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> Looking at the imdb page this seems like a corporate driven project rather than a creator driven project with lots of different directors that haven’t don’t a
by jowday 4y ago
> Looking at the imdb page this seems like a corporate driven project rather than a creator driven project with lots of different directors that haven’t don’t anything remarkable and seem to have just done other Amazon shows.
With the exception of, say, the first season of True Detective, most TV shows use multiple directors. The director on a TV show is usually in charge of the technical execution of the writers script - they’re not making many creative decisions the way a movie director does. The creative authority on a TV show generally rests on the lead writer(s), not the directors. When people talk about the Sopranos, they talk about David Chase; Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan. And in both of those cases they had teams of writers under them who would write different episodes. This didn’t stop those shows from having a strong auteur-driven vision.
In the case of the LotR show, the lead writers are JD Payne and Patrick McKay. I think they’re passionate about Tolkien from what I’ve read. Look them up if you want to know more.
- jollybean 4y agoIn TV 'Mr. Big' is usually the 'Showrunner'. Basically the original creators. It's like a form of creative production and management. For film, the Director is often kind of the version of 'Showrunner'. If the director was the one doing the pitching, raising the money - they they are that. If it's a big IP asset, like Star Treck, then it's different, sometimes a team effort. Like Kathleen Kennedy is the 'Big Honcho' for Star Wars and will have absolutely the 'last word' on everything, directors may not. Directors may have to negotiate their degree of freedom and may really want to avoid those situations where they are 'not in control', and will be forced to 'take notes'. So 'director', depending on the type of show, does not have to be the most critical thing, it really depends. Something that's heavily dependent on the quality of the acting, probably the director will matter a lot. A perfunctory serial, a bit less. For something so fundamentally institutionalized, like 'The Big Bang Theory' I'll bet you could remove almost any single person, and the gap would be filled in by the others who are all professionals. Like literally a child could direct an episode, because everyone would know 'what to do'. But yeah, it helps to have a 'core creative team' that has track record of resonance, this way, you have an idea of what you will get. Cohen Brothers, Villeneuve, Tom Cruise Inc., they use a lot of the same people. So you have less risk.
- jowday 4y agoSure - the MCU uses a lot of TV directors for example - since it functions more like a TV show than a auteur-driven series of films.
- asdajksah2123 4y agoAnd because it's a lot cheaper.
- jollybean 4y agoThe creative elements in MCU films are (mostly) not director-driven, they are franchise-driven. You need a 'good' director and a 'good' script, with 'good' and 'famous' actors, from there, so long as the creative leads are professional and the budget is there, you're good. I believe that DC suffers from bad creative direction and bad scripts. Most of the rest is workable. Star Wars suffers from bad stories/scripts and Kathleen Kennedy interference politics.
- deelowe 4y agoAm I the only one struggling to understand this? Are 'Mr. Big' and 'Showrunner' references to something specific? Why are these terms in quotes?
- jowday 4y agoHe’s putting those in quotes because they’re generally not formal positions that are explicitly credited, but are informal phrases referring to whoever has final creative control over a series.
- philistine 4y agoActually, you could say we're in the middle of a transition. All the Marvel shows have used one director for the whole season of their shows, and they're not the only ones to have moved on to this format. As for OP's point, with the series' budget so high, a gun-for-hire TV director might not be accoustemed to the staggering budget they have to manage.
- tptacek 4y agoNot one of the Marvel Shows would break any reasonable TV top 10. The "1-2 showrunners, a writers room, and a rotating cast of directors" model is unimpeachably successful; it got us Breaking Bad, The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Americans, and Mad Men, among many others.
- kevinmchugh 4y agoAtlanta and Barry both have small director pools, being mostly Hiro Murai and the series star/creator. Even those benefit from being able to switch for tonal benefit. To some extent I think Louie set the precedent there, as CK was given complete creative control. Comedians were asking for "the Louis deal". Glover (and Ansari) seemed to get it, and both had the sense to hire other talented people. Louie (the show) suffers from its self-indulgence to the point it can't be rated that highly, where Atlanta maybe mostly avoids that fate.
- tptacek 4y agoBarry has something like 11 writers, and 6 directors, though Berg and Hader direct most of them. Arguably, writing in TV shows is more (or at least equally as) important than direction.
- ethbr0 4y agoAlso, say, things coming out of the other end of Disney: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mandalorian#Episodes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mandalorian#Episodes
- oneoff786 4y ago
- odessacubbage 4y agoi would argue that in many cases, having multiple directors is actually one of the great benefits of television and even within the constraints of a show, they still have considerable freedom to define the tone. tv is also a great format for relative unknowns to find their voice. steven spielberg was an 'unremarkable' tv director until he worked on Columbo and his episode- The Perfect Murder was a breakthrough that still stands apart to this day. similarly, put together any two episodes of the x files and the range is pretty incredible, Grotesque and Jose Chung's From Outer Space are only a few episodes apart and they might as well be entirely different shows.