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.
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.
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."
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.
Director Kim Gehrig is making waves in the commercial realm but doesn't want to be pigeonholed.
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.
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.
With The Looming Tower, directors Alex Gibney, Craig Zisk, Michael Slovis, John Dahl and Ali Selim retrace Al-Qaeda's path to 9/11
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.