Bob Butler leads Directing Seminar in San Francisco
by David Hakim
photos by Frank Zamacona
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Robert Butler (left), Jon Francis, John Korty and Rufus J. Pedersen.
Click picture for larger view |
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On November 10, eighteen DGA members gathered at TV station KGO in San Francisco for director Robert Butler's seminar "Directing Commercials and Long Form." Butler was joined by special guests [and local Bay Area members] Jon Francis and John Korty.
Butler is an award-winning TV and feature director whose career spans almost 40 years. He is noted for his innovative television pilots, including Star Trek and Hill Street Blues. Korty has won both DGA and Emmy Awards in his long career in features and television, and Francis, best known for commercials, has won multiple Clio Awards.
Topics covered in the five and a half-hour program included working with actors, key issues with producers and staff, effective use of the director's team, dealing with writers and the director's preparation. Attendees received a fourty-one page set of mixed script pages that illustrated points about the video clips shown which included scenes from Turbulence, White Mile and The Brotherhood.
The morning section of the seminar was then given over to Butler's extensive experience and his theories of direction. Using clips from several features and Television shows that he directed, Butler showed ways in which the words of the script became fuller or changed completely as they made their way to the screen.
After lunch, Butler, Francis and Korty participated in a roundtable discussion with questions posed to them by participants and their respective working situations were analyzed. All three directors gave informative viewpoints derived from their extensive experience.
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