Directors Tell the Story
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Directors Tell the Story
Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing
Directors Tell the Story
Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing
Bethany Rooney and Mary Lou Belli
Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier
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© 2011 Bethany Rooney and Mary Lou Belli. Published by Elsevier Inc.
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ISBN: 978-0-240-81873-3
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Advance Praise for Directors Tell the Story
This is a precise and smart book about directing in general and directing television specifically.
Sally Field
Rooney and Belli, by dint of their considerable and varied directing experiences, have compiled a bible about the technical and emotional aspects of being a director. I wish I would have had this book when I started my directing career!
Mark Tinker
Executive Producer/Director
Private Practice, Deadwood, NYPD Blue
I’ve had the pleasure of being directed by both Mary Lou and Bethany on multiple occasions. As clear and precise as they are as directors, I’m pleased to say they are even more so as writers describing the craft of directing. Their step-by-step approach includes even the smallest detail and yet is still interesting—and informative—to those of us who’ve been on sets for years. Even better, they manage to convey the subtleties of how a director can alter the mental and emotional state of a set to create the best environment for a cast and crew to create art.
Jason George
Actor
Off the Map, Grey’s Anatomy, What About Brian, Eve
It assembles information in a way I have never seen before and has a level of subtlety concerning the process of directing that I haven’t read in any other book. It is great about describing the challenges, the thinking and ultimately the practice of directing for television. There is nothing quite like it—it is the best, most grounded explanation for the complex art of directing I have read.
Michael Niederman
Chair, Television Department
Columbia College Chicago
There are quite literally no other books like this one. Most of the other “Directing” books out there are either “interview” books or “Indie Filmmaker” books…but there are very few “How-To” and/or “Tell it Like it Is” books by working professional directors. The authors have very successfully presented both the fundamental concepts of Hollywood Directing, and then walk you through a very robust process by which to succeed at it!
Dave A. Anselmi
Director, Producer, Instructor
PracticalMysticProductions
The writers make you, the reader, feel as if they are simply having a conversation with you. A conversation full of good advice, useful exercises, and instructive concepts. I’m gratified to see the words “respect for actors” as a priority because without them, we have nothing. Mary Lou and Bethany emphasize the truth that it’s our job, as directors, to tell the story and it’s the actors’ job to tell the truth.
Anne Drecktrah
Professor
Virterbo University
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Introduction
Section One
Prep
Chapter 1 Breaking Down the Script for Story
Chapter 2 Breaking Down the Script for Character
Chapter 3 Casting
Chapter 4 Production Design
Chapter 5 Organizing the Shoot with the First Assistant Director
Chapter 6 Sharing the Vision
Chapter 7 Blocking and Shot Listing, Part One
Chapter 8 Blocking and Shot Listing, Part Two
Chapter 9 Scouting Locations
Section One Review
Section Two
Shoot
Chapter 10 Directing the Actor
Chapter 11 Below the Line
Chapter 12 All the Other Stuff
Chapter 13 Running the Set
Section Two Review
Section Three
Post
Chapter 14 Working with the Editor
Chapter 15 Working with the Post Supervisor
Section Three Review
Section Four
Being a Director
Chapter 16 Being a Director
Chapter 17 The Demands of the Job
Chapter 18 Getting Started
Section Four Review
Appendix
Glossary
Index
Dedication
In memory of Bruce Paltrow, who got me started;
For Christopher, who inspires me to keep going;
And for Matthew, who tucks me in at night.
—Bethany Rooney
For Charlie, who reminds me that
it doesn’t get better than this!
—Mary Lou Belli
Acknowledgment
Everyone at ABC Studios, Brothers & Sisters, and Castle:
Barry Jossen, Howard Davine, Michelle Kamme, David Marshall Grant, Ken Olin, Sarah Caplan, Michael Cinquemani, Linda “Sparky” Hawes, Oliver Coke, Allison Weintraub, Margery Kimbrough, Sally Sue Lander, Brian O’Kelley, Chandler Hayes, Jason Hoffman, Arlene Getman, John Smith, Ben Spek, Nick Infield, Cranston Gobbo, Shauna Duggins, Andrew Marlowe, Rob Bowman, Howard Grigsby, Joe Mason, Brooke Eisenhart, Imelda Betiong, and Noreen O’Toole.
