tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post114489282656642883..comments2023-11-03T06:02:02.128-07:00Comments on By Ken Levine: Piles of money for pilot directorsBy Ken Levinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17305293821975250420noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1145543343134222912006-04-20T07:29:00.000-07:002006-04-20T07:29:00.000-07:00Ken,Did you know that story was "set up" by the DG...Ken,<BR/>Did you know that story was "set up" by the DGA? And that there are more than a few TV directors pissed off about it. <BR/><BR/>You're right they're doing it for the dough. No question. I'm currently battling with my studio because they want that "feature name" on my pilot... and the names they're throwing out are just silly. No one is giving any thought to whether the director is right for the piece or not. It's all about that ridiculous name thing. <BR/><BR/>It's a joke. The whole thing. The best writing has been happening in TV for the past ten years. And I believe some of the best directors are working in TV right now. <BR/><BR/>Coulter<BR/>Nutter<BR/>Dickerson<BR/>Estevez (yes, Emilio)<BR/>the list goes on and on. <BR/><BR/>Many people think what makes a good director is flashy camera moves. Couldn't be more wrong. That's usually a sign of a bad director. <BR/><BR/>Too bad executives generally don't know anything about filmmaking.FizzWaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18314620820449568108noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1145062513738492572006-04-14T17:55:00.000-07:002006-04-14T17:55:00.000-07:00My partner and I hired a "hot" feature director fo...My partner and I hired a "hot" feature director for a one camera film half hour pilot a few years ago. Prior to our start date we tried for two weeks to sit down with him and go through the script. Finally, the day before the shoot, we locked him in a room. That's when we realized he hadn't read any of the rewrites we'd been sending him. Scene after scene he'd ask about things that were long gone. He came to the set without a shot list and was completely unprepared. He'd just completed a feature where he'd shoot a page a day - maybe. We were budgeted to shoot around six pages a day and finish in six days. We wrapped in eight. Needless to say the studio was not happy. Also needless to say, they blamed us, not the hot feature director. <BR/>For the record, I'd tell you his name but we're trying to attach him to a feature we just wrote.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1145038935214397112006-04-14T11:22:00.000-07:002006-04-14T11:22:00.000-07:00Grubber said... From where I sit I think you ar...<I>Grubber said...<BR/><BR/> From where I sit I think you are spot on Ken. A recent example of good budgeting and strict schedules is Joss Whedon shooting Serenity for $40mill in LA.<BR/><BR/> How many feature directors could do that? He put it all down to his TV directing experience. </I><BR/> <BR/>And then no one went to see it, and the movie bombed big time.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1144963213573624412006-04-13T14:20:00.000-07:002006-04-13T14:20:00.000-07:00Gimme Jon Cassar (24), over any other "action" fea...Gimme Jon Cassar (24), over any other "action" feature film director any day.Tenspeed & Brownshoehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05070438538916989398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1144948147929625402006-04-13T10:09:00.000-07:002006-04-13T10:09:00.000-07:00I think it will be interesting to see how JJ Abram...I think it will be interesting to see how JJ Abrams fares when let loose on Mission Impossible 3, which is in effect Alias, but with Tom Cruise and bigger explosions.<BR/><BR/>(Also sorry to fawn Mr Rabkin, but I used to love Diagnosis Murder, they show it in the daytime, post lunch students-with-nothing-to-do slot over here in the UK!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1144934862868039772006-04-13T06:27:00.000-07:002006-04-13T06:27:00.000-07:00"A recent example of good budgeting and strict sch..."A recent example of good budgeting and strict schedules is Joss Whedon shooting Serenity for $40mill in LA.<BR/><BR/>How many feature directors could do that?"<BR/><BR/>How about pretty much every feature director working outside of the USA?<BR/><BR/>Your TV episode budgets are very often larger than most feature budgets outside of the USA.stu willishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13225508439949182674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1144933106889651402006-04-13T05:58:00.000-07:002006-04-13T05:58:00.000-07:00Oh, yeah. On a certain show I worked on, we had a ...Oh, yeah. On a certain show I worked on, we had a feature director do the pilot. Wow. Much with the helicopters. Blew four episodes worth of budget in two episodes. We spent the rest of the series writing small. <BR/><BR/>TV directing is like tv writing. You have to know everything you know in order to do feature directing, and then the same amount again.Alex Epsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15907202981846590399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1144908600674838892006-04-12T23:10:00.000-07:002006-04-12T23:10:00.000-07:00Re: "Piles of money for pilot directors"No kidding...Re: "Piles of money for pilot directors"<BR/><BR/>No kidding.Chesher Cathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13098262816107827242noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1144906042805683592006-04-12T22:27:00.000-07:002006-04-12T22:27:00.000-07:00Didn't realize he wrote it. Oops. It's gone. I ...Didn't realize he wrote it. Oops. It's gone. I hope Aaron Sorkin (who I admire) didn't write PHAT GIRLZ.By Ken Levinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17305293821975250420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1144900129301122532006-04-12T20:48:00.000-07:002006-04-12T20:48:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Whaledawghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17451394136036202696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1144899476184229572006-04-12T20:37:00.000-07:002006-04-12T20:37:00.000-07:00The best TV director lee Goldberg and I I ever hir...The best TV director lee Goldberg and I I ever hired was a former feature director... but his feature experience was almost entirely at Roger Corman's New World Pictures. And what he learned working for Corman was what he needed to know in TV -- how to budget his resources. How to figure out which scenes were crucial and needed his time and money, and which he could blow through in a oner. When to push the actors and when to let them go. And how to pace a show so that the small scenes flew by and the big scenes played like gangbusters.<BR/><BR/>Contrast that with the artiste Lee and I were talked into hiring for the first episode of an action series we had taken over. This guy wasn't an Oscar-winning feature director, but you'd never know it from his attitude. (He was still complaining about only having 8 days to shoot an episode of LA Doctors, where the biggest scene was Ken Olin staring moodily out a window.) He spent half a day -- half of one of our seven days -- one a two-page dialogue scene from a 50-page script of which roughly 27 were action. And when our star, simply one of the biggest talents ever to come out of Hong Kong martial arts movies, suggested a move for one of the small action scenes, our auteur told him he couldn't be bothered with stuff like that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-1144896068262760832006-04-12T19:41:00.000-07:002006-04-12T19:41:00.000-07:00From where I sit I think you are spot on Ken. A r...From where I sit I think you are spot on Ken. A recent example of good budgeting and strict schedules is Joss Whedon shooting Serenity for $40mill in LA.<BR/><BR/>How many feature directors could do that? He put it all down to his TV directing experience.<BR/>cheers<BR/>DaveGrubberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10435524784373114313noreply@blogger.com