Jerry Levine

Life Unexpected, Monk, Everybody Hates Chris, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

My first film directing assignment came as a result of a one-act play I directed for the stage. The play was a success onstage and had a unique quality to it. It was character-driven and required us to pay great attention to the performances. The play was Big Al by Bryan Goluboff.

When we realized that we had a unique project on our hands, we decided to invite the Showtime Network to see it, with the hope that they would support us in filming it as a short film. It worked. They saw the potential and produced the film version of the play. A project of this nature requires one to call in every favor you can in order to get the final product completed. We did just that, and God bless all of our friends who supported us in this adventure. Big Al premiered on Showtime and went on to win prizes at Film Festivals and a Cable Ace Award in the Best Actor category for David Packer.

The result for me was a unique piece of film that I could use as a calling card to demonstrate whatever skill I was beginning to develop as a film director. Eventually, the film found its way into the hands of Michael Pressman, who was directing and producing the TV series Chicago Hope. Michael gave me an opportunity to direct that series. Later, when I realized how much I didn’t know, I asked Michael what he was thinking when he hired me. Why would he give someone with so little film directing experience an opportunity like that? His response was that based on what he saw in the performances in Big Al, he was convinced that I could direct actors and tell a story. Not exactly blind faith, because there was a piece of film he could watch—a film that demonstrated that I was beginning to develop a point of view and a voice as a director.

It is also important to mention the incredible relationships we build up through the years and to acknowledge in this article all the help we received from friends, agents, managers, and relatives, who made phone calls, made introductions, shared contacts, and offered support.

However, at the end of the day, it was tenacity and the play that was the thing. Without our ability to self-generate and use all of our resources to push it through and shoot the film, there would have been nothing to show to anyone. So my advice is to get out there with a camera and start shooting.

Paul Holahan

Ugly Betty, Burn Notice, Shark

After directing commercials for a few years, I was desperate to direct something with actual lines of dialog. But there was no clear path for how to get into dramatic television. It seemed like a closed community. The one TV director I knew didn’t take shadows. I knocked on a fair amount of doors, read the trades, wrote ideas, and spent a lot of time not directing.

Then one day I realized that a guy, a friend I had DPed for (worked as a cameraman for), was now a producer of a comic book–inspired live-action cable television series. What luck! I showed him my commercial reel and he was very impressed, saying, “You’d be perfect for our show. Love to have you. But it’s never going to happen.” He explained that there was no way the studio was going to let him hire a director who hadn’t directed an episode of episodic television. Television’s ultimate catch-22 was revealed to me: in order to direct an episode of TV you need to have first directed an episode of TV. And all I had were a bunch of commercials, so I wasn’t getting on the list. Another brick wall.

Two months later, on sunny day in Los Angeles, my friend calls from out of the blue and asks, “You got anything going on tomorrow?” I was available. Turns out that his show had shut down suddenly when their star was hospitalized. The directors’ schedules were thrown into confusion. Miraculously, there was an open director slot that had to be filled quickly, and he was going to book me. The studio was busy worrying about their star. And I slipped in unnoticed. But they liked the show and wanted me to do another. And another …

Lesli Linka Glatter

Mad Men, True Blood, House, West Wing

My first job in Hollywood was directing Amazing Stories for Steven Spielberg. How in the world did that happen? I was a modern dance choreographer with a story I was passionate about telling, so I made a short film through the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women. Early one morning, the phone rang, and it was Spielberg calling me to tell me how much he liked my short film. I thought it was a prank call and hung up on him. Thank goodness, he called back!

I met with Spielberg several days later and he offered me the extraordinary opportunity to direct an episode of his new anthology series. He also gave two other new directors, Todd Holland and Phil Joanou, their first opportunity to direct. As I was so new to directing, I asked Steven if I could apprentice with him on his episode before I directed my own. Lucky for me, he said yes. Watching Steven work was the best film school anyone could ever have. In addition, I prepped my episode for a month—storyboarding it over and over, doing anything I could to be prepared.

My first day on my first episode (I ended up directed three Amazing Stories), I had a hundred guys storming a beach in World War II, stunts, explosions, seven cameras, and two eyemo’s. [Author’s note: a type of remote-controlled camera used when it’s too dangerous to have a camera-operator in the location.] It was trial by fire, exhilarating and terrifying, and I never looked back. And everyday since then, I have felt incredibly grateful to be able to be a storyteller.

