Directors of neo-noir series find their expression in the City of Angels, where darkness is submerged in sunlight.

Although it's a prequel, the directors of Better Call Saul treat the series like its own animal, with no detail too small, and no situation too outrageous.

Recent TV Hall of Fame inductee Jay Sandrich emerged as a pioneering sitcom director, and he was generous in paying his knowledge forward.

In search of authenticity, the directors behind Succession jettison the glitz by deglamorizing its rarified settings and capturing performances on the fly.

For Alex Rudzinski, directing The Masked Singer is like working with a blindfold, but he and his team were hooked by "this beautiful riot of color and craziness."

Empire's directors discuss how they used music to enhance the show's mix of dynastic drama and a fanciful take on the recording biz.

Barry Sonnenfeld wove together disparate elements into a unified vision for the fanciful TV series A Series of Unfortunate Events.

With Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, director Richard Preuss and his team orchestrate and choreograph a show that gives new meaning to the term "multimedia."

Hamish Hamilton navigated uncharted waters for a broadcast of the reimagined Disney musical, blending live action with animation.

Late scripts affect everything from casting, editing and performances to overall cost and safety, and can make the difference between mere competence and genuine artistry.

As the Showtime series enters its final season, Lesli Linka Glatter and her directing team reflect on Homeland's global reach and the prescience of its storylines.

For the Starz series set in L.A.'s Boyle Heights, directors and producers keep it real.

Director Kim Gehrig is making waves in the commercial realm but doesn't want to be pigeonholed.

Directors behind the battle sequences in Game of Thrones talk tactics, scale and the escalating stakes of television's most epic water-cooler series.

Producer/directors seek a unifying vision without sacrificing artistic integrity.

Patrick McManus and his American Ninja Warrior team make sure they have every angle covered.

Director Morgan Sackett used a combination of in-camera and VFX techniques to bring multiple personalities within the same character to life.

For Rupert Sanders’ commercial for the Apple iPhone XR, the director mostly eschewed special effects to capture synchronized bodies in motion, and in camera.

Director Nora Gerard and her team work hard to give viewers of CBS News Sunday Morning the impression of a relaxed pace and a thoughtful mixture of soft features and hard news.

Director Glenn Weiss, in tackling the granddaddy of awards shows for the fourth consecutive year, exhibits nerves of steel.

For the lushly produced Chef's Table, directors David Gelb, Andrew Fried, Brian McGinn and Clay Jeter orchestrate a 'food symphony' of sights, sounds and psychology that sets it apart from kitchen competition shows.

Nikki Parsons, the director of the award-winning reality competition show So You Think You Can Dance, oversees the blistering pace required to produce the live show with preternatural calm.

No detail is too small for directors Alec Berg and Jamie Babbit in Silicon Valley's quest for authenticity.

Justin Simien uses cinematic language on Dear White People, which series directors find liberating.

Directors discuss finding the tricky balance between desperate drama and absurd humor on TV's latest wave of crime comedies .

Late-night talk shows are responding to a constantly shifting news cycle, and directors must think on their feet.

Commercial directors Grady Hall and Brett Froomer discuss whether six-second-long micro-commercials are a wave of the future or a passing fad.

Commercial director Alma Har’el on how she directed P&G's “Love Over Bias” spot for their Winter Olympics campaign.

Director Pamela Fryman was tasked with directing no less than six comedy pilots by the time the broadcasters’ upfronts start in May. Here's how she did it.

In their deceptively simple takes on the standup special, directors Liam Lynch, Shannon Hartman, Chris Robinson, Michael Bonfiglio, Stan Lathan and Jessica Yu approach their subjects from the inside out.

Directors Anthony Hemingway, Daniel J. Minahan and Lesli Linka Glatter walk the tightrope between reality and dramatic license with fact-based murder dramas.

The continuity of vision that a single-director approach can bring to a series is gaining steam—but it takes incredible stamina and resolve, according to directors Cary Fukunaga, Scott Frank, Pamela Adlon, Mary Harron.

Director James Burrows has been the sole director on Will and Grace from the very beginning, and continues to demonstrate on the reboot his ability to orchestrate with elegant economy.

As stage managers Gary Natoli, Garry Hood, John Esposito and Valdez Flagg navigate a set's innumerable moving parts, the clock is ticking and the pressure is on.

The Do's and Don'ts of Directing Musical Numbers in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

With The Looming Tower, directors Alex Gibney, Craig Zisk, Michael Slovis, John Dahl and Ali Selim retrace Al-Qaeda's path to 9/11

Event series directors Reed Morano, Ron Howard, Ryan Murphy, Gus Van Sant, and Jean-Marc Vallée discuss their creative visions.

