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72 DGA QUARTERLY From the hand grasping for leverage on a dangling ring to the crazy antics going on from the sidelines, McManus requires that his camera crews be in position to get all the shots necessary to chronicle ANW's myriad moving parts. Prior to the show, McManus walks the course with his production crew, including associate director Dave Massey and stage managers J.R. Osborne and Wolfgang Delgado. Camera angles are checked, shots confirmed and McManus constantly cautions to stay vigilant. ("We don't want anyone falling down while carrying a camera or trip- ping while you are running. Be safe out there.") "This show is a beast, a gorgeous, well-oiled machine," says Del- gado. "Dave knows the show inside and out, oversees it all with all the departments in his ear. Patrick is in the booth, calling everything. We are basically Patrick's eyes and ears on the floor and his hands when he needs it. He guides it all." cMANUS HAILS FROM a live sports back- ground, ranging from the Super Bowl to the Kentucky Derby, always cognizant of back- stories and fleeting, blink-and-you-missed-it live reaction shots. McManus says he was brought on board as director because he had experience in blending those elements into a cohesive show. "The success of the show, and my role as a director, is not taking what I think is a beautiful shot. I take a picture of every single thing so I know that (camera) is three inches off the wall here and I'll get what I need. But if it moved, that would make a big difference." He is specific about where he wants to shoot—and where he does not. "Anytime I lose a face, I struggle," McManus says. "The drama on the face tells so many stories. When they struggle at an obstacle or succeed; when they are exhausted, but give a heads up to a girlfriend or son in the audience or on the sidelines." And things that have not worked include elements that were once a staple of the course. "I don't like nets," McManus says. "You can't shoot through them. And people get caught in them and it's not exciting. If they fall, they fall because they got their leg stuck. Not compelling." Most people are right-handed, so if they reach out, they'll do it with their right hand, often turning their backs to the camera and their faces to the wrong side, McManus explains. He tells the crew whatever they do, think about where the face is going to be. He points to his arsenal of equipment: Spidercams, cameras posted on walls and in the obstacles, always angled for the click, click, click that tells the story from every perspective. Making his job easier is the extraordinarily well-lit course, for which McManus gives full credit to DP and lighting designer Adam Biggs. "I capture the emotion and he captures the look," McManus ex- plains. "With Adam we walk on the course and you can see every inch, and it doesn't distract from the athlete. He does it so they can run with- out being obstructed or distracted." There's a huge pyrotechnic element. McManus ponders how high he wants it to go, how far behind it is in the shot. Will the inferno saturate the shot or enhance it? McManus examines every angle, pondering how it will work during the runs. "A lot of the shots are about subject, foreground and background," he says. "I don't ever want to just get someone walking around. I have no perspective. I want to see how bright the flame is next to them, I want to see how high the wall is, how deep the water." When he came on board as a director, McManus started using a line cut. "If I didn't do a line cut, with everyone just running through, you wouldn't know that we had a kid doing a backflip every time his moth- er went through. If you didn't do a line cut and show it to (hosts) Matt (Iseman) and Akbar (Gbajabiamila), they would never know to react to it." Stage manager J.R. Osborne has been getting the ninjas in place to start the course since joining the show in its second season. "Patrick's the leader and he's probably one of the most loved people here because he lets you do your job," Osborne says. "He sets the pa- rameter and lets us do our own thing inside of that." Osborne says calling the line cut was something he hadn't seen be- fore McManus became the director. "He brought the feeling of this being a live sports show, which was a whole new element here and a breath of fresh air," Osborne says. "There's less room for error and you have to get it done right the first time. Once a person is on the course, there's no take two." Associate director Dave Massey takes over once Osborne puts the runner on the course. "Before (McManus), the show was run, run, run," says Massey, who has spent a decade on the show, "and now it is more about the charac- ters. But that doesn't change what we do, which is running more than a hundred people through a course and getting the shots." The previous night, the crew had powered through a strong storm that hit L.A., placing an added degree of difficulty on an already tough night shoot. "At the beginning of the night, we have a plan," Massey says. "And then something doesn't play like we thought so we have to adapt on the fly." Everyone on the show has a unique story to tell, and it's McManus' job not to let those moments get overlooked. He analyzes each obstacle. Balance or endurance. One, he points out, is all about the arms, while the previous one is all about the feet. "As a director, you need to get the essence of the performance," he says. "You see a face. You see an obstacle. So many people fail at a balance obstacle because they are running and look up for half a sec- ond. You have to get all those shots." McManus understands some competitors are faster, some slower. Some are superstar athletes, some have handicaps. "And some are afraid," he adds. "I want to show that they are afraid. "It's like doing the Kentucky Derby. When a horse comes across that line, there's a connection, a history behind that horse. So here we build those same connections." —PATRICK McMANUS M