"We had this big, square bar at the center, which made the set seem smaller because it was a huge set. I wanted this place to look as good as a bar could look. We wanted people even in areas where drinking was frowned on to want to come to this bar because it wasn’t about the booze. It was about the camaraderie. The show could have never happened without my two partners, the Charles brothers. We were doing this show on our own, so it was our baby, and it was an experience I’ll never forget. Cheers was all our ideas, all of our love, all our humanity poured into the show. It’s still my favorite show I’ve ever done."
Although Frasier was set in Seattle, only one episode—the 100th—was actually shot there. Here Lee prepares a scene at the Pike Place Market. "Directing Frasier was a dream. A genial crew, a cast who by sheer force of unbridled talent made the brilliant look easy, and writers who never settled for just OK. Even if something was improved during rehearsal everyone held to the annoying maxim: ‘Better is not necessarily good,’ and dug in and kicked it up another notch. Plus I got to laugh a lot at work."
Chulack directed 43 episodes of ER from 1995 to 2008. "In this episode, 'Time of Death,' the experience of dying was shown through the eyes of a guest star for the first time in the show’s history. We typically examined death from the perspective of the doctors and hospital staff members. Telling the story of the last moments of life from the subjective point of view of a dying person was unique and compelling."
"NYPD Blue changed everything for me. It was a show that fascinated me right from Greg Hoblit’s pilot. Somehow I knew I could do well in this world. So without a lot of episodes under my belt, fortune smiles and I’m suddenly working with David Milch and Steven Bochco and shown the ropes by Mark Tinker and Michael Robin. I come to the stage the most grateful man in Hollywood. The next year, I’m given the opportunity to preside over the passing of Bobby Simone [Jimmy Smits] and win the DGA Award, and suddenly—I have a career."
"There was a moment on The West Wing when we were exhausted and airing our complaints. Brad Whitford interrupted with a powerful statement: 'You know, this show will be the first line of all of our obits.' He was right. It was truly a game changer in my career. I had spent many years dealing with comedy producers and writers who were worried I would make their show too dramatic, and drama producers and writers worried I would make their show too comedic. Finally, there was a show and most importantly a writer, Aaron Sorkin, whose sensibility felt so in sync with mine."
Ball said he set Six Feet Under, about a family-owned mortuary, in Los Angeles and crammed in as many palm trees as possible because "L.A. is the capital of everything in our culture that is a denial of death." He won a DGA Award for the pilot, which he shot in 13 days. He was anxious because he had never directed for television before. "I think if you pick the right people—cast, writers, department heads, etc.—and trust their talents, the best thing you can do as a director is to get out of their way."
Patterson directed 13 episodes of The Sopranos, exuding a Zen-like calm behind the camera. His colleague on the show, director Timothy Van Patten, once said of Patterson: "He directed without any anxiety whatsoever. He was instinctual, very finely attuned to the stories and performances. If, on the spot, he was pressed for time, six shots could become one shot at a moment’s notice." A veteran TV director, Patterson reunited on The Sopranos with his Stanford roommate David Chase, the show's creator. When Patterson died in 2005, Chase commented, "John was subtle and expert in every way. They called him ‘the Dutch master,' even though he wasn’t Dutch."
Van Patten working with the ladies who lunch, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis, on Sex and the City. Having directed such shows as The Sopranos, Van Patten says, "Sex and the City was such a nice departure from the usual stabbing, shooting, kicking, choking and general pummeling I was used to after so many years of work in drama."
"I worked on 24 as a director/producer for six of its eight year run and directed 58 episodes, and it never once felt the same. It was an incredibly challenging show that virtually changed its cast and main location at the start of each season. An actor described it as a fast moving train that you had to jump on with no hesitation or you’d be left behind. The talented cast that we had every year was what I loved the most about working on the show. Kiefer Sutherland set a bar that was so high, you had to be at a 110 percent just to keep up."
"Since I began directing Mad Men in season one, every time I would be sent a script, I would feel like the luckiest person around. But when I first read 'Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency,' I panicked! A John Deere lawn mower comes into the middle of a party, wreaks havoc, and runs over an ad executive’s foot—either this would be a complete fiasco or an amazing challenge to pull off. But what’s more exciting than living on the razor's edge? We shot the lawn mower sequence in one day—over 70 setups. From blood splattering on executives eating white cake, to applying the nasty looking shoe (complete with gnarled toes, rigged to have blood gushing out of it), to only having one shot at the tractor shattering a glass wall—thank goodness it all worked! It was exhilarating."
"We had this big, square bar at the center, which made the set seem smaller because it was a huge set. I wanted this place to look as good as a bar could look. We wanted people even in areas where drinking was frowned on to want to come to this bar because it wasn’t about the booze. It was about the camaraderie. The show could have never happened without my two partners, the Charles brothers. We were doing this show on our own, so it was our baby, and it was an experience I’ll never forget. Cheers was all our ideas, all of our love, all our humanity poured into the show. It’s still my favorite show I’ve ever done."