And then I called my agent who I had just met through, you guessed it, a friend of … a distant cousin. She was very proud that she had been able to get me my first prime-time directing job.
Scott Ellis
Weeds, 30 Rock, The Closer
My first job came from David Lee, who created Frasier. He was a fan; we came from the same agency, and he knew my work in theatre. [Author’s note: Prior to this, Mr. Ellis had received multiple Tony nominations and had won a Drama Desk Award. Mr. Lee had probably seen Ellis’s New York productions of She Loves Me, Steel Pier, Picnic, 1776, and Company.] He asked to meet with me because, he said, “We’re always looking for people who really know how to work well with actors on our show.” We had lunch. He said, “Is this something you’re interested in?” I hadn’t really thought about it that much; I had thought about it, but getting your first shot was always tough. I said, “Sure.” And he said, “Why don’t you come out [from New York to Los Angeles]. You’ll be here for a week.” So I did. At the end of that week I said, “I think I can do this.” He was a great teacher. He gave me a shot. At the end he said, “Okay, I can give you the first one, but you’ll have to get the second one yourself.” He meant: if you don’t do a good job, they aren’t going to ask you back; you do, they probably will ask you back.
Henry Chan
Scrubs, 10 Things I Hate About You, Traffic Light
I was an editor on The Cosby Show. I won an Emmy and the producers, Carsey/Warner, really liked my work. There was going to be a spinoff called A Different World and I was invited to edit the new show. I accepted and told the producers I wanted to direct. I kept on badgering them until finally they said, “Okay, okay! Give him an episode.” I ended up directing five episodes.
Elodie Keene
The Wire, Glee, Hawaii 5-0
Way back in l975, the fact that I had a master’s degree in film production and had an award-winning film in the festival circuit meant very little to anyone—except possibly me—with regard to my potential as a film or television director. I had, however, developed the ability to edit film, so even though my announcement that I was a “director” met with resounding, echoing silence, if not outright hostility, the announcement that I was an editor got me jobs. For fifteen years, that is what I did.
By a very circuitous route, I made my way to the doorstep of a new show called, L.A. Law. During the second year of that show, which was an enormous hit, I won an Emmy for editing. The next year I was nominated for another Emmy for a TV movie I had cut called Roe vs. Wade. The commonly held conviction among editors was that this recognition would catapult my editing career into some new sphere of editing, possibly into bigger movies, made for television, or a feature. I kept cutting L.A. Law and waited for the phone to ring.
In the meantime I had married, had a beautiful daughter, bought a house, and was trying to “om” myself into being content with where I was in my life. Things could have been a lot worse, or so I told myself. If I never got to direct, so what? Everything else was pretty darned good, so let go, be happy!
Right around then, while shooting the breeze over lunch with Rick Wallace, the executive producer of L.A. Law, he asked me why, out of all the many people who were in his office every day, I had never asked to direct an episode. So stunned by the unexpected turn in the conversation I was that I barely stammered out all my lame reasons, all of which amounted to being afraid of rejection. He then said I needed to think hard about whether I had the courage to take the leap, because he would be willing to take the risk of hiring me as a first-time director. After getting over the shock of the whole thing, I said I would very much like the opportunity.
In subsequent conversations, Rick asked me if I would help him produce the show, so in l990, I became one of the producers of L.A. Law and I shot one episode toward the end of the season. By the time that show came to the end of its eight-year run, I was the co-executive producer and I had directed twenty episodes. That was the beginning of my pretty much nonstop, twenty-year directing career. I owe it all to Rick.
Joe Pennella
Life Goes On, Monk, Everwood
I was shooting a series in the late 1980s called Life Goes On; it went for four years and I went to the executive producer, Michael Braverman, in the third year and told him that I’d like to direct one. I had worked as a director/cameraman prior to that doing commercials, so it wasn’t going to be such a big jump; narrative filmmaking is like prose and commercials are like poetry. He said fine, and I got to direct the next-to-the-last-episode. It was a real challenge because it was a story that was told backward. And I went to Michael and said, “I think I can do this, but I’m overwhelmed.” He said, “Joe, this is it. If you want it, this is the one you have to do.” I did. And for that episode, Kellie Martin was nominated for an Emmy and Tony Graphia won the Writer’s Guild Award.
David Breckman
Monk, Pulled Over, Pic Six
As the frequent writer-on-set on the USA Network series Monk from 2002–2009, I had the privilege of watching a lot of outstanding directors in action. And “action” is the operative word because TV is low-budget filmmaking. You are required to shoot what amounts to half a feature in eight—occasionally even seven—days, so there’s no time to indulge in navel-gazing. It’s all go-go-go and you’d better have your kit packed when you arrive on set or you’re screwed.
For me, a longtime movie buff, it was a tremendous experience—like being paid to go to film school—and I very quickly caught the directing bug. In my downtime, I tried to apply what I’d learned on set by shooting a five-minute short called Pulled Over in 2005, and then another, a 17-minute magnum opus called Pic Six the following year.
