Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/957795
36 DGA QUARTERLY PHOTO: PARAMOUNT PICTURES Anita Addison, Donna Deitch, Helen Shaver, Neema Barnette, Leslie Libman, Tawnia McKiernan. I gave Michelle MacLaren her first job outside of X-Files on John Doe. I hired Lesli Linka Glatter on ER. On shows that I have exec produced, I've always brought women directors in. When I became exec producer on The Leftovers alongside Damon, I brought in Michelle MacLaren and Nicole Kassell. In season two, I remem- ber I had this big list of women directors that I wanted to hire and they were all working. That was pretty exciting to me. It's still hard. But things are changing. There are more and more programs. Women are getting the op- portunity to direct and are doing great work. So hopefully, the door will stay open. Q: Steven Spielberg opened the features door for you. Is it true that he had to talk you into directing The Peacemaker? A: Steven's company produced ER, and he came to the set when I was doing a six-page one-er. [Later] we met in his office and re- ally connected. He was a great supporter of my work. He called me one day and said, "I felt right. By the time I did Peacemaker, I'd been directing in television for 10 years. So, for me, I approached it in a very similar fashion. I thought, "Find the DP who speaks your language, who can relate to you, who can respect you and you can respect." It's like a marriage when you pick a DP. You have to be in sync. It's so important for you and your director of photography to develop a language. The Peacemaker was a very big movie with big shots, but I wanted it to feel very visceral, guttural. Q: You won a directing Emmy for ER in 1994. Talk about coming up with the show's high- energy trademark look. A: Rod Holcomb directed the pilot and he used about 25% Steadicam and did the rest on a dolly. I did the first episode. I decided to make the style of the show more fluid and accelerated the Steadicam use to about 75%. Three-quarters of the show was on Steadi and the rest was on long-lens dolly and some handheld, but not much. I felt the best way to tell the story was to use the Steadicam. Q: The scripts were famously long. Was this also a choice born of pragmatism? A: It was pragmatic. But first it was an artistic choice. The camera just didn't wander. It was very specific. It wasn't just running down hallways. It was going into surgery, into intimate scenes, telling the story without cutting. I've always been very connected to the camera. I know the power of a lens. I know how to point a camera to get the most emotion and power of a scene to be realized. It just felt like the right way to go. Then it became absolutely essential to the storytelling. The Steadicam was a tool that allowed us to go in and out and be very fluid. Then as we perfected the use of the Steadicam, the shows started coming up short. So they started writ- ing longer scripts. We'd start with a 53-page script and by the time the first season was over, I believe we were in the 75- to 80-page range. We just got so good at it. Q: What's the trick to doing a six-page one-er with a large cast? A: It was a challenge for the actors to retain all the medical dialogue within a long, flow- ing shot. It was a challenge for the camera- have this cop show. I want you to direct the pilot and be exec producer." This is when we were getting a 44 share. Fifty-two million people were watching ER. I said, "Steven, thank you, but with all due respect, why would I leave ER to do a cop show?" About four months later, he called me up and said, "I'm not calling you up to do a lousy little cop show. I'm calling you up to direct DreamWorks' first feature. It's an action film and takes place all over the world." And I said, "Thank you. But I've never directed action." Q: How did he change your mind? A: He said, "You direct action every day on ER. You can do this." I hung up the phone and thought, "Wow, I've got to do this." I brought my Steadicam operator, Guy Bee, with me. I had Branko Lustig, this great producer who'd done Schindler's List with Steven. I hired Dietrich Lohmann as DP who had done all these Fassbinder films. Q: What did you think about when picking a DP for the film? A: I just wanted to hire a European guy. It "It's like a marriage when you pick a DP. You have to be in sync. It's important to develop a language."