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70 dga quarterly his plan could be implemented. That didn't prevent him from adding a half-kidding post- script in his resignation letter to Fox employ- ees: "Don't go back to pilot season!" NBC's Salke says her network remains committed to pilot season, but, she admits, "We can all use more time and it's critical to continue to produce out of the normal cycle. We can't keep cannibalizing each other in casting and production." It's too soon to tell whether the flurry of late pilots this year was a bellwether or an anomaly, but as David Nutter notes, "If they get away with it this time, it's very possible they'll try to get away with it the next time. To do your best creative work, you can't rush into it, which they want to do." Nineteen of the 21 pilots Nutter has di- rected have gone to series—a track record that makes him one of the most sought af- ter single-camera pilot directors. Since his early days doing pilots, he's noticed changes and new challenges facing directors. Chief among them is a rise in the number of ac- tors wary of the networks' arduous slog of 22-episode seasons. "Many of them are trying to hold off for that HBO or cable pilot and their 13-episode arcs, which is something more manageable," he says. "It's tough to find great actors you want with so many things going on in the industry." Another issue that has arisen is the fact that the broadcast networks have been seek- ing to emulate edgier cable content and running into resistance from standards and practices departments that could dilute the concept. "When network shows try to be ca- ble shows, they're not very successful," says Nutter. "You always want to try to break the mold, but more often than not the decisions they're making on shows they're picking up are based out of fear and not thoroughly thought out." Nutter tackled his latest pilot, Contain- ment, about the outbreak of an epidemic in Atlanta, much as he generally does, and this method helped alleviate this year's time crunch. "I wanted people with experience working in Atlanta," he explains. "It made for a much smoother transition. That was definitely a time saver." Another frequent complaint of pilot di- rectors is that the script is too long. Nutter addressed that by working with writer (and director) Julie Plec to pare the script down to its essentials. "I have 42 minutes to tell the story and I might have a script 60 pages long. That means I might be 20 minutes over, so why waste time and money on things that aren't going to be in the show? There's no sense wasting time on connec- tive tissue scenes because your audience is way ahead of you. I'd rather have more time to work on the important scenes, the crux of the episode." The British-born Robinson faced similar time constraints directing the pilot for The Catch. "We were up against it," she says. "We ended up doing six-day weeks. A lot of it took place at night. We'd finish Saturday at 5 a.m. and be in Monday at 6 or 7 a.m. That's tricky." She had developed the show's con- cept, about a female forensics accountant who uncovers fraud, for producer Shonda Rhimes. The pilot was shot in Austin to save money, and then moved back to Los Ange- les for series. "Because I'm a director and a producer, I understand the financial con- siderations they're dealing with," Robinson says. And because the pilot was filmed dur- ing the city's annual SXSW festival and ac- commodations were at a premium, empha- sis was placed on employing a local cast and crew as much as possible. (Robinson reports this wasn't an issue thanks to the profession- alism of Austin's labor force.) Like Nutter, Robinson employed her past methods to help streamline the pro- duction process. "It's important to make sure everyone's on the same page regarding the look," she notes. "As part of the pilot process, we develop a pitch to show the stu- dio and network. I always make sure every single crew member sees that presentation, so we all know what we're working to. Ev- eryone from props to background artists see it. I'm meticulous in terms of detail." As with many of this year's pilots with compressed schedules, The Catch cut time in postproduction. "Editing was very tight, I'm not gonna lie," Robinson admits. "But I think everybody felt we delivered a product that [we were] proud of. But there were a lot of late nights for everyone." Robinson is philosophical when it comes to the question of being crunched for time N AV I G ATI N G P I LOTS Continued from page 49 the light or how you look. It made me act dif- ferently and made me direct differently too." Described by Jolie Pitt as "an art film, the kind of movie that I like to see but not some- thing I'm usually cast in," she isn't eager to direct a movie like By the Sea again soon. "We're proud of ourselves for being brave enough to try it," she says, adding that she and Pitt made it on their honeymoon. "I think By the Sea was the hardest film for me because it wasn't [issue-driven]. It's something I prob- ably won't do very much of." Her next film, Africa, fits more snugly into her mini-oeuvre of topical, searing portrayals of humankind and the havoc-wreaked, real stories she immerses herself in before direct- ing. It's about legendary paleoanthropologist and conservationist Dr. Richard Leakey's battle with ivory poachers in Kenya. She calls it her "next big challenge." "I've never worked with elephants and lions before and so I've been [doing research on] how to technically film the animals," she says, and she's been poring over the script with Leakey and his wife to make sure she tells the story right. Though Jolie Pitt says that she "doesn't go to work thinking of gender," the stats in her own 33-year career as an actress speak volumes: Playing a rebellious teenager named Legs Sa- dovsky in 1996's Foxfire, directed by Annette Haywood-Carter, was the only time Jolie Pitt appeared in a movie that wasn't directed by a man. "There are many female directors I'd love to work with. I don't focus on the nega- tive. I think about the other women [directors] and trying to find ways to work together, and focus on everything that is happening and imagine that it will continue and will grow." Early on in the directing of Blood and Honey, a thought occurred to Jolie Pitt: "What surprised me about directing is how much I loved it and how happy I am to be on the set. I love coming to work in the morning. What I realized is that I never loved acting. I don't love being in the hair and makeup chair. I don't [love] being in costume. To me the strangest thing is that I've just spent the majority of my life in one aspect of this busi- ness, and because I was fortunate enough to become successful I never questioned wheth- er I felt at home and found out later in life that I'm much happier directing." ® I 'M M U C H H A P P I E R D I R E C TI N G Continued from page 43