On May 22, DGA members living in the United Kingdom were treated to a special event, An Evening with DGA President Paris Barclay: The 19 Secrets to Success in Television. Hosted by the Guild’s London Coordinating Committee (LCC), the evening at the Soho Hotel in London featured a discussion focused on a Director’s path to success in the ever-changing world of episodic television.
Following a reception and a welcome from LCC Co-Chair Jim Gillespie, Barclay screened a scene he had directed for NYPD Blue. Then he broke down the shooting of that scene in an in depth conversation moderated by Director/LCC member Susanna White (Billions, Parade's End). After the moderated portion of the discussion, Barclay took questions from the audience and gave the presentation The 19 Secrets to Success in Television, where he shared insights, both practical and philosophical, about what he has learned and used over his many years of directing episodic television.
A DGA member since 1992, Barclay has directed more than 150 episodes of television, including: Pitch, The Bastard Executioner, Sons of Anarchy, and ER to name but a few. His work has been recognized with 10 DGA Award nominations. He became the first Director in the history of the Guild to receive a comedy and a drama nomination in the same year, two years in a row (In Treatment and Weeds in 2008; In Treatment and Glee in 2009). He won the 1998 DGA Dramatic Series Award for his NYPD Blue episode “Heart and Souls.”
Barclay’s deep history of service to the Guild began as a member of the African American Steering Committee in 1993. He joined the Western Directors Council in 1997 as an alternate, was elected a full Council member in 1999 and has served on the Council for nearly two decades. Elected to his first term as DGA President in 2013 and subsequently re-elected by acclaim to that post in 2015. Barclay also served four terms on the National Board as First Vice-President, beginning in 2005, and served an additional three terms as Third Vice-President from 1999 to 2005. He was honored with the DGA Robert B. Aldrich Achievement Award in 2007.
About the Committee
The London Coordinating Committee (LCC) was established in 2007 by the DGA National Board, which recognized the need to create a coordinating committee in the same way it already has with similarly sized populations of Guild members in San Francisco and Chicago. Alongside Co-Chairs Michael Caton-Jones and Jim Gillespie, the LCC’s members include Directors SJ Clarkson, Coky Giedroyc, Tom Hooper , Richard Loncraine, Roger H. Michell, Mike Newell, Chris J. Newman, Jim Sheridan, Matthew Vaughn, Richard Whelan, Susanna White, Stephen Woolfenden, and David Yates.