Directors Tell the Story

by Bethany Rooney

  The AD staff also facilitates production in any way necessary: by calling for quiet when the camera is going to roll, by communicating with other departments who need to know how the day is going, like transportation or catering, and by mediating interdepartmental misunderstandings. The PAs also assist in these tasks, and any others—like making a run to Starbucks—that are required. There is also one PA (or sometimes an additional 2nd AD) who mans the base camp. That is, she informs the actors when it’s time to come to set and communicates with wardrobe, makeup, and hair as to what is needed and when. This is a job that requires extremely well-developed people skills and is a great training ground for the vicissitudes of working with 100 highly creative, passionate crew and cast over long hours in condensed spaces. The PAs and the 2nd ADs report to the 1st AD, who is ideally aware of everything happening during the production day.

  Though there may be a large AD staff, depending on the show’s budget and size of cast and crew, the director’s primary interaction is with the 1st AD, in part because the AD assists the director during prep as well as production. For the length of time it takes to go from script to completed production, the director and the 1st AD are a team. It is a partnership that is built to serve the director well on a practical level, and a superb AD will be indispensable by backing you up creatively and personally as well.

  Insider Info

  How Do You Interact with the Director?

  The relationship will differ with each project and each director. A director who wrote the script and managed to get the project greenlighted will not have exactly the same needs as a director fulfilling an episodic TV assignment. But in either case, the moment we start working together, my actions and general attitude must be all about figuring out what those needs might be. I do that simply by asking them but also by observing and listening to them very carefully, feeling out who they are and how they like to work. Some directors love the rehearsal process, for example, and some shun it all together, looking for spontaneity instead. Some love the preparation process, spending hours making shot lists and storyboards and taking meetings with department heads; others prefer to keep all that to a minimum, and expect me to handle everything they don’t absolutely have to be there for.

  It didn’t take long for me to embrace the idea there are many ways to skin a cat, and I should not judge directors by their methods. Even though directors differ, my job stays the same—with the script as a guiding light, and the budget and schedule as parameters: (1) learn how the director envisions turning that script into sounds and images, (2) communicate that to the cast and crew, (3) monitor as everyone proceeds to facilitate this vision, and (4) rebound whenever an obstacle surfaces, be it the weather, losing a location, or unexpected script rewrites.

  Personality very much comes into play as well. None of us can really change who we are, so I warn prospective directors about my relaxed and friendly nature. Some prefer to hire an AD that operates more like a Marine sergeant, but I run the set using humor and empathy, which I find far more productive than shouting orders. When interviewing with a director, I make sure they see the real me, hoping a kindred spirit will recognize and hire me, but I also assess who they are, gauging whether I want to work for them, because in the end, the relationship will be a two-way street, very much like a temporary marriage, and will produce the best results when it works for both us. As in a marriage, trust and respect are the key elements. Regardless of the specific dynamic at play with each director, I make sure to show them the utmost respect and always try my best to tell the truth. It’s admittedly difficult in certain cases, but it’s the only road I know that leads to a good working relationship. When it works, it can be immensely rewarding for both of us and for the project. When it doesn’t, at least you know you gave it your best shot.

  What Things Do You Wish Directors Knew About the AD’s Job?

  That the best results can be achieved only if they trust us. Most ADs—certainly the good ones—don’t have an individual agenda. We’re here to serve the big picture. We don’t have a line-item budget to spend or outside vendors to please, overtime means little to us, and we don’t get meal penalties. Our only beacons are the script, the budget, and the schedule—in that order, the order they were created. Yes, we came up with the schedule and are keen to defend it, but are also ready to change it in a heartbeat if we see an opportunity to better serve the script. Although others in the crew are responsible for only a specific aspect of the project, the 1st AD is responsible for overseeing everything—just like the director and the producers. It’s something we have in common; it’s what makes us a team, the fact that we’re the only ones focused not on any one aspect of the project but on the entire picture.

  But although directors can focus on their vision, we ADs have to actually get on the ground and make it happen, and we can do that well only when the director trusts us to handle it how we see best. When I go to a crewmember to implement something that the director wants, I may not put it to them the same way the director put it to me. The same is true the other way: when I bring a concern to the director, I may not say it the same way it was told to me. I call it English-to-English translation. ADs may act as the set’s nervous system, collecting and sending information up and down, keeping everyone informed of what’s going on at any given moment. But that doesn’t mean we should parrot everything exactly as it was told to us. Good ADs use experience and discretion to relay information in the manner that will most likely lead to the best results. Good directors recognize that and let us go about our business the way we know best. It’s very hard to make a movie—even harder to make a good one—and maintaining a solid trust between the director and AD can only tilt the odds your way.

