Why some TV Series have different directors for each episode instead of just one for the entire series? Isn’t it just one screenplay?
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Each episode has it’s own screenplay. There have been a few series that had the same director all the time but that would be exhausting for the director.
directors are not as important for television shows compared to movies. each episode is essentially its own play…..the writers and actors keep the show cohesive from one episode to the next
quality expectations of series has risen to par with movies so for that director has to put equal efforts as movie director. a movie is 2-3 hour and series has much longer screen time so having multiple directors makes it easy.
some times they do it so they can shoot at multiple places simultaneously.
Each episode has its own script, and episodes are shot back to back. Directors are responsible for overseeing the entire production of a TV episode from pre-production, to shooting, to post-production.
When you have a TV show that’s pumping out 20+ episodes per season, you need to be working on more than one episode at the same time. So in a given week, you might have be filming episode 5, but you’ll also be doing pre-production (scouting locations, selecting props and wardrobe, preparing sets, etc) for episode 6, and doing post-production (editing, reshoots, ADR, etc) for episode 4. Each of those episodes might have a different director that’s doing those different jobs at the same time.
Episodes will usually overlap in pre- and post- production. So say episode 2 is filming while episode 1 is being edited and episode 3 is being prepped for shooting.
A director will usually take a single episode through the whole process from start to finish. One person directing a whole series (which isn’t unheard of) would have multiple simultaneous episodes in different stages, which is a lot for one person.
TV shows tend to be formulaic, so the direction is a lot less critical. It is similar episode to episode, it is why a lot of actors get director credits for shows they act in; it is seen as a way to get OJT in directing so they might have a career off camera after the show wraps.
TV shows will typically have a set of veteran directors the showrunners can call on to do the day in and day out work and bring in guest directors if it is a special episode or arc. For character development ‘bottle’ episodes, you can use less experienced directors because the actors and camera crews and everyone basically know what to do. It is a matter of getting an excellent script to make it memorable.
For lower episode count streaming series, the ‘prestige’ TV as it were, they tend to have fewer directors. *Andor* had three directors for a 12 episode arc. Since a series like that is similar to one long movie, the direction is more important because it isn’t formulaic, and you need more than one because having one director for a 12 episode release would add a bunch of development time to the series that is essentially unnecessary.
Whereas in film the Director runs the show, TV is the realm of the writer. The Showrunner is the creator and typically the head writer unless the show goes on past their interest. TV directing is usually a for-hire gig. If not 99% of directors would be unemployed.
There’s a lot more to creating a TV series than just the filming part. There’s writing, preproduction, locations, casting, filming, post production, editing, scoring etc. So shows tend to have several episodes in production at any one given time so each will have a director in charge of overall keeping that episode together.
And it also depends on the show and the people involved. A lot of UK series for example tend to lean towards fewer episodes and fewer directors and writers. Derry Girls has a single writer and director for the whole 3 seasons. Fleabag likewise (though I think they had a different director for the initial pilot).
If it’s a show where most episodes could be shown in any order, then you’ll often have different directors working on different episodes simultaneously. This helps speed up production by having multiple writing and filming teams working at the same time. One group can be writing and storyboarding while the other films, and the scenes are usually simple enough that the actors can show up each day and memorize their lines on set or the night before.
You need at least three directors. One is preparing to shoot the episode that is going to shoot next week; costumes, sets, script changes, camera setup, all the prep work where the director is the decider.
One is shooting this week’s episode that they prepped last week. Shoots can go six or seven days, and long nights.
The last one is editing the episode they shot last week. Next week they prep a new episode.
That’s old-school television production. For shows that shoot a whole season at once for streaming, things can be a lot more chaotic and less structured (or just structured differently). They’ll shoot in blocks, they’ll shoot out of order, a director might shoot parts of multiple episodes in a week, they might do all the prep ahead of shooting anything. Shooting an episode might take a lot more than a week. If you look at Season 2 of the Bear, the creator, Christopher Storer, shot the majority of the 10 episodes, at least on paper. Who shot what and when and in what order, we don’t know unless they tell us.
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