More than 70 DGA 1st AD members gathered in the Guild’s Los Angeles Boardroom for a three-hour breakfast and discussion event Transitions: The Craft of the 1st AD in a Changing Production World on Saturday, November 8, 2008. The invitational event, hosted by the Western AD/UPM/TC Council’s 1st AD Committee, was designed to provide members of this category with the latest information necessary to stay competitive in today’s workplace.

After a breakfast/social mixer, there were welcoming remarks by Western AD/UPM/TC Council Alternate Member Mark Hansson, one of the organizers of the event, and Council Chair Cleve Landsberg. Hansson and AD/UPM/TC Council member Alan Curtiss then introduced 1st ADs Xochi Blymyer, Nandi Bowe, Fernando Castroman, Steve Danton, Gary Goldman, Nina Jack, Josh McLaglen, Nilo Otero, Aldric Porter, Rhonda Raulston, Jeff Tuttle, and Jeffrey Wetzel, who served as co-hosts for the breakout discussion groups that followed in several rooms of the DGA headquarters building.

Drawing on the benefit of their years of on-the-job experience, the co-hosts guided the discussion groups through a variety of subjects including: how to transition between production genres, the best methods for conflict resolution on the job, and the new issues and challenges that 1st ADs face in today’s workplace. After the separate sessions, the groups reassembled in the Boardroom to report the results of their discussions to the entire group, then opened the room to an open discussion on what had transpired and questions on other topics.