And especially the actors pictured: Matthew Rhys, Luke McFarlane, Dave Annable, Christopher J. Hanke, Brock Cuchna. As always, we send our love and thanks to Sally Field.
And of cou
rse, the dedicated Elinor Actipis, Michele Cronin, and Melinda Rankin at Focal Press.
We thank our families: for Mary Lou, children Maggie and Tim Dougherty, and for Bethany, parents Connie and Jim Rooney.
Our other contributors: Devon DeLapp, Matthew Bohrer, Mark West, Edgar Bennett, Suzanne Welke, Stephen Welke, Regina Render, Marcia Gould, Mark Tinker, Katie Enright, Jason Tomarik, Matthew Collins, Jason George, Anne Drecktrah, and Stephan Smith Collins.
We thank the following reviewers who generously helped us add the finishing touches: Michael Niederman (Columbia College Chicago), Dave A. Anselmi (UC Berkeley Extension), and Warren Bass (Temple University).
And last, but so very important to our book: the generous professionals who contributed to our Insider Info features and How I Got My First Directing Job stories.
About the Authors
BETHANY ROONEY began her directing career on the 1980s iconic television show, St. Elsewhere, where she served as Associate Producer. She has directed more than 150 episodes of prime-time network shows, including Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters, Castle, and Private Practice. For cable television, she has directed In Plain Sight, Weeds, and Drop Dead Diva.
Bethany has also directed eight television movies, including three Danielle Steel adaptations for NBC. She has directed Oscar winners and contenders Denzel Washington, Hilary Swank, Mary Tyler Moore, Angela Bassett, George Clooney, Alfre Woodard, Felicity Huffman, Sally Field, and Robert Downey, Jr., among many others.
Bethany graduated from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, earning a masters’ degree. She has taught directing at UCLA Extension as well as numerous acting workshops in the Los Angeles area, most recently through Steppenwolf Theatre West. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and has served on several committees for the Directors Guild of America.
MARY LOU BELLI is an Emmy Award–winning producer, writer, and director with more than 100 episodes of television to her credit. Most recently, she directed Monk, starring Emmy Award–winner Tony Shalhoub and The Wizards of Waverly Place on the Disney Channel. On the CW, Mary Lou directed the hit show Girlfriends for seven consecutive seasons as well as its spin-off The Game.
Mary Lou directed Living with Fran starring Fran Drescher, Misconceptions starring Jane Leeves, and Eve starring hip-hop artist Eve, as well as The Hughleys, Charles in Charge, Major Dad, and Sister, Sister. Mary Lou received BET nominations for directing Girlfriends and One on One as well as a Prism Award for Girlfriends.
Mary Lou earned her BA in theatre from Penn State and lectures frequently throughout film school and universities such as the American Film Institute, NYU, Northwestern, the University of Connecticut, and many more.
She is the coauthor of two additional books: The Sitcom Career Book and Acting for Young Actors and has been a panelist for Women in Film, the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.
Introduction
This is a guide for anyone who wants to do what we do: direct television and film. It is a clear, concise approach to the craft that fulfills us artistically and pays us handsomely for our expertise.
We direct narrative (nonreality) primetime network episode and television movies. That is, we direct dramas and single-camera comedies using the same process that Steven Spielberg (or any other movie director) uses. We are filmmakers. We tell stories. We just have less time and less money than a feature director. We direct shows seen by perhaps ten million people at one time.
When either of us directs a network television show, we are the fulcrum upon which balances the efforts of roughly 200 people and a budget that can be as much as $3 million to $5 million dollars. It’s a powerful, creative, and complicated job. We want to examine the requirements of this job and tell you how to do it well. We don’t want you to be just a good director; we want you to be a great one!
So what makes one director better than another? Being a director can absolutely be done with no experience and no training, but like anything else, the more knowledge and practice you have, the better you’ll be at it.
But it’s more than that. There is an esoteric quality, an almost indescribable way of being that often distinguishes the excellent director from the merely good one. And what is even more astonishing about this “x” factor is that the job of the director is a multitasking one that requires many different skill sets, from knowing how to communicate with actors, to understanding the physical requirements for accomplishing a shot, to editing the final product perfectly.