In this Age of Anxiety, directors Alec Berg, Mark Cendrowski, Jonathan Krisel, Steve Levitan, Beth McCarthy-Miller, Melina Matsoukas and Ken Whittingham talk about the current state of TV comedy, which ranges from blatantly slapstick to uncomfortably anxious.

For This is Us, directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa aim for emotional catharsis while reining in the 'schmaltz'.

The new series from Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood, reflects the racial strife prevalent in today’s headlines.

Commercial director Craig Gillespie opts for nuance over broad strokes in Saatchi & Saatchi's Toyota campaign.

Four thirtysomething cast members—Timothy Busfield, Peter Horton, Melanie Mayron and Ken Olin—discuss how the landmark series shaped their careers as directors.

As pros Eytan Keller, Brian Smith and Paul Starkman attest, the action on cooking competition shows is frantic and the directing is far from cookie cutter.

Fresh Off the Boat directors relate to their characters' need to belong.

In the cover story of our newly redesigned DGA Quarterly, Directors Ava DuVernay, Hiro Murai, Steven Zaillian, Christine Gernon, Peter O'Fallon and Marcos Siega sound off on forging a series template for some of the most buzzed-about shows in the Platinum Age of Television, and why sometimes rules are meant for breaking.

It’s a thin line between reverence and parody for the directors of Documentary Now!

Directors bring comic book heroes to vivid life for television.

Tricia Brock’s directing career got off to a slow start, but once she knew what she wanted to do, she pursued it fiercely—on network, cable, and now, the Internet.

Although Roots was a massive hit and cultural milestone when it was first broadcast in 1977, the saga of an African-American family from slavery to modern times was ready for a more contemporary treatment by a new generation of directors.

Zetna Fuentes hadn’t exactly planned on becoming a director. She just followed her heart from daytime soaps to primetime dramas—with an assist from the Guild.

Not only does having a single director on a miniseries assure a unified vision, it can help the logistics of a complicated production. We asked five solo directors to describe their experience doing it all.

With the landscape of pilots evolving—from traditional to backdoor to the Internet—directors are dealing with new business and creative decisions. Here’s how a group of versatile pilot directors solved their problems.

Sandra Restrepo Considine has worked on live concerts, comedy acts, and variety specials. Now as director of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, she and her team have it all under one roof—every day.

Director Rosemary Rodriguez has excelled in directing all sorts of dramatic television, but where she really feels at home is on the set of her own films.

Greg Nicotero, Ernest R. Dickerson, & Michael E. Satrazemis on directing AMC's The Walking Dead.

Daniel Sackheim, John Dahl, & Kevin Dowling on directing FX's The Americans.

Trent O'Donnell, Fred Goss, & Jay Chandrasekhar on directing Fox's New Girl.

In putting together Saturday Night Live, one of television’s most iconic shows, director Don Roy King and his team have to deal with enormous changes at the last minute. Here’s what really goes on behind the scenes.

James Hayman, Oz Scott, & Leslie Libman on directing CBS' NCIS: New Orleans.

Breaking in as a first-time director in episodic television is never easy. It takes talent, persistence, and a helping hand. We interviewed some recent newcomers to see how they got started.

Brad Silberling, Edward Ornelas, & Uta Briesewitz on directing The CW's Jane the Virgin.

Karen Gaviola learned her craft as an AD and has now directed almost 100 TV episodes. For her, it’s all about exercising different muscles.

Director-producer John Polson and his crack team of directors help Sherlock Holmes and a female Watson solve cerebral mysteries in modern-day New York. It may be Elementary, but it’s never simple.

With the 13th-century adventures of Marco Polo, a skilled group of directors gets a chance to make the kind of grand-scale epic rarely seen today. But not for theaters—it’s for Netflix.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine ADs Tony Nahar and Kenny Roth and their team keep the set relaxed and ready to go. They might even make the show funnier.

The popular Netflix series Orange Is the New Black challenges directors with a large ensemble cast, nude scenes, stunts, child actors, and even insects. It may be hard work, but it’s never dull.

With rapid-fire dialogue and complex visual schemes, The Newsroom was no easy assignment for director-producer Alan Poul and his team of directors. But no matter how big the stories, it's always about the characters.

Dealing with more moving parts than almost any show on TV, the directorial team on The Voice captures life-changing moments as competitors discover their true voice.

Director-producer Joe Chappelle and a fine-tuned directorial team balance some of the biggest, most daring visual effects on TV with everyday human drama on Chicago Fire — and all this in the dead of winter.

Suzanne Smith is the only woman directing pro football and NCAA basketball. She credits DGA mentors with helping her to reach her goal.