  What Advice Might You Give a Director Who has not Worked in Television Before?

  I’ve often heard that film is a director’s medium, and TV belongs to the writer. But I disagree with that perception. There are three storytellers involved in making a movie: writers, directors, and editors, and all three are equally important. The writers are the source: they come up with the story in the first place—without them, you have nothing. The editors are the end user and give the film its final shape: they decide what goes on screen and what is left out. Both are determining steps, the beginning and the end, but it is the director who connects them and who in doing so may have the most important job: to dissect the writer’s words into short individual pieces and then oversee their creation as sounds and images in a way that allows the editor to put the story together in the best way possible. In television, a lot of the groundwork is done by a writer/showrunner, but that’s only because of schedule and financial constraints. Yes, the director’s role is somewhat limited: the lead actors have been cast, the main locations picked, and the permanent sets built. But it’s still left to the director to turn that script into great footage, into what Peter Bogdanovich called “pieces of time.”

  The role of the AD is also different in episodic television. Because we are present from beginning to end, guest directors depend on us to get them up to speed and keep them true to the course that the showrunner has set. Trust becomes doubly important during prep days, which are preciously few and during which there is no time to waste. The process may appear to be more challenging than in a movie because here, the director cannot choose who the AD is, but I actually find it liberating—we’re stuck with each other, so why not make the most of it. Veteran TV directors know this and are easier to work with. As in a movie, it’s still my job to quickly assess who they are and what they want, and the director is still very much in command. But in episodic TV, I will often know things about the cast, the crew and the script that they don’t, and by putting their trust in me, they only stand to benefit. It’s still the same basic relationship, but the balance of information is different, and the AD’s role is by default a stronger one.

  Ricardo Mendez Mattar

  First Assistant Director

  The Gardener, The Lost City, Bread an
d Roses

  Vocabulary

  above the line

  base camp

  below the line

  boarding

  call sheet

  company move

  crew call

  dailies

  daybreaks

  day-out-of-days (DOOD)

  first assistant director (1st AD)

  first team

  gaffe

  make the day

  marks

  meat of the day

  one-liner

  production report

  roll the carts

  script day

  second team

  set background

  set piece

  setups

  shooting schedule

  special needs chart

  stakebeds

  standing set

  swing set

  turnaround

  unit production

  manager (UPM)

  1. Rafferty, Terrence, “Uncommon Man,” DGA Quarterly, Summer 2010, pp. 35–36.

  Chapter 6

  Sharing the Vision

  Let’s say you are a freelance director, coming in to direct an episode of a show. You’ve never worked there, you don’t know the people, and you have a limited understanding of the show itself: its tone, storytelling requirements, logistics. Yet in just seven days, you are supposed to be the leader on set. You are supposed to know everything there is to know about the show, including its history and internal power dynamics, and you are expected to be successful in creating an above-average episode—hopefully, a great one. How do you do that?

  First, you will have done your homework before you even arrived. If there are episodes available, you will have viewed them, taking note of the show’s style and content. You will have looked up the producer’s credits on IMDB.com, a website that lists all television and film credits. You will have talked to anyone who may be able to give you some advance press on the working conditions and personalities. You will have called the production office and procured and read any scripts available. You will have done an advance scouting trip to the office to introduce yourself, find out where you’ll park, get a crew list if it is available, and get your security badge. It’s just a bad first impression if you’ve done none of that and you bumble into the office late on the first day because you got held up by security, couldn’t find your parking space, and don’t know what anyone is talking about as you commence the first concept meeting. You can do better than that, and you need to make a strong first impression, because within ten minutes of your arrival, the phone tree is working, with everyone asking, “What’s the new director like?”

  Within ten minutes of your arrival, the phone tree is working, with everyone asking, “What’s the new director like?”

  So you get there early. You know where you’re going, and you walk in with head held high, a smile on your face, a firm handshake for everyone you meet. Your 1st AD will introduce you around, and you should make eye contact and mentally register names and job descriptions as quickly as possible. Pay special attention to those with whom you will have a close working relationship in prep: the line producer, the UPM, the production designer, the costume designer, the prop master, the location manager. You will be spending a lot of time together over the next seven days in group meetings, location scouts, and one-on-one department-head meetings. You don’t have to be instant friends, but respectful, positive energy should inform your dealings with them.

  THE SHOWRUNNER (YOUR BOSS)

  The advice we’ve given you goes double for the most important person you will meet: the showrunner. This person is usually the writer who conceived the show’s idea, sold it to the buyer or network, wrote the pilot, and who now oversees the writing and production of subsequent episodes. Sometimes, if the creator of the show is a relatively new writer, a more experienced showrunner will be paired with him. Or if the show has been in production for several seasons, the original showrunner may have departed and a new one hired by the network. The network is always the ultimate authority because it is the buyer, but the person at the apex of the production triangle is the showrunner: in short, the boss.