Arlene Sanford

Desperate Housewives, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal, Medium

After working in daytime soaps for a minute, I wrote, produced, and directed a short film. Because I had a friend who was friends with Jamie Lee Curtis, I was able to call Jamie and ask if she would kindly pretty please agree to play the lead in my thirty-ish-minute film called Welcome Home. I needed only five days of her life and although I could not offer her any payment, I promised it would be fun—at least for her. I was scared to death.

She said “yes”—a small miracle. When it was finished, because she was in it (along with Richard Masur, Bonnie Bartlett, and William Windom), a number of people were interested in watching it. A friend of a friend (these are valuable people) had begun coproducing a new show called The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, which was created by Jay Tarses (father of prolific producer and one-time network executive Jamie Tarses). This friend, Roz Doyle, gave Jay my film, and he asked to meet me. I sat down in his office and he asked me if I wanted to direct his show—just like that, did I want to direct his show. (This was years ago, before the director needed to be approved by a slew of studio and network people. The job would not have happened if that were the case, as I knew none of those people.)

And then I called my agent who I had just met through, you guessed it, a friend of … a distant cousin. She was very proud that she had been able to get me my first prime-time directing job.

Scott Ellis

Weeds, 30 Rock, The Closer

My first job came from David Lee, who created Frasier. He was a fan; we came from the same agency, and he knew my work in theatre. [Author’s note: Prior to this, Mr. Ellis had received multiple Tony nominations and had won a Drama Desk Award. Mr. Lee had probably seen Ellis’s New York productions of She Loves Me, Steel Pier, Picnic, 1776, and Company.] He asked to meet with me because, he said, “We’re always looking for people who really know how to work well with actors on our show.” We had lunch. He said, “Is this something you’re interested in?” I hadn’t really thought about it that much; I had thought about it, but getting your first shot was always tough. I said, “Sure.” And he said, “Why don’t you come out [from New York to Los Angeles]. You’ll be here for a week.” So I did. At the end of that week I said, “I think I can do this.” He was a great teacher. He gave me a shot. At the end he said, “Okay, I can give you the first one, but you’ll have to get the second one yourself.” He meant: if you don’t do a good job, they aren’t going to ask you back; you do, they probably will ask you back.

Henry Chan

Scrubs, 10 Things I Hate About You, Traffic Light

I was an editor on The Cosby Show. I won an Emmy and the producers, Carsey/Warner, really liked my work. There was going to be a spinoff called A Different World and I was invited to edit the new show. I accepted and told the producers I wanted to direct. I kept on badgering them until finally they said, “Okay, okay! Give him an episode.” I ended up directing five episodes.

Elodie Keene

The Wire, Glee, Hawaii 5-0

Way back in l975, the fact that I had a master’s degree in film production and had an award-winning film in the festival circuit meant very little to anyone—except possibly me—with regard to my potential as a film or television director. I had, however, developed the ability to edit film, so even though my announcement that I was a “director” met with resounding, echoing silence, if not outright hostility, the announcement that I was an editor got me jobs. For fifteen years, that is what I did.

By a very circuitous route, I made my way to the doorstep of a new show called, L.A. Law. During the second year of that show, which was an enormous hit, I won an Emmy for editing. The next year I was nominated for another Emmy for a TV movie I had cut called Roe vs. Wade. The commonly held conviction among editors was that this recognition would catapult my editing career into some new sphere of editing, possibly into bigger movies, made for television, or a feature. I kept cutting L.A. Law and waited for the phone to ring.

In the meantime I had married, had a beautiful daughter, bought a house, and was trying to “om” myself into being content with where I was in my life. Things could have been a lot worse, or so I told myself. If I never got to direct, so what? Everything else was pretty darned good, so let go, be happy!

Right around then, while shooting the breeze over lunch with Rick Wallace, the executive producer of L.A. Law, he asked me why, out of all the many people who were in his office every day, I had never asked to direct an episode. So stunned by the unexpected turn in the conversation I was that I barely stammered out all my lame reasons, all of which amounted to being afraid of rejection. He then said I needed to think hard about whether I had the courage to take the leap, because he would be willing to take the risk of hiring me as a first-time director. After getting over the shock of the whole thing, I said I would very much like the opportunity.

