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38 dga quarterly PHOTOS: (LEFT) PHILIPPE BOSSE/LIFETIME; (RIGHT) ERIC LIEBOWITZ/ABC ancient period garb and weaponry, a metal and leather shop set to work constructing 750 shields, 500 bows, and many more arrows. And though the production eventually decided on using visual-effects ar- rows, it still required directorial oversight. "You have to make sure they are pulling back right," Von Ancken notes. Filming in the desert, nothing went exactly as planned. Tents were blown down. "You're in the northern Sahara with a 30-knot wind coming from the south that feels like two hair dryers in your face. How do you keep your background from dying?" he says. "How do you keep 800 guys, who are dressed in thick leather, watered and fed, let alone the 1,000 other people who are supporting all this? So it was a great big logistic thing." For the battle scenes, Von Ancken choreographed every move. Each of the 65 stuntmen was given a 10-beat action sequence: a blow, a move back, a parry, a comeback, a flip, and so forth. The cameras had to be poised just right, especially in scenes with six chariots peel- ing down a hill. "And you have to make sure, when it comes rolling by you, that you've got that shot. Because you don't want to redo it." Even the editing was tricky in terms of calculating commercial breaks and cliffhangers. "It's almost like creating a score," Von Ancken says. "How to break it into three nights first. And then break it into seven acts each night. And it's the same skill set, I think, that you use when you're talking about creating the parts of a score." Overall, being the one director on the series was a great experience for Von Ancken. "It was satisfying in the way Spike gave me the lati- tude to do the movie I wanted to make." Laurie Collyer | The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe >While Lisa Cholodenko had the task of bringing a fictional character to life, Laurie Collyer, who di- rected Lifetime's The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, had to create a cradle-to- grave miniseries about one of the biggest icons in contemporary American history: Marilyn Monroe is someone viewers already feel intimately familiar with. "It was a huge challenge," says Collyer. "She is one of the most photographed celebrities ever." Collyer knew instinctively how to shape the material; the miniseries digs into lesser-known facts of Monroe's life. It spotlights her relation- ship with her mentally ill mother and her own unyielding insecuri- ties. Collyer had directed a similarly distressed tale with Sherrybaby, an indie film that caught the attention of Lifetime executives. "I pitched," says Collyer, who had never directed TV before. "I showed them my look book," which included ideas for the tone of the series, locations, and ideas for each character. "They said they wanted me to approach it like film," she says. "I was excited. It's a women's channel and I like to tell women's stories." Her most critical decision was casting Monroe, who is scripted into almost every scene. The actor had to believably portray Monroe from ages 16 to 36, as she transformed from dark-haired ingénue to plati- num-blond bombshell. Her first choice was Kelli Garner. "I'd been watching her awhile," says Collyer, who thought Garner had the right body type and sev- eral good angles. "Kelli's not hard to shoot." Because so much of Monroe's story is tied to her transformation into a sex symbol, Collyer constantly pivoted around hair, makeup, and costume issues. "We cast our Marilyn Monroe late in the schedule and Kelli had 95 costume changes, seven wigs, and very elaborate makeup for each time period and age she was representing," says Collyer, who got five weeks of prep and 42 days to shoot the 220-page script. To ensure that viewers bought into Garner's im- personation, Collyer did something she'd never done before—full page-turns of the script in which she closely analyzed Garner's costumes and makeup for each scene. "It was kind of like a special-effects makeup show because Kelli's makeup design had to be so elaborate," says Collyer, whose office was covered ceiling to floor with images of Monroe through the different stages of her life. Costume re-creations included Monroe's famous JFK birthday dress and her white halter dress from The Seven Year Itch, as well as other, lesser-known iconic pieces. "The checkered trousers ... the orange Pucci sweater," says Collyer. "I think the die- hard Marilyn fans will notice. That's what we were going for, at least." On some shooting days, as many as three wig changes were re- quired, but the director couldn't go overtime. "Covering scenes when you only have six shooting hours is like sprinting to the finish line," says Collyer, who at least got ample elbowroom when she was direct- ing the performances. "No one gave the actors notes but me," she says. "That's a huge freedom." Raymond De Felitta | Madoff >Raymond De Felitta was itching for a television di- recting gig when he landed Madoff, a four-part ABC miniseries. "I wanted to do it very much," said De Felitta, as he directed Richard Drey- fuss as Madoff in some final scenes at ABC Studios in upper Manhattan last July. De Felitta circled around Dreyfuss, seated at a small conference table opposite Michael Rispoli, who plays Frank DiPascali, Madoff's "Covering scenes when you only have six shooting hours is like sprinting to the finish line, [but] no one gave the actors notes but me. That's a huge freedom." —LAURIE COLLYER