In directing some of the most acclaimed commercials in recent years, Lance Acord goes for a casual feel that's anything but easy to achieve.

As characters drop like flies in the hit TV series The Following, director-producer Marcos Siega and his team create an authentically tense and scary atmosphere. Even the blood is directed.

In an extraordinarily creative environment, director-producer Tim Van Patten and a team of highly skilled veteran directors recreate the glamorous, seedy and seductive world of Prohibition-era America in Boardwalk Empire.

Bob Fishman, assisted by a small army of associate directors, has been directing the U.S. Tennis Open for years. But with an impeccable eye for intimate details, he’s still searching for great emotional moments.

In sitcoms as in science, timing is everything. On The Big Bang Theory, director Mark Cendrowski carefully calculates how to make the jokes work—and has fun doing it.

Executive producer-director Brooke Kennedy and her team of directors smoothly manage to find the sly humor and elegant look of The Good Wife. That’s what makes it more than just another legal drama.

Jay Sandrich modestly credits quality scripts and talented casts for the success of such beloved TV series as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Cosby Show and Soap. But it took a great director to put all the pieces together.

House of Cards is Netflix's first original series. But the real difference is that David Fincher and a team of five directors are calling the shots.

Most people in the industry agree the number of female directors in episodic TV is appalling. We asked showrunners, network executives and DGA members to weigh in on how to solve the problem.

Amidst the indescribable damage of Hurricane Sandy, local news directors had to be the calm in the eye of the storm. The stories they broadcast bore witness to the tragic events.

Jean de Segonzac and a host of directors have kept Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fresh, fast-paced and inventive for 14 seasons. It may be familiar but it’s never routine.

With handheld cameras and a subjective style that gets under your skin, Michael Cuesta has turned Homeland’s cat and mouse game into a suspense-filled ride. Voyeurism never looked so good.

Even in an election year, with more details, graphics and odd characters to worry about, The Colbert Report's director Jim Hoskinson never misses a beat.

CBS News director Eric Shapiro has been covering big political events for 40 years, none bigger than this years national conventions.

Battling "wesen" and solving mysteries in the wilds of Portland, may not be for everyone. But in Grimm, director/producer Norberto Barba makes it look easy.

The coverage of the Olympic Games will feature more hours on more platforms than ever before. Here's how Bucky Gunts and other top sports directors in the world capture the action.

With a distinctive visual style and lots of locations, Breaking Bad is a challenging show for directors. Fortunately, a great team is in place to help them.

As an active episodic TV director going from show to show, Millicent Shelton has a sometimes crazy schedule. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

Working at a breakneck pace and with creative solutions, directors have made the everyday humor and documentary style of Modern Family seem like real life—only funnier.

With hundreds of extras, elaborate stunts, and numerous locations, the directorial team on the cop show Blue Bloods has plenty to think about. Making sure the subway is running on time is the easy part.

Since 1984, commercials have been as much a part of the Super Bowl as the football game itself—and sometimes better. But few of the millions of viewers realize that behind all the great ads are directors doing their most creative work.

Produced by the same company, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune are two of the longest-running hits on TV. The challenge for its directors—Kevin McCarthy and Mark Corwin—is keeping it fresh and entertaining.

Directors bring a unique set of skills to reality TV in an attempt to capture the magic of the moment.

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, families will gather for food and — in many cases — a little televised football. From the first primitive broadcast in 1939 to the Super Bowl and Skycams, directors have helped invent football on TV. Please enjoy this story from the DGA Quarterly archives about how they bring the action to viewers at home.

Morning news shows are increasingly a challenge for the director's team.

Two directors--Tom Cherones and Andy Ackerman--helped make Seinfeld one of the most influential shows of time.

Greg Yaitanes has directed 30 episodes of House, M.D., more than anyone else. Along the way he has streamlined shooting and coming up with creative solutions to production problems--right up until what might be his last show.

Before Hill Street Blues arrived in 1981, cop shows were tame by comparison. Using a realistic, in-your-face style, the directors helped pioneer a look and feel that has inspired countless crime series.

Gary Goldman has been the 1st AD on Entourage since the TV series started. We asked him to keep a diary for the last show of season seven.

How do you incinerate a vampire at sunrise, and twist a head 180 degrees? These and more otherworldly challenges are met head on by directors on the gothic TV series True Blood.

With its single-camera sensibility on a multi-camera show, How I Met Your Mother has tons of moving parts. Director Pamela Fryman relies on her talented team to help her put all the pieces together.

The American version of the popular Japanese series, Iron Chef, actually makes a spectator sport out of cooking.