In subsequent conversations, Rick asked me if I would help him produce the show, so in l990, I became one of the producers of L.A. Law and I shot one episode toward the end of the season. By the time that show came to the end of its eight-year run, I was the co-executive producer and I had directed twenty episodes. That was the beginning of my pretty much nonstop, twenty-year directing career. I owe it all to Rick.

Joe Pennella

Life Goes On, Monk, Everwood

I was shooting a series in the late 1980s called Life Goes On; it went for four years and I went to the executive producer, Michael Braverman, in the third year and told him that I’d like to direct one. I had worked as a director/cameraman prior to that doing commercials, so it wasn’t going to be such a big jump; narrative filmmaking is like prose and commercials are like poetry. He said fine, and I got to direct the next-to-the-last-episode. It was a real challenge because it was a story that was told backward. And I went to Michael and said, “I think I can do this, but I’m overwhelmed.” He said, “Joe, this is it. If you want it, this is the one you have to do.” I did. And for that episode, Kellie Martin was nominated for an Emmy and Tony Graphia won the Writer’s Guild Award.

David Breckman

Monk, Pulled Over, Pic Six

As the frequent writer-on-set on the USA Network series Monk from 2002–2009, I had the privilege of watching a lot of outstanding directors in action. And “action” is the operative word because TV is low-budget filmmaking. You are required to shoot what amounts to half a feature in eight—occasionally even seven—days, so there’s no time to indulge in navel-gazing. It’s all go-go-go and you’d better have your kit packed when you arrive on set or you’re screwed.

For me, a longtime movie buff, it was a tremendous experience—like being paid to go to film school—and I very quickly caught the directing bug. In my downtime, I tried to apply what I’d learned on set by shooting a five-minute short called Pulled Over in 2005, and then another, a 17-minute magnum opus called Pic Six the following year.

I was proud of Pic Six. It nabbed some festival awards and made a good enough impression on our supervising director (the wonderful Randy Zisk) that he allowed me to direct my first Monk, “Mr. Monk and the Three Julies,” in 2007—which is all you can expect from a short film.

What I think I brought to the Monk party was an instinct for comedy: knowing what funny looks like and finding ways of enhancing it on the spot, as the occasion demands, and knowing when to hang back and do nothing—which can be just as valuable.

Two more Monk episodes followed, each one (I hope) better than the last, before Monk solved his final case in 2009.

Paris Barclay

In Treatment, Glee, Sons of Anarchy

After 12 years working as an advertising copywriter and eventually a creative supervisor, I was content to make money making ads. But after directing a few small spots, an opportunity arose to become a partner in a music video company. Masochistically missing my impoverished life as a struggling artist, I took it.

It was the dawn of the 1990s, and I directed music videos for the then-waning New Kids on the Block, the rising Harry Connick, Jr., the iconic Bob Dylan, and was celebrated largely for eight videos I made for LL Cool J, including “Mama Said Knock You Out” and “Jinglin’ Baby,” which were acknowledged with awards from MTV and Billboard. Fortunately, almost every video I did told some sort of narrative story, indicating that I might have promise in longer forms of film. My manager got a reel of my videos to John Wells, then a relatively new writer-producer, and he hired me to come to Chicago to direct a short-lived show he had created called Angel Street starring Robin Givens and Pam Gidley as homicide detectives.

The show was cancelled after six episodes were shot (I directed two of them), but I suddenly was a DGA member and had an advocate. And, as luck would have it, John’s next show was a juggernaut called ER, and he called me back up from the minors to direct.

Ricardo Mendez Matta

Thieves and Liars, The District, Touched by an Angel

There are basically only six ways to become a director:

1.  Hire yourself: either you personally raise the money to make a film, or you’re a producer or studio chief, but either way, you appoint yourself director.

2.  Writing: write a script that someone wants to make very badly, and insist on directing it.

3.  Acting: you’re a coveted star and in order to appear in their movie, you insist on directing it.

4.  Nepotism: get a powerful relative to hire you.

5.  Film school: direct a hot short film as part of a class.

6.  Below the line: work your way up as DP, AD, script supervisor, or editor and convince the producer(s) you can direct.

