photos by Elisa Haber
The Assistant Directors and Unit Production Managers of the projects nominated for the 70th Annual DGA Awards were celebrated during the Western AD/UPM Council’s 15th Annual Meet the AD/UPMs event. Hosted by the Council’s Education Committee on January 27, DGA members gathered in the Guild’s Los Angeles Boardroom to hear firsthand what went into the making of these notable movies and television episodes.
The morning opened with a welcome from Western AD/UPM Council Chair Victor Hsu, who spoke about the Council before turning the proceedings over to 2018 Frank Capra Achievement Award Recipient Dwight Williams, who served as the moderator of the event.
After a brief explanation of how the day would proceed, Williams introduced the panel which consisted of: 1st ADs Gerard DiNardi from Jordan Peele’s Feature Film Award and First-Time Feature Film Award-nominated film, Get Out, Aldric La'auli Porter from Scott Frank’s DGA Award-nominated mini-series, Godless, Eric Topp from Isaiah Seret’s Kohler commercial, Never Too Composed and Jey Wada from Martin de Thurah’s WealthSimple commercial, Mad World; and 2nd ADs Paula Case from Martin McDonagh’s nominated feature film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Christine Danahy from Jean-Marc Vallée’s DGA Award-nominated mini-series, Big Little Lies and Heather Wagner-Wang from Mike Judge’s Comedy Series Award-nominated Silicon Valley episode, “Server Error.” UPMs J. Miles Dale from Guillermo del Toro’s DGA Award-nominated feature film, The Shape of Water and Alton Walpole from Godless; and 2nd AD Eric Lasko from Christopher Nolan’s DGA Award-nominated feature film Dunkirk participated in the panel discussion via a video hookup.
After screening clips from the nominated works, Williams and the panelists covered a number of subjects that included when and why to take a job, the ways of approaching high budget versus low budget projects and best practices on approaching an interview and/or doing the hiring. After the discussion, members were able to mingle with and ask their own questions of the panelists.
DGA Members, click here for "10 Takeaways" - A list of information gleaned from this event.
You can listen to the entire panel here. You can find all DGA podcast episodes on our podcast page.
About the Panelists:
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![]() A graduate of the Assistant Director Training Program, Wagner-Wang joined the DGA in 2016. In addition to her work on Mike Judge’s DGA Award-nominated Silicon Valley episode, “Server Error,” she also serves as the Key 2nd AD on the HBO comedy series. Her other work includes serving as a 2nd 2nd AD on Todd Holland’s movie for television Charlie Foxtrot; and as a DGA Trainee on episodes of Breaking Bad, Justified, The Goldbergs, The Real O'Neals and Animal Kingdom. |
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About the Organizing Committee:
This event was organized by the Western AD/UPM Council Education Committee and the Meet the AD/UPMs Organizing Committee which is co-chaired by Peter E. Jackson and Redelia Shaw, with members Reginald Brown, Mark Hansson, Walt Louie, Lucille OuYang, and Melanie Wagor.