Ted Irving, and MOPD Director Angel Ponce could not be more supportive and enthusiastic about our partnership,” Ham said. “The goal, of course, is for our employees to gain independent employment in the future. We are gaining valuable connections to make this happen.”
That holds particularly true for Mackenzie McCormack and Phil Thomas, both of whom are involved with the HTV-Spectrum collaboration. McCormack is an editor at Spectrum, while Thomas is a chief editor there.
“I suppose I like the storytelling aspect of it,” McCormack said. “You’re given all of this information and then you mold it into a cohesive story. Sometimes you have to cut parts out for time, but it’s the storytelling that I’m attracted to.”
McCormack graduated from Baylor University in 2019 and said this is his first job out of college.
“This has been a very good opportunity to give us the experience we need to build up our resumes and get the experience with producing stories for news segments,” he said. “It’s been a real boon for us because otherwise we would’ve had a difficult time trying to get through the job industry.”
Thomas graduated from the Art Institute of Houston in 2013 and joined Spectrum in 2018. He said he previously worked for VYPE Media, a sports company, filling in to shoot video of games at several area schools. He saw an advertisement for a videographer position and applied for it, he said.
They both agreed that some of the challenges individuals on the autism spectrum face in terms of getting employment or opportunities include the interview process.
“Not to mention, just showing the previous work, we’ve built so far. You have to build more on it,” Thomas said. “Ever since I graduated from AIH, I’ve tried to find myself a job in the film industry, but even with my diploma it was hard for me to get through because I didn’t know what else I had to build up my portfolio.”
On a typical day at HTV, Thomas said he and McCormack mostly worked on City Pulse projects, going out to events and filming them, conducting interviews and collecting B-roll footage to put together stories for the program.
They also work with Leamons in the studio developing episodes for the program, working either behind the cameras or using the teleprompter.
“We have a lot of ideas on the whiteboard, but we also end up talking with Travis and he usually gives us the recent projects that we’re doing,” Thomas said.
Leamons is one of their biggest fans.
“I’ve loved the content they’ve produced for City Pulse,” he said. “I routinely give them story ideas, and Ted Irving sends out a staff message each week letting us know what events are going on. I’ll look at those and think this might be something good for Spectrum to cover.”
Leamons said he believes one of the best stories they have done since being at HTV was coverage of the Chevron Houston Marathon.
“They made a nice package from it. I thought it was so good that they should send it to the marathon organizers to see what feedback they could get from it,” he said.
McCormack said he also appreciates the benefits of the HTV-Spectrum collaboration.
“Doing these types of stories is a very good learning experience, not just for future projects with HTV, but going on shoots in general and just getting out there and doing it,” he said.
