Why having multiple directors?

[king of nowhere]

We know the show had 4 different directors for season 1, each one of them got two episodes. And one of the most recent news is about this Sanaa Hamri being director for the last part of season 2.

i already dropped a question in that news, but i got no answer, so I'm asking here because I'm ignorant on the details of making movies and this genuinely sparked my curiosity:

why do they have so many directors? wouldn't it be better to always have the single one?

 

even if the director only directs the actors as they enact the script, he's got a lot of power, and he'll leave his imprint in everything. camera angles, lights, all that kind of thing. plus, in a professional environment it generally helps to have a tight-knit team.

hiring multiple directors, giving a couple episodes to each, seems in direct contradiction to all this. the actors always have to learn to work with someone new, and as soon as someone is starting to really fit into the position, he's swapped out.

So why do they do it? how is that supposed to improve the show?

 

And by the way, what's exactly the difference between director and executive producer?

[Elder_Haman]

This is really common. It's, quite simply, a more efficient way to divide the labor on a lengthy project. The executive producer and producer credits are - for the most part - kind of meaningless. But the entire production team works on episode continuity and so forth.

 

But, pretty much any multiple episode television series will have several directors over the course of a season.

 

[JenniferL]

It’s very common for tv shows to have a different director each episode. Usually the first director establishes the “house style” that the others will mimic for their episodes. Like EH says, it’s to help spread out the work. Directing isn’t just the time on set with the actors and crew, it’s also time spent before shooting where the director goes over the script and breaks down how they plan to shoot it, meeting with producers, writers, etc. It’s easier if you have someone already shooting episode one while you have episode in setting up. 

[DaddyFinn]

I think different directors have different specialities. Some are good at directing action scenes, some with dialogue-heavy scenes etc. One wouldn't probably be great at everything and the workload would be huge.

 

Don't take this for a fact.

[Cigma]

Well it worked for the books...

 

How many different PoVs did Jordan utilize? 

 

Seems like it would have the same sort of affect, seeing the story through different eyes.

 

* this did make me think though... if anyone read the Hunger Games series, how since it was mainly shown through character thoughts, that when it was adapted to the movies they felt hollow and weak... 

It might have the opposite affect when it comes to Elayne's arc to become the Queen of Andor.

In Winter's Heart the first half of the book was the first time I ever actually had real problems getting through one of the WoT books. And it was entirely due to how Elayne would just go on and on with her vapid (obsessed with her own elegance) thoughts. It should make for some exciting television though, the fight for the Lion Throne.

[DojoToad]

They couldn't get anyone to sign on to direct them all, so settled for what they could get.

[Elder_Haman]

8 hours ago, Cigma said:

if anyone read the Hunger Games series, how since it was mainly shown through character thoughts, that when it was adapted to the movies they felt hollow and weak... 

The last two movies suffered from that. But I also thought the last two books were not as strong.

[JenniferL]

On 9/21/2021 at 9:30 AM, DojoToad said:

They couldn't get anyone to sign on to direct them all, so settled for what they could get.

Citation please. Since it’s very common for tv shows to have multiple directors over the course of a season you have made an extraordinary claim and I’d like to see your evidence of it. 

[Elder_Haman]

16 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

Citation please. Since it’s very common for tv shows to have multiple directors over the course of a season you have made an extraordinary claim and I’d like to see your evidence of it. 

I think Mr. Dojotoad was being facetious.

[JenniferL]

Then he can come here and tell me himself. I’m getting quite tired of folks making unfounded claims about the tv show production. It’s cool if you don’t think the show looks good, but don’t project your own issues onto the cast and crew. 

[DojoToad]

8 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

Citation please. Since it’s very common for tv shows to have multiple directors over the course of a season you have made an extraordinary claim and I’d like to see your evidence of it. 

I didn’t know you needed evidence to be a smart @$$. But I apologize if my extraordinary claim made you uncomfortable. That was not my intent. Just trying to be fun. 

[JenniferL]

No worries. But it’s impossible to tell from your text alone that you were joking. 

[DojoToad]

37 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

Then he can come here and tell me himself. I’m getting quite tired of folks making unfounded claims about the tv show production. It’s cool if you don’t think the show looks good, but don’t project your own issues onto the cast and crew. 

As an Admin and a contributor with over 12K posts, I would think that my post was not the first unfounded claim you've seen on this forum  or any others you're involved on - and this is your reaction?  Or is it specifically comments about tv show production that elicited the hot response?

 

Trying to work backward here and determine what personal issue of mine I was projecting in my comment.  Evidently something I need to work on...

[DojoToad]

29 minutes ago, JenniferL said:

No worries. But it’s impossible to tell from your text alone that you were joking. 

Putting a ? kind of defeats the purpose of being facetious/ironic.

[JenniferL]

General reaction to a bunch of unsourced bullshit I’ve seen lately regarding the show. You are probably not the only person I’m going to yell at between now and November. You just happen to not deserve it. 

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, JenniferL said:

General reaction to a bunch of unsourced bullshit I’ve seen lately regarding the show. You are probably not the only person I’m going to yell at between now and November. You just happen to not deserve it. 

It's all good.  Just having fun and killing time until the 19th.  Some of it is stupid, some silly, and some I've actually thought out - but not too much.  I was bound to rub a few people the wrong way.  The important thing is we have a show coming and I can't wait - which is why I'm on here all the time!  May you always find water and shade.

Edited September 22, 2021 by DojoToad

[king of nowhere]

so, if i've got this straight, being director requires a lot of preparatory job, deciding how to adapt the script in front of a camera in every detail, and they split the job because it makes things more manageable by the individual.

 

And movies instead stick to a single director because... because they are much shorter and thus can be handled more easily by a single person?

[SinisterDeath]

2 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

so, if i've got this straight, being director requires a lot of preparatory job, deciding how to adapt the script in front of a camera in every detail, and they split the job because it makes things more manageable by the individual.

 

And movies instead stick to a single director because... because they are much shorter and thus can be handled more easily by a single person?

Avengers Endgame:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154796/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm
2 Directors, and 24 Assistant/2nd unit Directors.

 

The Witcher
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5180504/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm
8 Directors, 

 

The Expanse
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3230854/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm

16 Directors

 

Imagine for instance, you're a Project Manager, you have 8 jobs that need to be completed in 30 days.

You have 5 people who HAVE to be at each of the Job sites, but the rest of the crew doesn't.

In order to meet the deadline do you 
A) Keep the same crew for each job site

or

B) Hire additional support crew to prep the job sites for the crew that has to be there.

[JenniferL]

Movies usually take 18-24 months to produce. I don’t know how it takes for streamers, but a network tv show usually takes about a week. I’m assuming that with location shooting and more complicated effects, it takes longer than that to film an episode of a prestige show like this. But the time involved is very different.