I was proud of Pic Six. It nabbed some festival awards and made a good enough impression on our supervising director (the wonderful Randy Zisk) that he allowed me to direct my first Monk, “Mr. Monk and the Three Julies,” in 2007—which is all you can expect from a short film.
What I think I brought to the Monk party was an instinct for comedy: knowing what funny looks like and finding ways of enhancing it on the spot, as the occasion demands, and knowing when to hang back and do nothing—which can be just as valuable.
Two more Monk episodes followed, each one (I hope) better than the last, before Monk solved his final case in 2009.
Paris Barclay
In Treatment, Glee, Sons of Anarchy
After 12 years working as an advertising copywriter and eventually a creative supervisor, I was content to make money making ads. But after directing a few small spots, an opportunity arose to become a partner in a music video company. Masochistically missing my impoverished life as a struggling artist, I took it.
It was the dawn of the 1990s, and I directed music videos for the then-waning New Kids on the Block, the rising Harry Connick, Jr., the iconic Bob Dylan, and was celebrated largely for eight videos I made for LL Cool J, including “Mama Said Knock You Out” and “Jinglin’ Baby,” which were acknowledged with awards from MTV and Billboard. Fortunately, almost every video I did told some sort of narrative story, indicating that I might have promise in longer forms of film. My manager got a reel of my videos to John Wells, then a relatively new writer-producer, and he hired me to come to Chicago to direct a short-lived show he had created called Angel Street starring Robin Givens and Pam Gidley as homicide detectives.
The show was cancelled after six episodes were shot (I directed two of them), but I suddenly was a DGA member and had an advocate. And, as luck would have it, John’s next show was a juggernaut called ER, and he called me back up from the minors to direct.
Ricardo Mendez Matta
Thieves and Liars, The District, Touched by an Angel
There are basically only six ways to become a director:
1. Hire yourself: either you personally raise the money to make a film, or you’re a producer or studio chief, but either way, you appoint yourself director.
2. Writing: write a script that someone wants to make ve
ry badly, and insist on directing it.
3. Acting: you’re a coveted star and in order to appear in their movie, you insist on directing it.
4. Nepotism: get a powerful relative to hire you.
5. Film school: direct a hot short film as part of a class.
6. Below the line: work your way up as DP, AD, script supervisor, or editor and convince the producer(s) you can direct.
Number 6 worked for me. I was a 1st AD on the TV series Weird Science when the director I was prepping with, Max Tash, was suddenly called to do an MOW (movie-of-the-week.). He begged the producers—Tom Spezialy, Alan Cross, and Robert Lloyd Lewis—to let him go, and when they asked who would take over, he said, “Let him do it, he prepped it all with me and is totally ready to do it.” They agreed, partly because they had little other choice, but also partly because we had been working together for several years and I had earned their trust. I directed nine episodes of that series, but that was only the first step (getting a friend to hire you). The second step—getting a stranger to hire you on a new show—was harder, but at a DGA mixer, I was lucky enough to meet Carlton Cuse, who hired me on Nash Bridges. Talent and hard work are required, but the bottom line is without a lot of luck, none of it would have happened. They say you need to be at the right place at the right time. Well, no one knows when the right time is going to be, but you can figure out where the right place is, and stay there patiently until the right time comes.
Rob Bailey
CSI: NY, Grey’s Anatomy, Three Rivers, The Wire
My big break came when—after bombarding a producer to give me a shot on a show for about a year—he finally got a job somewhere else and agreed to hire me because he wouldn’t be around to deal with the consequences of his decision.
I had been fortunate to get into the National Film and Television School in England, which was a fantastic environment that encouraged students to have confidence in their own creativity and also to go out and watch other directors working in the professional world. So I graduated thinking the world lay at my feet. Two years later, I was back working in the construction business where I had been the day I first got into film school.
It was a frustrating time waiting for that first job, but I had other colleagues from film school who were in the same boat and some who had just started getting work, and I felt that sooner or later I would get a chance. I also knew how reluctant most producers were to take a shot on directors who had yet to prove themselves.
I was naïve enough to think that their main worry was that the director wouldn’t know how to tell the story. The truth came home to me at lunch on the first day; [we were] hours behind and did I have a plan to get us out by 7:00 p.m. and “make the day”? So I got to learn the most valuable lesson of all on day 1: come to the set prepared but also flexible.
Randall Zisk
Monk, Off the Map, House, Weeds, Grey’s Anatomy
I was in postproduction working my way up the ladder on an NBC show, Midnight Caller. The executive producer, Bob Singer, knew I wanted to direct because I mentioned it to him every day for about a year. One of my jobs was to shoot the inserts for each episode, usually something simple and easy that didn’t require actors. Finally, Bob Butler—one of the most respected pilot directors of all time—had an additional scene to shoot for his episode. The show filmed in San Francisco and our offices were in L.A. He couldn’t make the trip, nor could Bob Singer, so I got the chance. Bob Butler took out a piece of paper and drew a rudimentary storyboard for me and wrote out a quick shot list. He asked me if it made sense and I just looked at it, confused, and answered, “yes.” I studied that piece of paper for the next 24 hours, and the following day, with the help of the DP, directed the scene. I don’t remember it being particularly well done, but Bob Butler’s work on the episode was so special that it fit in without too much scrutiny.