So what is this “something” a true director has? It is an ability to both have a vision and lead others to help you create it. That is, a director is first and foremost a leader—a Moses, if you will, that leads a motley group toward the promised land of a successful project: one that creatively expresses the ideas of the script in the fullest way possible. It’s a big job, challenging and exciting, different every day, requiring someone who deals easily with stress and pressure, someone who is physically robust and healthy, and most important, someone who can see how the written word can be interpreted on film.
So there it is. The short list of what a great director is:
1. A leader
2. With creative vision
3. Who understands and can execute the craft, and
4. Who can physically and mentally handle the demands of the job.
Most of Directors Tell the Story: Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing deals with creative vision and executing the craft to fulfill that vision. What first separates the good director from the great director is the creative vision, because without that, you’re just a technician.
Before you can direct, you must have a story that you want to tell. In our case, as TV directors, we are given a script—a written story that we translate into the visual medium. The artistry of the director begins with interpreting the script. We are storytellers, inheritors of the tradition of telling tales around a campfire. We have to figure out what each scene really means, how each scene contributes to telling the whole story, and then design how to communicate that visually.
So how does a director fulfill creative vision? A great director:
1. Interprets the script
2. Chooses every element within the frame
3. Shapes the actors’ performances
4. Tells the story with the camera.
Did you notice, as we described each aspect, that they all begin with a verb? We interpret, we choose, we shape, we tell. It’s an active job. It requires decision making. It requires action. We’ll talk much more about this in the book, but for now, we want you to realize that to be a director with creative vision, you must act on that vision.
To give you an idea of how we do that, we’ll break the process down to the three stages that every single director goes through in order to produce an episode of television or a movie:
1. Prep
2. Shoot
3. Post.
These stages are our first three sections of the book. In the preparation stage, you’ll learn how to make choices that will appear in the film, from casting to production design and shot listing. In the section on production, we show you how the director guides a huge number of people toward the realization of his or her creative vision. (But that’s the last time we say it that way. From here on, those pronouns will be used interchangeably.) In postproduction, you’ll see how those efforts are put together into one cohesive story told in the director’s unique way.
After you understand the demands and complexities of this job, we discuss in the final section what is required for leadership and what kind of shape, both physical and mental, that you have to be in to actually do the job.
We use our experience teaching master classes in directing and acting to explain what we want you to learn in small instructional units. We’ll give you directing exercises to assist you in mastering your skills. Because we both write as well as direct, we
have included original scenes with which you can practice.
In addition, we’ll boldface lingo we think you should have at your fingertips and list these vocabulary words at the end of each chapter. We even ask our colleagues who are in the trenches with us to share their wealth of information in our bonus Insider Info boxes.
For a final piece of inspiration, we tell you how we got our first jobs and suggest ways you might get yours. And as an added bonus, we ask 15 of our colleagues to share their How I Got My First Directing Job stories as well.
So let’s dive into Directors Tell the Story: Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing.
Section One
Prep
Overview
What is prep? Prep (preparation) is the critical time period of a week to ten days before principal photography begins, which is when a director prepares for the upcoming shoot. It happens during the film or television show’s preproduction period.
What does a director do during prep? The director interprets the script and selects every element that will appear in the frame. It is a time to gather the troops and share the vision as the leader of the upcoming episode. The director reads the script and breaks it down for story, character, style, and color. The director casts, or chooses, the actors who will appear in this episode along with the series’ regulars. It is a time to discuss tone with the episode writer and have countless meetings with department heads to answer their questions so that they (and their crews) can have everything ready. The director scouts and chooses locations during prep. Finally—and probably most important—the director plans how to shoot the episode and generates shot lists or storyboards (or both) that will be his roadmap during the shoot.
Chapter 1
Breaking Down the Script for Story
The late great director Sydney Pollack said, “The director is the teller of the film, the director tells the movie, like you would tell a story, except in this case you’re telling a movie.”1 So how do you become a good teller? One of the most important skills a director needs is to be able to read well! The director’s first task is to interpret the script, so it is critical that you develop the ability to read and understand the material. You have to be able to break down the story into its parts and map out how those parts add up to the whole.