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spinoff of the Emmy-winning series The Office, NBC's The Paper finds Dunder Mifflin sold off to a Toledo, OH-based newspaper publisher — which also manufactures toilet tissue. The same documentary crew that em- bedded themselves with the Scranton, PA, branch now find themselves in Ohio, where they come upon a familiar face — Oscar — as well as his colleagues, who are trying to publish a local paper with limited resources and even less experi- ence as journalists. The show was created by Greg Daniels (The Office) under his Deedle-Dee Productions banner and stars Domhnall Gleeson as Ned Sampson, The Toledo Truth Teller's Editor-in-Chief. Other regulars include Sabrina Impacciatore, Chelsea Frei, Melvin Gregg, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Alex Edelman, Ramona Young, Tim Key and Oscar Nuñez. Jennifer Celotta directed one of the series' 10 episodes (107), and took time to detail her involvement, as well as the challenges of shooting in the signature mockumentary format. Was it your past working on The Office that led to your involvement on this series? "Yes, it's the background of The Office. Greg Daniels asked me to be a part of it because I was a writer and ran the show for one season with Paul Lieberstein on The Office. That mocumentary world is very exciting to me and I really love it. I got my start directing on The Office. And since then, I've been lucky enough to go and direct some other shows, and so I think Greg wanted to bring some people from The Office to work on this show — people who understood the mocku- mentary vibe and the world. It's a show completely in its own right, but it shares elements of The Office in terms of the shooting style and the two cameras." You directed Episode 7. Was the workflow pretty well established at that point? "Yes, certainly. First seasons, every- body's kind of trying to get the workflow going and establish the characters, and establish the voice and the tone. I like the play of that in a first-season show, where you're able to join the sort of figuring out. Greg and co-creator/co-showrunner Michael Koman are brilliant and had such a clear idea of what they wanted. But with every first-season show, you're sort of trying to figure it out, getting it on its feet. I would say a good amount of it was dialed in. We did end up changing a little bit between Episode 6 and 7. We ended up having a different lens package for the cameras to try to do it a little bit quicker — being able to go from a wider shot to zooming in on a closer shot fur- ther away. We started that right before my episode, so there's a little bit of a change in that. I really love that. I feel like the episodes all look really, really good. The space is pretty big on the set, and to be able to kind of more quickly angle on one thing and then zoom in and crash in on something else, it was a little bit quicker when we changed the package." Chloe Weaver was your director of photography? "Yes, and she's brilliant…I had Chloe, and then I had Phil and Mandy for camera — Philip Mastrella and Mande Whitaker — where it was A and B camera." Do you know what camera they were shooting with? "Yes. It was a Sony Venice 2…And we started with full-frame Fujinon Premista zooms for Episodes 1 through 6. And then (Episode) 7 onwards, we pivoted to a Canon servo zoom, and the hero lens was a 17mm-120mm. They were able to do the stuff that they needed to do in those first six episodes. I just think the mockumenta- ry format, the quickness with which you're able to be on one group and then push into somebody coming through a door a little bit further away, it really helps the energy, and the vibe, and the reality, so I really loved the switch." Your episode was split between two editors: David Rogers and Nicole Artzer. "Yes, Dave was prepping to direct, so I had co-editors…Dave is the main editor and is just phenomenal. And Nicole did such a great job with my episode. I was so impressed with her. I spent most of my days working with Nicole, but Dave also was involved in my episode. He did passes on it and stuff as well." Were you closely involved with the edit? "Yes, and my god, it's so important to me because I love being able to have a first take at shaping the story, especially with sort of a delicate episode like 107, where it has to do with Ned sort of imprinting father figurely kind of feelings on Marv. The ability to get in and just have a first pass at what you think that build should be in terms of balancing the comedy with the emotional work that Domhnall's doing. Making sure that you understand enough of what's going on, but you're also getting the comedy of it. I really love being able to have those editing days. There's two editing days, and then we got a third." What kind of notes do you receive after sharing the initial edit? "There was a note about the build — building that Ned was kind of a nor- mally-stressed guy from his boss being around, and then he freaks out when the 'I love you' happens, and he kind of spirals into that. The transition from nor- mally-stressed, because of work stress, and daddy issues. So that is something that was important to all of us, and just kind of looking at the build of that. Could I look at that and sort of make sure that that is building, that the transition from work stress to daddy stress is as elegant as it can be?" Evan Davies is credited as visual effects supervisor on your episode. What were the VFX? "The texting at the end. We try to do it all practically, and have it ready to go, but as you know when you do it practically, you shoot the whole thing and all the NBC'S THE PAPER BY MARC LOFTUS THIS SPIN OFF OF THE OFFICE EMPLOYS A SIMILAR MOCKUMENTARY STYLE A TELEVISION www.postmagazine.com 12 POST SEPT/OCT 2025 Director Jennifer Celotta