Directors Guild of America Discusses FNL’s Approach

Friday Night Fever

TEAMMATES: 1st AD K.C. Hodenfield (right) tracks a shot.

Shooting at a breakneck pace, using handheld cameras and documentary techniques, directors, ADs, and UPMs capture the real-life drama of small-town America in Friday Night Lights.

By Rob Seidenberg

On purpose or not, it looks like Friday Night Lights is about to break the Guinness World Record for “Most Bodies Crammed into a 6-by-8-Foot Bathroom.” The camera A operator wedges inside a stall shower, shoulder-to-knee with his Gumby-like assistant, who trains a handheld camera on cast member Matt Lauria standing at the sink. Tumbling out into the narrow hallway two feet away, the B and C camera operators jostle for space with their assistants and a handful of PAs.

Meanwhile, in the living room of the empty tract house, director/producer Michael Waxman watches intently, one eye on the monitors and the other trying to steal a glance through the pile-up of bodies. More amused than anxious, he’s devising ways to shorten the scene, if for nothing else, to provide relief to his nearly trampled crew. “We’re not very precious,” laughs Waxman, recalling the bathroom acrobatics. “Whatever it takes to get the scene. It’s less thinking, more doing.”

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SOURCE: DGAQuarterly.org

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 5:49 pm and is filed under FNL, Michael Waxman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.