  The network is always the ultimate authority because it is the buyer, but the person at the apex of the production triangle is the showrunner: in short, the boss.

  The showrunner may be in your day 1 concept meeting but is not usually there. He is probably in the writers’ room, breaking stories for upcoming episodes with the staff of writers who create the scripts. Every show is run differently, but the basic concept is one of brainstorming, in which the plot lines are discovered in a group environment: “Hey, I got an idea. What about this?” And then the next writer breaks in with, “That’s great! But what if we take that and twist it a little, with this complication I just came up with?” The showrunner is the ringmaster for the writers’ room—the final authority. There is some version of a whiteboard on the walls of the room, where the plots for future episodes are outlined. After a particular script has been broken, and each plot point summarized in outline form, the showrunner will assign it to a particular writer, who will go off and create the dialog for each scene. After the first draft is written, the showrunner will take a pass at the script, sharpening the story points and making sure the dialog is true to each character’s voice and as smart and funny (if applicable) as it can possibly be. You may receive this writers’ draft before your first day of prep, depending on the showrunner’s comfort level with letting the story ideas be available outside the writers’ room. Whichever version of the script you receive, the contents of any script are not for public knowledge. Some shows guard the storylines more closely than others, but regardless of whether the new plot line is treated as a state secret, you are part of the creative team and confidentiality must be maintained.

  At this point, the script is sent to the studio and network for approval. The executives assigned to the show will usually call the showrunner with their notes, or comments, and after discussion, the showrunner will incorporate the notes that were agreed upon. Then the script coordinator will issue a production draft, which is the script that (hopefully and ideally) is distributed the day before your prep starts, so that all departments can read it and process it mentally prior to the first day’s concept meeting. As we said, the showrunner will probably skip the concept meeting because it is a preliminary discussion and his time is better spent dealing with the fires that need to be put out that day in the writers’ room, in production, dealing with the network, or in postproduction. The showrunner has a crazy, intense job that requires him to work 12 hours or more a day. He is expected to be the father/mother figure, the sales person (to the network), the taskmaster, and the point at which all roads meet. He is expected to be everything to everybody.

  THE LINE PRODUCER (THE MONEY GUY)

  So be bold. Say what you think (on first reading) that you’ll need to bring this script to life. At the end of your prep, when you have reached the various compromises required by the budget, you will hopefully retain the minimal necessities that will allow you to achieve your creative vision.

  Because of the demands on his time, the showrunner delegates to a couple of right-hand people who support him. In production, that’s the line producer. Though she may have an executive producer credit, which is often the domain of writers, the line producer’s background and experience will be in production. That person probably got started in the business as an AD, then moved up to UPM and then on to producing. (Sometimes this position is filled by a fellow director who has committed to staying at one show permanently and oversees production as well as directing.) Her expertise is in knowing how to “put the money on the screen,” or getting the most production value for the least cost, which means getting the most bang for the buck visually. That’s often a process of bartering, in a sense: “We’ll do this scene in our own parking lot so that we can save the money and pay for the big expensive location.” The line producer will also make
sure that the show looks consistent, even though many directors are coming in to do the episodes. Line producers oversee a budget of between $3 and $4 million per episode, the money for which is provided by the license fee given to the production company by the network. (Cable networks provide a lower license fee; therefore, their shows have an extremely tight budget.) The concept meeting—and all future production meetings—are overseen by the line producer (even though the 1st AD does most of the talking and keeps the meeting on track), and the main order of business will be to discuss how to meet the requirements of the script that are beyond the pattern budget, which is the cost of a typical episode.

  The pattern will dictate what the usual demands are; for example, does the pattern provide for any camera toys, like a technocrane or a Steadicam? How many background artists are expected to be employed over your eight days of production? What is the pattern for the location department? The art department? The costume department? If the writers have delivered a script with a set piece outside the pattern—that is, some scene that requires additional manpower or equipment—then the line producer and the UPM will be looking to cut costs in one department in order to provide the extra money that a different department needs.

  You will be expected in the concept meeting to share your preliminary ideas about your visual approach to the script. The line producer will let you know whether your thinking corresponds to the pattern budget. We encourage you to start big because every budget request gets whittled down gradually—and it almost never goes the other way. It’s similar to the process of buying a car, in which the first announced cost is the largest and is negotiated downward from there. So be bold. Say what you think (on first reading) that you’ll need to bring this script to life. At the end of your prep, when you have reached the various compromises required by the budget, you will hopefully retain the minimal necessities that will allow you to achieve your creative vision.