Directors and their teams on Friday Night Lights find some novel solutions for shooting at a breakneck pace.

UPMs and location managers cover the waterfront—and every other part of New York City—to find unique sites for the three long-running Law & Order series. The trick is keeping it fresh and not tripping over each other.

Child actors working on TV comedies just want to have fun. It's the 1st and 2nd ADs who make sure they get the job done.

The Quarterly brings together six of the most accomplished sitcom directors to discuss the creative and commercial side of making funny shows.

After years of working on the Late Show, Jerry Foley and his team instinctively understand David Letterman's quirky humor. And it's a good thing they do.

Facing budget cuts, stage manager Francesca Bellini De Simone and the directorial team of Days Of Our Lives continue to churn out a quality product at breakneck speed.

Capturing the intense emotion but limited movement of therapy sessions in HBO's In Treatment presents a challenge to the show's directors. Here's how they solve it.

Directors who helped revolutionize the advertising industry in the '60s with iconic commercials look back at their times and what they created.

Tony Croll and his team capture the hectic life of America's Next Top Model where anything can happen next—and usually does.

The Beijing Olympics was the most watched event in U.S. TV history. Here's how the directors captured the drama of competition with split-second decisions.

With all that's going on in The Daily Show any given day, it's a wonder the set is so calm. In part, that's because Chuck O'Neil and his team keep everything running on schedule.

With the booming market for TV movies for teens and tweens, more and more directors are learning the secrets of working with young actors. A few of the leading practitioners share their experience on the set.

Joe Sargent has been making masterful movies for TV for over 40 years. But his latest film, Sweet Nothing in My Ear, about issues in the deaf community, took even him by surprise.

Thanks to CGI and new technology, anything is possible for commercial directors, who are making the most exciting 30-second films around.

Director Louis J. Horvitz and his team have been working on the Oscars for more than a decade, and it's still a challenge balancing all the crazy things that can happen.

Local news directors at stations around the country swap war stories and share their experiences dealing with the unexpected.

With the demand for higher quality programming, more and more TV directors are becoming producer/directors. And the studios like what they see.

Inside a production truck deep in the bowels of the Staples Center, director Jimmy Moore calls the shots that bring the NBA playoffs into your living room with startling clarity.

The director's team on the daytime drama One Life to Live helps churn out an amazing six shows a week and shoot 140 pages a day.

Directing a network morning news show is not for the faint of heart. For one thing, you have to get up in the middle of the night.

As David Chase's 80-hour tale of crime and punishment comes to its grand finale, we look at the contribution of its unsung heroes-the directors.

Directors on live variety shows like American Idol have to think on their feet to capture the spontaneous action - and unexpected gifts - of non-pro performers.

With TV getting bigger, better and more competitive, pilot directors have a lot at stake.

Associate directors and stage managers working on shows like the Oscars and Grammys may have the most nerve-wracking job in the business.

Directors past and present talk about the experience of working the Olympic Games and how they captured the action.

It's not just about balancing books. UPMs on one-hour episodic television have to be nimble balancing a multitude of duties. And the job's not getting easier.

Some of the most memorable films of the last four decades haven't been in theaters-they've been on television. It's about time the directors who made them got their due.

Reality shows are visually and logistically complex and require dozens of cameras. To incorporate all that takes forethought and planning; basically, it takes a director.

The 13-episode season of American Family, an entire 75-day television shoot (intentionally scheduled like a film production), was shot using a 24P HD three-camera setup.

James Signorelli, who directs SNL's film and commercial parodies, and Beth McCarthy-Miller, who directs the live segments, discuss the challenges and pleasures of putting together 90 minutes of comedy a week.

The daytime drama has proven to be one of the most popular and enduring forms of entertainment since its inception nearly six decades ago with many technological advancements that have impacted how these shows are made.

This year will mark the 40th birthday of the Movie of the Week (MOW) and, not surprisingly, the event will prompt something of a midlife crisis.

Few television shows enter the public awareness as brazenly as HBO's The Sopranos. Directors Timothy M. Van Patten, Henry Bronchtein and John Patterson discuss their experiences on the show.

The directors of Sex and the City, in its sixth and final season, bare all.

The verdict is in on Judging Amy, and the show is guilty — of being a television show that treats the issue of on-time script delivery as a serious mandate.

Many cinematographers said it was impossible to film multi-camera before a live audience. It just couldn't be done. But that was not a phrase in Desi Arnaz' vocabulary.

This HBO hit has brought the concept of working without a script into the TV mainstream, transforming its creator and star Larry David from the man behind the genius of Seinfeld to the butt of every self-inflicted joke on camera in Curb.