Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1126636
DGA QUARTERLY 41 people who paint by numbers." Sometimes, that involves reminding people—even the guest director—of cre- ative-rights issues. Todd Holland (Mal- colm in the Middle, The Real O'Neals) and Daniel Sackheim (The Americans, True Detective) have both been in situ- ations where they've had to explain to executive producers that casting from links out of expediency doesn't preclude freelance directors from having a say in a process that involves choosing people they'll be working with intimately. Holland insists on in-person casting ses- sions for the directors he hires. "Real O'Neals went all in-person casting because I said, 'This is how we need to do this, this is how we'll get the best result,'" he says. "It's the director who has to ex- plain the value of it, and how [the executive] can still watch links, but we want directors in casting." Being In Sync with the Writers H E N I T C O M E S T O a producer/director's re- lationship to the creator/writer, or a writer/ex- ecutive producer, Andrew Bernstein—currently executive producing/directing The Outsider in Atlanta while executive producer/co-creator Richard Price writes in New York—says trust and honesty are central, particularly when a show is filming in one part of the world but being written in an- other. "There are going to be bumps and bruises, but we're out for the same thing," he says. "I will do my best to put it on the screen, and if I can't, I will tell [him or her], and we will figure out a way that works.' Sometimes [the writer] doesn't want to talk to the stu- dio, or the actor who has a problem. They want to talk to just one person who has tentacles in all these places, and it allows me to dis- seminate information in the most efficient way as well." Norberto Barba describes that back-and-forth with the writers as an opportunity for both sides to push the show in the right direction. On Grimm, Barba established a protocol of watching cuts with the writers, then talking openly about what worked and what didn't. "There's an evaluation and feedback process that makes the incom- ing episodes better and better," he says. Jason Winer, a producer-director on such shows as Single Parents and Modern Family, says developing re- lationships with the writers isn't just about executing it for an episode, but looking for creative ways behind the scenes, too. "That sometimes means a close relation- ship to the writers' room," he says. "I like to spend time in there so the writers know me as well, and I encourage the writers to meet and talk with the actors. To make sure that's most effective, after a show is picked up and the room is hired, we start scheduling the actors to come in and have lunch with the writers, and I sit there and host a talk show where this actor is my guest, and it's a way to get everybody talking in a structured way that's useful. So many great stories on shows I've directed have come out of these writers' room/actor interviews that have exposed some tidbit about the actor's life that ends up going right into an episode." Kevin Dowling, whose credits in the job include Necessary Roughness and The Son, likes to think of the relationship between a show's writer/creator and the producing director as analogous to what goes on in a theater company. "There's a writer-in-residence, and you're the artistic director," says Dowling. "That theater com- pany has a standard to which you have to hold everyone, whether that's directors, actors or crew members." But with the production values of shows at an all-time high, Dowl- ing adds, that theater company is also sometimes responsible for making "an epic film in 10 parts," with all the complexities attendant with that task, including different directors, sophistication on a bud- get, and more complicated elements from stunts to visual effects. Clockwise from opposite: Station 19 producer/ director Paris Barclay, with cap, surveys the action; Todd Holland, on the set of The Real O'Neals, views the position as "a force of stability, sanity and clarity"; Daniel Sackheim on the set of the third season of True Detective. W