What?!! This Column!??: Issue #50
Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz on 03.26.2007
TV Directors Get No Respect
Hugh Laurie, star of the Fox network hot doctor program "House," recently said at the Screen Actors Guild Awards show (and I'm paraphrasing from memory here) "American television is at its zenith." The audience applauded. But they didn't applaud in that typical polite awards show way, they applauded as though Laurie and the whole artistic world had just proclaimed the former monster of "old" TV, "medicority," vanquished. In fact, TV was now as good as the movie world (because, as we all know, the movie world is the top of the entertainment food chain). I don't really agree with that. It seems to me that, on the whole, the television of today isn't all that different from any other era of television. Oh, sure, there's more nudity now, swearing, there's a multitude of cable stations competing with the old networks for an ever shrinking share of specialized audience so that means networks are "taking more chances," but I don't really see an overall increase in "quality." There are still plenty of good show, plenty of great shows, and plenty of shows that are completely awful. I will say, though, that there's slightly more "star quality" on television these days (but that judgement, too, is probably wrong because, as television goes, there's always been a certain level of star quality involved. Perhaps the better thing to say is there are more "movie stars" today doing TV shows). People you never thought you'd see doing a regular TV show, either in an ongoing guest star capacity or as the star of an ongoing show, include James Woods ("Shark"), Forrest Whitaker ("The Shield," "ER"), Sally Field ("Brothers & Sisters," although in her case she's been trying to get a TV show up and running for years), Salma Hayek ("Ugly Betty"), and Lucy Lui ("Ugly Betty"), among others.
Heck, even David Mamet is doing a TV show ("The Unit"). David Mamet, people. So TV must be cool for writers, too. Aaron Sorkin, while his new show "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" is dying a slow painful ratings death still has a bit of critical cache, and the worst show on NBC (and a leading contender for the worst show of the year on any network) "The Black Donnellys" has Oscar winner Paul Haggis heavily involved. Josh Whedon got "big" from doing recent television and he'll probably go back to it since "Serenity" died at the box office and "Wonder Woman" isn't happening with him at the helm. So writers are doing well, too.
And then there are directors. Quentin Tarantino did a two hour episode of "CSI" not that long ago that caused people to have a heart attack (not the episode, but the fact that he, Tarantino, was directing a TV show. He had dirtected an episode of "ER" in the 1990's, but so what?), Frank Darabont recently directed the pilot for "Raines," and John Landis directed an episode of the USA show "Psych." Actors who want to direct are also getting a bit of attention in the big TV boom. Paul McCrane, of "ER" and now "24" fame, has directed a slew of episodic TV. Tim Matheson has helmed a bunch of TV shows. Miguel Ferrer has directed a few episodes of his own show "Crossing Jordan." And, hey, the whole premise of the Showtime horror anthology series, "Masters of Horror," is to have feature film directors direct for television. We'll probably see plenty of other actors and movie directors involved in television this year and next.
So TV is big. Super big. It's the water cooler talk of the moment. Everyone wants to get involved because the rewards are that big at the end. It's on the front of the enterainment magazines, on all of the entertainment shows, front and center. But have you noticed how certain people seem to be left out of the celebratory hooha, that there's a segment of the TV world that isn't sharing in the fun and adulation?
Regular TV directors. People who pretty much only do TV shows. People who move from show to show, doing an episode of "The Unit" here, an episode of "Brothers & Sisters" there, maybe doing an episode of "Close to Home." They've never done a feature film, or maybe they did a B-movie or a something years and years ago and decided that they don't want to work "like that" anymore. Every article I've read in TV Guide that features a photograph of a star talking with a director, every behind the scenes show I've seen featuring on the set footage of actors working with directors usually only mentions the star by name. I don't think I've ever seen an article in a magazine or on the internets featuring a TV director who is just a TV director talking about directing for TV. When the Emmys and other awards shows have the "Best directing for..." categories, the winners come up on stage to accept their awards with the same level of general audience enthusiasm as the "Best Costume Design" winners at the Oscars. And I don't think I've ever seen an internets shrine for a TV director, I don't think I've ever seen someone thanking a TV director for a great show or even a great job. So why aren't these people getting the respect they deserve since they're a big part of the TV boom?
I don't know. My guess is that, even with the boom in "widescreen" television, people in general still only see TV directors as visionless cast wranglers whose only job is to make sure that everything that's supposed to be filmed gets filmed. Beyond that, their creative input is non-existent. Now, when a movie director does TV there is talk of "vision" and how it's different on the small screen, what changes have to be made in order to get what he or she needs. Remember what several people said about James Cameron when he directed the two hour series finale of his Fox TV show "Dark Angel"? People said that Cameron was busy worrying about framing details and other stuff that had nothing to do with how a TV show is shot. Cameron was "wasting time."