Number 6 worked for me. I was a 1st AD on the TV series Weird Science when the director I was prepping with, Max Tash, was suddenly called to do an MOW (movie-of-the-week.). He begged the producers—Tom Spezialy, Alan Cross, and Robert Lloyd Lewis—to let him go, and when they asked who would take over, he said, “Let him do it, he prepped it all with me and is totally ready to do it.” They agreed, partly because they had little other choice, but also partly because we had been working together for several years and I had earned their trust. I directed nine episodes of that series, but that was only the first step (getting a friend to hire you). The second step—getting a stranger to hire you on a new show—was harder, but at a DGA mixer, I was lucky enough to meet Carlton Cuse, who hired me on Nash Bridges. Talent and hard work are required, but the bottom line is without a lot of luck, none of it would have happened. They say you need to be at the right place at the right time. Well, no one knows when the right time is going to be, but you can figure out where the right place is, and stay there patiently until the right time comes.

Rob Bailey

CSI: NY, Grey’s Anatomy, Three Rivers, The Wire

My big break came when—after bombarding a producer to give me a shot on a show for about a year—he finally got a job somewhere else and agreed to hire me because he wouldn’t be around to deal with the consequences of his decision.

I had been fortunate to get into the National Film and Television School in England, which was a fantastic environment that encouraged students to have confidence in their own creativity and also to go out and watch other directors working in the professional world. So I graduated thinking the world lay at my feet. Two years later, I was back working in the construction business where I had been the day I first got into film school.

It was a frustrating time waiting for that first job, but I had other colleagues from film school who were in the same boat and some who had just started getting work, and I felt that sooner or later I would get a chance. I also knew how reluctant most producers were to take a shot on directors who had yet to prove themselves.

I was naïve enough to think that their main worry was that the director wouldn’t know how to tell the story. The truth came home to me at lunch on the first day; [we were] hours behind and did I have a plan to get us out by 7:00 p.m. and “make the day”? So I got to learn the most valuable lesson of all on day 1: come to the set prepared but also flexible.

Randall Zisk

Monk, Off the Map, House, Weeds, Grey’s Anatomy

I was in postproduction working my way up the ladder on an NBC show, Midnight Caller. The executive producer, Bob Singer, knew I wanted to direct because I mentioned it to him every day for about a year. One of my jobs was to shoot the inserts for each episode, usually something simple and easy that didn’t require actors. Finally, Bob Butler—one of the most respected pilot directors of all time—had an additional scene to shoot for his episode. The show filmed in San Francisco and our offices were in L.A. He couldn’t make the trip, nor could Bob Singer, so I got the chance. Bob Butler took out a piece of paper and drew a rudimentary storyboard for me and wrote out a quick shot list. He asked me if it made sense and I just looked at it, confused, and answered, “yes.” I studied that piece of paper for the next 24 hours, and the following day, with the help of the DP, directed the scene. I don’t remember it being particularly well done, but Bob Butler’s work on the episode was so special that it fit in without too much scrutiny.

The next season, I shadowed Bob Singer every opportunity I got, and when a director fell out of the lineup, I was called into his office. He told me to pack my bags: I was getting my shot to direct Midnight Caller. Bob was an amazing mentor and—along with Bob Butler and Les Moonves—he gave me an opportunity I’ll never forget.

Over the next five years, I directed eighteen episodes for Bob Singer on his various shows and just recently had the rare fortune of bringing him in to direct an episode of Monk.

Terrence O’Hara

NCIS, NCIS: LA, Lie To Me

The year was 1991, and my first network show was Silk Stalkings, starring Rob Estes and Mitzi Kapture. It was advertised on CBS as “crime time after prime time.” The producers were Stu Segall and Stephen J. Cannell. Up to that point in my career, I had done a few low-budget features and some commercial work after I had graduated from the two-year masters program at AFI. I received a call one day out of the blue that went something like this, “Hi, Stu Segall here, I just saw a tape of yours. I don’t remember what was on it, but I liked it!” That said, he asked if I would be interested in coming down to San Diego to do the show. Of course I said yes. I had a ball; I loved the idea of shooting a one-hour show in six days. I loved working with Stu and ended up doing both Silk and Renegade, another six-day show with lots of action, starring Lorenzo Lamas. It was like going back to film school—a wonderful camaraderie with both cast and crew. Because of my work on these, I was asked to do Dr. Quinn for CBS. The rest, as they say, is history. I’ve been working in television since and I absolutely love it.

Peter Tolan

Rescue Me, The Job, The Larry Sanders Show, Style and Substance

How did I get my first job directing TV? I hired myself on my own show. It’s easier that way.