The next season, I shadowed Bob Singer every opportunity I got, and when a director fell out of the lineup, I was called into his office. He told me to pack my bags: I was getting my shot to direct Midnight Caller. Bob was an amazing mentor and—along with Bob Butler and Les Moonves—he gave me an opportunity I’ll never forget.
Over the next five years, I directed eighteen episodes for Bob Singer on his various shows and just recently had the rare fortune of bringing him in to direct an episode of Monk.
Terrence O’Hara
NCIS, NCIS: LA, Lie To Me
The year was 1991, and my first network show was Silk Stalkings, starring Rob Estes and Mitzi Kapture. It was advertised on CBS as “crime time after prime time.” The producers were Stu Segall and Stephen J. Cannell. Up to that point in my career, I had done a few low-budget features and some commercial work after I had graduated from the two-year masters program at AFI. I received a call one day out of the blue that went something like this, “Hi, Stu Segall here, I just saw a tape of yours. I don’t remember what was on it, but I liked it!” That said, he asked if I would be interested in coming down to San Diego to do the show. Of course I said yes. I had a ball; I loved the idea of shooting a one-hour show in six days. I loved working with Stu and ended up doing both Silk and Renegade, another six-day show with lots of action, starring Lorenzo Lamas. It was like going back to film school—a wonderful camaraderie with both cast and crew. Because of my work on these, I was asked to do Dr. Quinn for CBS. The rest, as they say, is history. I’ve been working in television since and I absolutely love it.
Peter Tolan
Rescue Me, The Job, The Larry Sanders Show, Style and Substance
How did I get my first job directing TV? I hired myself on my own show. It’s easier that way.
GETTING YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR
The similar parts of our stories are that we all wanted something and went after it. So the first thing we advise you to do is to show up. Prove that you are worthy of the job. That might require you directing a short film or observing on a series for as long it takes to make the producer comfortable with entrusting you with directing an episode. It might mean finding a generous director who is willing to mentor you by allowing you to shadow, or follow, him.
Make a Networking List
This is an ongoing project. Create a database of the people you know in the business. Note how you met them, subsequent meeting(s) or contact, and personal data about them (name of spouse, do they have a kid(s), any pet charity). Choose three who you think are most generous or in a position of power. Google them. Write a personal note not asking for anything but rather acknowledging something they’ve done.
If you don’t see an opportunity, create one for yourself. Once you have the opportunity, don’t squander it. Mary Lou and Bethany are often approached by directors who want to observe. The individuals who show up at crew call, at the beginning of the day, and stay until wrap (the conclusion of a day’s filming), get our attention. If those same individuals design shot lists to compare his work to what we are doing, we really start taking them seriously. Finally, we like to see individuals who know when to ask questions and when to be a fly on the wall. This final trait is the one that reflects someone who sees the big picture.
You probably won’t be able to get an agent until you have a film or television episode to showcase your talents. Again, be methodical with your approach. See if the producer who gave you a job or a director whom you trailed will give you an introduction to her agent. Use any personal contact you may have, even if it seems far-fetched. Sending a DVD of your short film to an agency cold—or unintroduced—will result in it being returned to you, unopened, with a standard letter saying that they don’t accept “unsolicited submissions.” But if your landlady gives it to her niece, who works in the mailroom at an agency, and she gives it to a VIP agent’s assistant, who likes your short film and slips it to his boss at the perfect moment, it could work.
If you do your job well, and always go the extra mile, people will notice. The important thing is not to get stuck there. Always have the goal in mind and clearly let people know
you are happy to be doing what you are doing, but also that you are steadily working towards that bigger goal.
Writing is another way in. So is producing. Because television is a writer-dominated medium, if you create a show, you can hire yourself to direct it! Or, more likely, if you start your career as a writer’s assistant, then work your way up the ladder (research assistant, staff writer, story editor, coproducer, producer, executive producer), you will at some point find the perfect moment to suggest that you might be the best director for your script. (But we hope you will have taken acting classes and studied the craft of directing first!) If your skills lie in producing, you can prove yourself in that field and have access to the people making the director-hiring decisions. Regardless of how you do it, the secret is to be good at whatever you do, even if you’re in an entry-level position.
If you do your job well, and always go the extra mile, people will notice. The important thing is not to get stuck there. Always have the goal in mind and clearly let people know you are happy to be doing what you are doing, but also that you are steadily working towards that bigger goal.
There are no set rules for getting your first job. Think out of the box. Do it your way because that is what will make you stand out. As you’ve learned from the stories in this chapter, 17 directors had 17 different ways to get in. And you will have yours. Get ready, learn, and be prepared to take advantage of the moment when someone gives you that hand up, because that’s something we all have in common. Someone had to reach down and lift us up. So be in that right place at the right time, with your skills sharp and ready to go. Good luck!
Directors Tell the Story Page 30