Which then makes me wonder why more TV directors aren't offered feature films to direct. Movie producers are often complaining about how long movies take, how expensive they are, and how risky they can be in terms of expense. George Lucas has said that he doesn't want to do feature films anymore because of the cost, that he'd rather spend two hundred million dollars developing TV several different TV shows instead of just one movie. And if TV directors, who usually (from what I've read) have to film a one hour show over ten days for a miniscule amount of money, why aren't their skills being sought for theatre released movies? If they can get a show done that quickly, on or close to budget, you'd think that producers would be beating down the doors of TV directors everywhere. But for some reason music video directors, who also do TV shows but you never hear about that, get the call from movie producers. I don't understand why. People have been complaining about the whole quick cut music video thing for years now, how that whole directing idea has gotten annoying. And, at best, music videos are, what, ten minutes in long form? While a TV show is an actual drama that has to movie between characters and plot and come to a finish and, to a degree, be visually interesting. You'd think that the decision and the new creative wave would be clear. Bring in the TV guys.
So, will movie producers the world over bring in TV guys to make movies?
I don't know. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
***
Andy Richter's new sitcom "Andy Barker P.I" is a riot. The idea of an accountant being mistaken for a private investigator and then that accountant going out to solve crimes could have been a sort of one show/SNL skit good idea that dies in the second episode. So far, with two episodes shown on television, it's been a hoot. The same cannot be said for the ABC show "October Road," which is now actively competing with NBC'S "The Black Donnellys" for the title of worst show on television. "OR" is a pretentious borefest filled with all kinds of lame hip and edgy crap that for some reason TV writers and producers and networks love to spew out every year in a fruitless attempt to be "award" worthy. The show is also yet another whiny female love show where the whiny female in question is actually a guy, a novelist suffering writer's block who goes back to his small hometown to teach a one day course at the local college, only to suffer a nervous breakdown and then decide to hang around so he can recconect with all of the people in town who think he's made fun of them in his novel. Now, the problems here are many. First, writers as central characters are hard to pull off because writers, as people in general, are incredibly boring. Writers write. Oh, sure, they go to wine parties and hang out with the rich and famous and are filled with all kinds of alcohol created angst and whatever else, but what writers actually do is just not that dramatic. So, if we don't see this guy actually attempt to write something at some point I'm going to have to say that he being a writer is pointless. Second, I don't believe for one second that anyone in that town has read this guy's novel. Even if the novel was a huge hit I still don't think any of them would have read it. Third, wouldn't it have been more interesting if the writer character suffering a block, played by Bryan "I didn't want to a TV show because I wanted to keep my indie credibility but then decided to do the show because I was told that the show was going to be like a mini independent movie every week" Greenberg, was the one that actually initiated the whole "going back to my hometown" thing? Think of Albert Brooks in "Mother." He just didn't show up one day and decide he was going to stay with his mother in his old room to try to figure out what was wrong with his life, he decided to take that action and do it. So why isn't that happening here? Fourth, Greenberg's character's agent character. If I hear that guy say one more time "It's in diapers" I'm going to electrocute myself. Or I'm going to pray that the guy, in a future episode, gets hit by a dump truck. And fifth, Laura "Donna Pinciotti" Prepon is incredibly boring here as the whiny female with issues. Do we really need another rail thin hip and edgy gloomy female character that gets to go through all kinds of love angst set to incredibly awful whiny alternative soft slow rock? The most interesting character on the show, simply be being there, is Tom Berenger. Why hasn't Tom been given his own show? If the great Treat Williams can keep getting series deals, why can't Tom get at least one? He was the first "Substitute."
***
There was an interesting article in this past Saturday's New York Times entertainment section regarding the Federal Trade Commission's new push to regulate how "harmful" violent entertainment is advertised to children. I'm interested to know what everyone thinks about this as the censors in this case aren't talking about so much banning violent movies (horror movies, action movies, science fiction movies with loads of bloody special effects) as banning advertising of those movies. I haven't heard any of the major studios proclaiming that they have first ammendment rights that need to be protected and whatnot. Is this something the movie world is going to have to accept? Do you think anyone is going to see this as a boon since they won't have to spend as much on advertising? Interesting to know.
***
Well, here it is, issue fifty. I didn't think I'd last this long, nor did I think I would be able to actually get a column in every week without fail. I know I've slacked off a bit in the movie review department (only slightly) and in the DVD department (I apologize), but hopefully that will turn itself around soon enough. I want to thank Ashish and Leonard for allowing me to still do this, to hang around on the internets and be as big a nerd as I can be. That's what we're all here for, right? So, here's to at least twenty-five more of these "What?!! This Column!??" issues, when I'll likely mention this all again. Oh, and the One Year Anniversary, issue #52, is coming up. I have no idea what that'll entail but, hey, it'll mean that I've been doing this for a year. So, again, here's to a bunch more of this, and I hope that those of you who have read, sent mail, and read and sent mail, have enjoyed reading this column every week. It's been my pleasure.
Oh, and that movie I asked about last week, "Be there! Huh..huh, yeah," is from "UHF." Stanley Spadowski said it.
