Firstline Prodigy
Overview
—[if gte mso 9]>
—[if gte mso 9]>
—[if gte mso 10]>
The executive team at Firstline
Security, Inc., conceived the idea for the reality TV series The Prodigy as a
means of recruiting qualified individuals for its summer sales initiative. With
competition for talent being fierce, Firstline CEO Wright Thurston challenged
his associates to come up with a more efficient and less expensive way to
attract sales representatives, and The Prodigy was born. Firstline Security
developed the show to gauge the abilities of the contestants on a range of
business tasks such as developing a business plan and conducting sales
presentations. The winner of The Prodigy would claim a new car, $300,000 in
cash, and $700,000 in investment capital for a business venture. Contestants
were selected based on group recruiting and individual interviews.
More than 80 hours of video footage
was shot for the inaugural season of The Prodigy, including interviews,
presentations, competitions, judging, and more. Over the course of the series,
Firstline Security organized several competitions, which were used in
conjunction with sales performance numbers to determine the winner. The
Firstline Board of Directors acted as the judges for The Prodigy, naming Jordan
Folsom the winner during the final awards ceremony in Hawaii.
Shortly after production concluded,
Firstline and one of its suppliers became involved in a legal dispute, which
led the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Although The Prodigy never
aired, Mr. Folsom received a new car and $300,000 in cash. All of the footage
to the original season was inadvertently destroyed; Actuality Entertainment
maintains ownership of the intellectual property rights to The Prodigy.