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Directing The Shield
by Matt Hurwitz
The Shield is not your daddy's cop show. Unlike Dragnet, or even more recently NYPD Blue, FX's The Shield brought its own in-your-face crime drama. It's been a monster hit since its premiere in March to the small screen, thanks to a combination of great directing, believable characters, rapid-fire pacing and expert cinematography with an over-the-shoulder "documentary" look.
The success of The Shield, recently picked up for a second season, is also due to the work of such veteran directors as Clark Johnson, D.J. Caruso and Scott Brazil. Stephen Gyllenhaal, Nick Gomez, Guy Ferland and Gary Fleder also directed episodes in the show's first 13-episode batch.
The series follows the lives of an ensemble of core cops in a neighborhood police substation, led by Strike Team leader Vic Mackey, a renegade cop who breaks as many laws as he enforces, portrayed by Michael Chiklis (The Commish).
Writer/producer Shawn Ryan wrote the pilot not long after the LAPD's Rampart scandal, which itself had renegade cops enforcing the law their own way. The pilot, directed by Clark Johnson and filmed in June 2001, briefly carried the name Rampart, though, "that just pissed off the LAPD," Johnson said. "We weren't addressing that specific scandal, but it sort of indicated what we were about."
The show was, in fact, initially titled The Barn, a name derived from the fictional "Farmington" district in which the police substation is located. "The station was created, not built, by taking over an abandoned building," said director and co-executive producer Brazil, himself a five-year veteran on Hill Street Blues. "Shawn had originally written that it was a converted warehouse, but they just weren't that interesting to photograph."
After looking instead at several churches, the team eventually settled on the Christian Life Church, a 100-year-old structure in downtown Los Angeles.
The building, which over the years had a number of additions added, required very little alteration and served as the pilot's entire indoor set. The sanctuary, with pews removed, was fitted with a chain-link fence "cage" — the short-term holding area for prisoners. The adjacent two-story social hall was set up with desks and other office furniture to create the "Bull Pen," where the various detectives made their home. The upstairs balcony, containing the church's administrative offices, was used for the captain's offices, and allowed ample cinematic views of the captain looking down on his charges (and vice versa).
Once the series was picked up by FX, the entire Barn indoor set was reconstructed at ABC's Prospect Ave. Studios, where there was ample space for the two-story, nearly 40-foot-high set.
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"The plan was always that if we got picked up, we'd have to build it on a stage," said Clark Johnson. "The new production designer, Kitty Doris-Bates, admirably re-created that."
Doris-Bates modified the original design, to more readily accommodate the directors' cinematic needs. The unique Barn set realistically allows actors to literally carry on conversations walking from one room to another, passing through real hallways connecting the various parts of the set.
Another important part of The Shield's realistic look is its cinematography. The entire series is shot using 16mm Arriflex SRIII cameras to create a "documentary" appearance.
"There was discussion about shooting 24P High Definition," Brazil said. "But those cameras are too big for us. We shoot in tiny little rooms, so we have to use tiny little cameras."
And with little exception, The Shield is photographed using Steadicam and hand-held. "Clark's concept was that if a dolly would have been used on another show, use Steadicam; if on another show you would have used Steadicam, go hand-held," Brazil explained.
"I like to be part of the action, and that's the way to do it," Johnson, who created the look in the show's pilot, explained. "When you're part of the action, you don't have time to flavor it with fill lights and bounce core."
Johnson is currently prepping the Samuel L. Jackson vehicle, S.W.A.T., for Columbia. Previously, he directed episodes of NYPD Blue and Homicide. He noted that The Shield's documentary look was not strictly born in artistry. "The show didn't have any freakin' money! So part of the look was out of necessity."
Of particular importance to the look of the show is the handiwork of Steadicam operator Bill Gierhart, under supervision of DP Rohn Schmidt. On The Shield, the camera is, indeed, rarely still. "It's an extension of what I learned working with [Homicide executive producer] Tom Fontana," Johnson said. "It's about motivating the camera, that the camera was reactive. And with The Shield, it's hyper-reactive. It's always looking for something."
The camera on The Shield is used in a number of unique ways to capture this "hyper-reactivity." As mentioned, actors are typically photographed in motion, in one continuous shot, as they carry on a conversation walking from room to room — often passing two other actors walking another direction, picking up their conversation as the first pair leaves frame.
"The goal is to feel like you're coming a little late to the scene," Brazil said. "You don't ever quite turn your head in time to get the first few words. We try to catch up to the action. It makes it a little less dramatically satisfying, but a lot more intriguing."
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One of the ways the directors accomplish this is by excusing the camera operators, both A & B camera, from rehearsals. "It allows two different camera operators' sensibilities to be imposed on the scene," he explained. "We rehearse it, we get marks, and, we hope, approximate focus marks. Then we bring the operators back in and roll. The operators know what the lines are but they don't see where the actors are going to go. It's left to the camera operators to try to catch the action."
Not to say that every scene is rehearsed without operators. The Shield is known for its daring camera work, often running at top speed after actors as they dash down stairs, from indoors to exterior. Those types of shots require rehearsal, at the very least, explained director D.J. Caruso (The Salton Sea and the upcoming The Expendables), to get the steps and rhythm of the shot down. "I started out doing a lot of 2nd unit for John Badham. I like to do a ¼ speed rehearsal, and then a ½ speed rehearsal. You don't want the Steadicam guy to wear out. Then, once you shoot it, hopefully, you can get it in two or three takes."
Another documentary-style shot involves quick rack-zooms, similar to the way news photographers suddenly catch action on location, zooming from a wide shot to a character's face.
