DGA Monthly

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 5 I 4 1 Stage Manager Valdez Flagg on empowering performers before a musical number on The Oscars: "The cast of Les Misérables and Dreamgirls were doing the performances for the nominated shows. So, Jennifer Hudson, gets out there, sings and brings the house down. We go to commercial and the Les Mis cast is like, 'Oh my god, we have to follow her.' They are abuzz. I said, 'Okay, listen. What you saw was an outstanding solo performance. What you're getting ready to show them is what an outstanding ensemble performance looks like. That's what you're getting ready to do. Don't compare yourself to that. You're getting ready to do the same thing as an ensemble.' And they went out and crushed it. It was one of my fi ner moments. I was just like, I knew what to say to them in the moment to make them settle down so that they could give the best performance they could." The DGA's Visual History Program is an endeavor designed to explore the art and craft of the Director and the Director's team via peer-to-peer interviews with other Directors, Assistant Directors, Unit Production Managers, Associate Directors and Stage Managers. Created in 2000 by the Special Projects Committee and consisting of more than 230 videotaped interviews, the Visual History Program serves as an invaluable teaching source for those curious about the craft, a preservation of the professional wisdom of DGA members, and a unique repository for Guild history. The interviews, which last between three and eight hours, emphasize refl ective and collegial discussions about all aspects of the creative process in fi lm, television and other media. Visual History interviews are accessible to all Guild members as well as to the general public on the DGA website. The Visual History database is fully searchable by topic, and each interview is indexed, allowing for quick retrieval of segments pertaining to specifi c interests and topics, either within a particular interview or across the entire collection. Featured here are a few excerpts dealing with Live Television. Perspectives on working in Live Television from the Visual History Program Archives View more excerpts and interviews in the Visual History Collection via the link on the homepage of www.dga.org. Director Jeff Margolis on utilizing Steadicam for the American Music Awards: "I had a number with Usher and Alicia Keys. There was a staircase and a fountain and a piano she had to sit at. They had never done the song together before and wanted a rehearsal. I went to see the blocking and thought I could do this on one camera with Dave Eastwood on the Steadicam. So Dave and I did this thing with Usher and Alicia Keys and it was the talk of the town. I got calls from other Directors saying, 'Man, are you brave.' You know, because it was a three and a half minute number. It was one camera, and it was two people who were sometimes together, sometimes apart. Dave and I managed to choreograph the camera so that whenever you needed to see both of them when they were singing together, wherever they were, you saw both of them. And whenever one was singing solo, we always were able to come around and see the person singing solo, and get back to the other person in time. It was just beautiful." Director Glenn Weiss on the 89th Oscars mistaken winner announcement for Best Picture: "All my experience as a live Director says, 'When something goes wrong, you cover it up, because you're trying to put out a polished show.' And my instinct said, 'If I do what I'm trained to do, the next day the headline is not, "There was a problem on The Oscars," it was, "There was a problem on The Oscars, and they tried to cover it up."' So, in my head, in a nanosecond, I'm processing all this saying, 'Two options. You can go away and try to cover this up, or you could really get in there and just be as truthful as you can and tell this story as best you can. The key to truthful storytelling here is that card.' So, the fi rst thing I said, 'Camera 10, just fi nd that card, zoom into it. If anybody holds it up, I need to get a shot of that.' And the moment came and it was held up and when it was held up, and I took that shot. Truthful storytelling is all I was doing. I wasn't doing anything more or anything less. It was just my way of saying, 'We're in this together, here's what the reality is of what happened, process it yourself. This is part of the story.' The rest of the night and into the morning was the craziest thing I ever lived through, but suddenly the next day when it's the big story everywhere, whatever, but in every review I read, there was a mention of that shot." Director Suzanne Smith on her core tenets for live sports directing: "You do the same job whether you have a good event or not because it's our job to document the event. But when you have an exciting game and everything gets going in motion and the train's going down the track on the right way, to me, that's the reason why I love sports television. It's live and when everything works and everything clicks, I don't think you get that rush or that challenge in anything else that you do. I've been enormously lucky to do what I've done for so many years and it doesn't mean it's still not a challenge. I mean, every week is a challenge. It's live television. Every week you're out there doing stuff. And Bob Fishman — who has been on this side of the camera here — one of the things that he said early in my career and I will never forget it, 'What's the most important thing? Very simple. Don't miss live action.' And that's it. Give the people what they want. And that's what they want."

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