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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Marlene Dietrich’s performance as a club singer in The Blue Angel was the inspiration for director Jane Thompson when she set out to bring the Madison ‘With A Bullet’ script to life.
In the main storyline, Carol, played by Sarah Strange, has launched a singing career and performs the Frank Sinatra tune Bim Bam Baby in a bar.
Thompson was captured by the song and the potential to create something visually special.
The typical approach would have involved a music video style. Thompson rejected this immediately.
In episodic tv there is never time to mull over a storyline. Still, she managed time for a little research. She came across Blue Angel and was struck by the way Dietrich was lit in the club scene. Although there was no way the Madison production could replicate the elaborate set of the 1930 film, her challenge was to create a similar mood.
‘I wanted Sarah to look breathtaking, mesmerizing,’ she says.
Thompson worked with art director Jason Sutherland and dop David Frazee to intensify the singing performance – shifting the back light to bring a sense of mystery, with the foreground light filtered through a beaded curtain to add a sensual quality.
Jump cuts and long lenses are the characteristic look of the five-year running Madison series, produced in Vancouver by Forefront Productions.
Thompson, who has directed eight episodes, says her challenge is to maximize the use of the fixed style in a way particular to the story at hand.
She looks for ways to catch the spontaneity of performances and little nuances of behavior, both of which can be accentuated by the Madison camera style. Thompson also finds ways to incorporate camera movement so it appears that the camera is reacting to the emotional content of the scene.
One such moment Thompson and Frazee found was an extreme close-up of Sarah with the camera tilting off the microphone onto her figure as she sings.
A long shot of Sarah, her reflection caught in the control room glass, is another key moment Thompson describes as ‘a gift.’
‘It is rare to have a chance to discover things in episodic work,’ says Thompson. ‘So when there is a moment like this you have to go with it.’
She also explored ways that the camera style could intensify the mood and bring a sensual quality to the scenes – lingering, intimate close-ups, the rhythm of the camera and the pace of the moves. ‘I like to get in tight then step back and have a wider look.’
Directors working on Madison are technically restricted in that they must work with two cameras mounted side-by-side on a dolly. The traditional master shot from one angle and then turning around and shooting back in the other direction is therefore not available and blocking can become a major puzzle, says Thompson.
‘Everything you see comes from one direction and you often end up playing a scene with two people in profile talking to each other or getting a side of a face. The challenge is not to miss something in the eyes of the character.’
Nuances of behavior and revealing expressions are Thompson’s particular forte, often difficult to catch working under these camera constraints. Sometimes she has to break a few rules to achieve a desired effect. During a scene where a son confronts his father, Thompson decided the camera had to be turned around and a medium close-up of the father’s reaction shot from the opposite direction.
‘Generally you wouldn’t do this and it would start to compromise the style of the show if done often, but nobody jumped up and down screaming.’
Overall, Thompson insists a show is only as good as its elements: the combination of a rich script, strong performances, a dop catching the crucial moments, and art direction creating the right reality – all sewn together seamlessly by the editor.
‘I believe in serendipity,’ says Thompson. ‘It’s everything coming together at the right moment.’
Also in this report:
Profiling Best Direction in a Dramatic TV Series: Kari Skogland p.22
Jon Cassar p.22
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.44