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PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Rights and Responsibilities
I think directing is the greatest job in the world. It can be one of the most frustrating, but the reward of having done a good job telling a story and entertaining people is tremendous.
A director wears many hats - counselor, cheerleader, artist, craftsman, storyteller, technician - but above all a director is a leader. The director can take a well-written script and turn it into a TV program or feature film that millions of people are willing to watch. It's a big responsibility when you consider that the audience is giving you their time, hoping that you'll make the most of it.
I was very encouraged by the level of professionalism displayed at our recent Creative Rights Teach-In for directors in television. I want to thank all those who participated in this wonderful event. I also want to thank the organizers for putting it all together.
For those of who didn't attend, you missed a real treat. Some of the top talents in television came to discuss the responsibilities that a person assumes when they chose to become a director. Many attendees, TV directors all, said that they felt energized by the support of the Guild and their fellow directors.
It's true that film and television are uniquely collaborative mediums. The director's role in either medium is first and foremost to tell the best story possible. To do this, the director leads a group of very talented individuals. In television as in film the director's job includes preparing the shoot and working with the producers to select the cast, then rehearsing the actors, running the set, placing the cameras, working with the crew, relaying suggestions from producers to the cast and crew and finally delivering a cut. A director's job is not finished until that cut is delivered.
If directors fail to live up to the requirements of the job, then they are minimizing their own job satisfaction. They are not participating in every aspect necessary to telling a good story. More importantly, when a director fails to perform all the responsibilities of the job, it makes it that much harder for those who do want to do the work, including the team who depend upon the director to show strong leadership. For instance, a director who walks away from a series episode without doing the director's cut not only misses the satisfaction of putting the story together in the editing room, but encourages producers to take over the task themselves - making it much harder for the next director on the series who wants to do the cut. It's particularly important that directors remember that how they perform their job directly impacts the jobs performed by all directors.
As I heard one director pose a question to directors who fall short of their responsibilities, “If you don't want to lead, why did you become a director?”
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