Directing and Producing for Television, 4th Edition

chapter one

Introduction

The most important thing about being a director is having a job.

—Eric Von Stroheim

I begin this book with Von Stroheim’s quotation because I once heard that the first thing you read is the thing that sticks with you the most.

THE DIRECTOR/PRODUCER’S JOB

In order to get and hold jobs, you will surely have to get along with others. We do not work alone. Directing is an interpretive rather than a creative art. Writers, painters, composers, sculptors, and architects are all creative artists. Creative artists work alone. They work alone on a blank screen, a blank piece of paper, a canvas, with clay, carving out a hillside … whatever. If they are composers, ultimately they’ll need musicians to make the music happen. In the ...