When a director walks onto the set of a tv series, the show style is set and continuity is a must. As many directors point out, their job is basically to figure out what the producer wants and give it to them. Playback asked the contenders for Best Direction in a Dramatic tv series how they manage to bring an individual creative stamp and fresh edge to an episode while working within these constraints.
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When Traders began production in 1995, Kari Skogland was given the task of setting the style and visual tone of the series – and an innovative style it was. A year later, in season two, Skogland applied her unique brand of creativity to her fourth Traders episode, ‘Chaos Theory,’ for which she is nominated for a Best Director Gemini.
That Traders is set in the world of the high-powered investment industry made its direction of utmost importance – not only had such a theme rarely been tackled on television, viewers have limited knowledge of the industry’s finer points. Skogland’s job was to innovatively convey the emotions and realities of this unique world visually and to set a standard for subsequent episodes that others would direct.
‘The biggest challenge was, `How do you make a financial show exciting?’ says Skogland. ‘We had to assume that 50% of the time, viewers wouldn’t know what the characters were talking about because it was specific to that world. So we made sure that you could tell who the good guys and bad guys were and when something went wrong or something went right.
‘Also, I wanted to set it apart from other shows it was up against like er or NYPD Blue.’
Fortunately, adds Skogland, producer Alyson Feltes was in favor of the new, innovative and unrestrained.
Traders’ pacing and editing were key in establishing its unique look. Skogland’s approach resulted in an intense, frenetically paced drama with an abruptness in editorial style and plenty of unexpected shots and angles, with the use of hand-held cameras, steadycam and crane work. In some scenes, long lenses give a soft, compressed look; in others, a wide lens renders a harsh and slightly warped impact.
‘I wanted the camera to be a character,’ Skogland continues. ‘The actors had to get used to that – the camera moving around the room with them or right in their face. Instead of using traditional editorial style, with wide, then medium, then close shots, I started mixing it up. I used a nonlinear style to make it unpredictable.’
That unpredictability continued into season two and season opener ‘Chaos Theory’ – with a slight shift in attitude. That in-your-face style with lots of hand-held work was starting to become more common on the primetime airwaves, Skogland says, and she ‘wanted it to evolve, to freshen the look. Now, we didn’t need to be so obvious. So there is more long lens work, graphic framing and the camera is locked in more.’
‘Chaos Theory’ opens with the characters standing in an unlikely place: on top of 100-foot, gritty oil drums. The shot was achieved with 150-foot cranes and a long lens.
‘The shot shows the juxtaposition of the glamorous characters drinking champagne while on this tactile thing of trade – crude oil. In the background is the city, glowing, like the City of Oz just beyond,’ Skogland explains.
This romantic image is shattered in the next sequence, when the father of Sally (Sonja Smits) is run down in the street. As Sally hovers over the lifeless body of her father, screaming for help, her world becomes unglued, uncertain, out of control. That frantic scene is captured with the use of a Mesmerizer lens, which renders the images warped, unfocused and chaotic – a depiction of the whole episode’s theme.
Throughout ‘Chaos Theory,’ the camera settles on reflected images: in the computer screen, a mirror, a pane of glass or the photo of Sally’s dead father.
‘Some of that was planned, some serendipitous,’ says Skogland. ‘It represents the world behind the mirror, the world beyond what you see – like an Alice in Wonderland, beyond-the-looking-glass thing. While the character is trying to make sense about what is on the computer, the world inside, or beyond the computer, is chaos. The picture of Sally’s father is not reality – there is more to him than meets the eye.’
While for any director, establishing a fresh new look for a show is both gratifying and artistically daunting, Skogland counts something more practical as her biggest challenge in directing episodes of Traders: the schedule.
‘When doing unusual shots and treatments, it takes time to think about it, to move cameras, do the lighting and get everyone on board. You have to do that while not blowing the bank. That’s the greatest creative challenge.’
Also in this report:
Profiling Best Direction in a Dramatic TV Series: Jon Cassar p.22
Jane Thompson p.27
Profiling Best Writing in a Dramatic Program or Miniseries:
Jim Burt: The non-nominee behind so many nominations p.29
Janis Cole p.29
David Adams Richards p.31
Keith Ross Leckie p.37
Pete White p.37
Profiling the contenders for Best Sports Program or Series p.39
The nominees list p.4