"If it's getting very emotional, you'd want to see right in that person's eyes. Don't be afraid — just zoom in," explained Brazil. "When I would do it, I was imagining where I would want the close-up to be cut in," said Caruso. "In a way, I'm cutting the thing in camera, but there's no cut; you're seeing where it would have been cut."
Caruso is one of a handful of Shield directors, including Johnson and Brazil, who prefer to monitor the action at the camera instead of back at the video assist monitors. "I've found monitor directing to be incredibly frustrating for actors," he explained. "The monitor gets set up three rooms down, and the next thing you know you're yelling, 'Hang on, I'm comin' in. I gotta tell you something, Jay.'"
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Instead, Caruso makes use of a Sony Clamshell (nicknamed the "Wankie" by the crew). It's a hand-held monitor that allows him to stand alongside the Steadicam operator and follow the action.
In addition, a small Hi-8 video camera is used to create the video observed by the Captain of interrogations taking place in The Barn's two tiny interview rooms. The camera is mounted up in the corner of the room, in the same position the characters see the real closed-circuit camera when in the room itself. Caruso has made a practice of videotaping the rehearsals of the interrogation scenes for this purpose, after which he films the interrogation itself with the 16mm film camera. "I think D.J.'s very smart in that way, because you basically buy yourself another rehearsal," Brazil said. The video is converted overnight to 24 fps (to avoid video "roll") and played back during a later day's shoot for filming the observation scenes.
Many of the directors on the show choose not to use shot lists, owing mostly to their desire to maintain The Shield's spontaneous look. "On this show I always wanted to just organically have the camera get to the right spot," Caruso said.
The cast will typically do a table reading the day before shooting begins, and, on the first day of photography will simply stand in the set and read the scene before trying out various blockings. "Then we try to figure out how to photograph it, as opposed to trying to block the action to facilitate the camera," Brazil said. "In a strange way, it's almost more like theater."
The Shield's production and preparation schedule includes seven days of prep followed by seven days of shooting, though Clark Johnson's pilot episode was given a whopping 11 days.
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Johnson and Caruso were the only Shield directors confronted with unusual prep challenges. They were each given back-to-back episodes to film. "I was the first guinea pig," Johnson said. "It's like we did a two-hour movie in 14 days."
Noted Caruso: "You literally prep both episodes at the same time — 14 days prep and 14 days to shoot."
Location shooting made things even more confusing. "You're shooting two episodes at the same time, and they have two completely different story lines," Caruso said.
Prep itself is not unlike most TV series. A concept meeting is held on the first day, with a tone meeting the day before shooting. "The tone meeting with Shawn Ryan is definitely the most specific tone meeting I've ever been through in television," Caruso said. "It's literally scene-by-scene, line-by-line. He's very, very hands on in an executive producer/writer way, but never in a directorial/shooting way."
The quick schedule, of course, means quick production. Typical scripts average 56 to 58 pages, with crews shooting between 8½ and 11 pages per day. They achieve this because of short scenes. "The longest scene I had was 1 and 7/8s of a page. It didn't even get to two pages," Caruso said.
"There might be between nine and, in some cases, 14 scenes a day. It's a huge amount of work," said 1st AD Gwyneth Horder-Payton.
Horder-Payton splits duties with 1st AD Chris Della Penna between all of the directors; the 2nd AD is Chris Hayden, the second 2nd AD is Yumiko Takeya.
The show's breakneck pace, along with the nonstop camera movement, is another important element in creating its realistic look. "It's much the same way as it is in the police world," explained Clark Johnson. "They're either sitting around having coffee and doughnuts or in life-threatening situations. There's hardly any middle ground."
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Each episode is divided up into the usual four acts, though there's an unusually long prologue. "A lot of other shows use their prologues as teasers, where it's a minute and a half," explained Brazil. "We have an overly long prologue and an extraordinarily long Act I. It's almost like a five act show."
In fact, it's not uncommon for a Shield episode to be halfway over by the end of the first act, with Acts II, III and IV occasionally coming in at eight minutes each. "The long prologue and Act I get people fully invested before too many commercials. Then, once you're there, they'll go finish the ride with you," Brazil explained.
Casting has been key to the success of The Shield. "This show has been a constant challenge for the casting directors," said Scott Brazil. "They will cull through 20 or 30 people that you've never seen for somebody to play three or four lines. Our goal is to find people that we rarely see on other shows. When we recognize the faces, it feels familiar, and it doesn't feel as real." The show also takes advantage of the huge pool of ethnic actors available in Los Angeles to play Angelenos. "There are so many wonderful Latino actors that are just never working," said Caruso.
For the main roles, the show was fortunate to find an ensemble that very quickly created well-defined characters. Each has been able to bring realistic quality to their roles, avoiding the police drama caricatures. The characters are three-dimensional, each having dark or unlikable qualities, as well as admirable ones. Added Brazil, "If you watch enough of [Michael Chiklis's] Vic, you go, 'Well, I don't think this guy's a bad guy. Oh, wait a second! He killed a cop. But why do I like him so much?' Every character has a tremendous amount of gray in them."
CCH Pounder's Detective Claudette Wyms brings the voice of reason to the group, though "Claudette" was almost "Charles."
"The character was originally a man," Brazil explained. "Clark had just worked with CC or his HBO movie, Boycott, and wondered, 'Why can't Charles be a woman?'" Pounder read against several male actors and won the role. Pounder, he noted, was particularly proud that every bit of dialogue in the pilot remained as written — except the character's name.
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Despite all of the other elements that make The Shield a success, the core still boils down to good writing, directing and acting. "If your whole focus as a director on this show is the camera, it's not the right show for you," said Brazil. "Your focus needs to be actors, you need to love actors, and you need to love the words. These actors love the characters they play. And, I have to tell you, they're the happiest campers on television."
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