Film Courage: How much of directing at the highest levels in this business is
about skills you have at your craft versus people skills and politics?
Pete Chatmon, Director/Author: I had a meeting for a show or for
a network rather last week and we got into a conversation about soft skills
which are what we were talking about earlier. You can have the best shot list in the world
but the soft skills help you get somebody out the trailer, help you convince somebody that the
work they're doing is great, help you deal with whatever scenario that might arise. I think that
a director without humanity is going to have challenges doing their job because I think back to
being younger and you're just so focused on have got to get the shot why if everybody would just
come here and do what I'm ready to do we could get I mean you're just it's all about getting
this thing done you're feeling the burdens and the pressure of the money because you're probably over
over leveraged and you're tired and why won't they just do what I want them to do and that that is
also natural when you don't have the tools to deal with the pressures of the job but I think as you
learn them you do recognize that those soft skills are are key and and look I've done I've done
episodes as a as a guest director where I've been brought to a show to direct an episode
and that is at that point they think that you can do it they think you're competent and you
can keep you won't mess up their show then there comes a point where now I'm a producing director
on a show and a co-executive producer now they're saying well we think you're someone that can help
work with all the directors will hire can help be a liaison between post and the producers for
the creative now that's a different person in terms of skills then there's the pilot director
I have a pilot I'm attached to that's a different thing because they're looking for someone who can
do both of those things while also maybe have more owner have a have a little more ownership
of it as a director than a guest director because you're creating a look for a show
so you're marrying so many different parts of of your of what you do
and knowing when and when and why to apply pressure I think is the is the directors challenge
can you tell us about how to politic and what is that I think how to politic I think is is that
same answer knowing when to apply pressure some things when I was when I was when I was working as
faculty I used to be in a lot of meetings a lot of meetings and I would just I had a joke where I was
people can talk about whatever they want until it sounds there's about to be a policy change that's
going to affect the job I do I can sit here and be unmoved because some I don't know why that person
may be performing what they're doing now maybe they're making a stance for some reason I have no
idea about and this person has tension with them and that person always says something and this
person doesn't want to reveal what they don't what all these things but the moment it sounds there's
about to be a new pile of work on my desk well now I have a thought and so you I just learned when is
be read the room and see what's really happening and whether or
not something impactful is happening something performative is happening
and whether or not what you might be getting ready to say matters or is going to have an impact
and I think that was a that was one of the best things that again I didn't know I was learning but
I think that was one of the best things I learned being in a university environment and so I try and
maintain vigilance in reading a room and seeing what's happening and whether or not and and and
measuring my response to get what I'm looking to get and that's not
I'll flip this and say that's not to say that everything is a manipulation and everything but
I can I can remember one time being called into a trailer
hair makeup trailer with show runners, star, actor, actress and hair makeup and
I'm being asked all these questions and I'm what's happening and it was about a scene
that we had agreed to shoot a certain way and then I'm listening and listening and listening
and what I'm recognizing here because I'm not being I'm not being super responsive to the
fact first off we've already talked about this I'm sorry I can't talk because I know
the more you talk the more I'm going to get something that I can begin to understand and
I don't know if it was three minutes or or ten it felt 30 but I was oh it sounds
to me and my guess here that this actress wants the body double but doesn't want to ask for it
and I'm pretty sure that's what it was and I said well why don't we just do the body devil blah blah
because there were all these things connected it seemed to her for that request what I mean and
we I noticed that our relationship got that much better after that and I was just reading the
room and trying to I could say we've talked about it three times but does that matter
so I think it's it's be it's allowing people to be people what I mean and and trying to
be aware of the multiple ways you can get to an end result that maintains the Integrity of what
you set out to do so there's not just subtexts on the page there's there's some on set too oh yeah
yeah what if we think we have soft skills but we really don't how does how does the
production show is that how do other people show us that we actually don't have the soft
skills we thought we had well that that makes me reach for the book oh good okay because in
in the book in the in the introduction because as with anything I'm you write something and
and for me I want to go well what will make you listen to this and so in the introduction
yeah here we go there are three questions that I'll just I'll actually read you because it's
not a it's not a long thing in 2014 after six unsuccessful years of unrealized efforts to
break into episodic television directing I asked myself a series of probing existential questions
and I think these three questions answered the question about what if you think you've
got soft skills or but things aren't happening I asked what's not working
what if everything I'm doing is wrong and how can I pivot so if you think that you've got those
skills but you ask yourself what's not working and you look and you see what my films do well
but this isn't happening maybe it's that maybe I don't know the industry and the
mechanics of the business well enough maybe I keep making films that if I had read the trades
I could have seen that there were already two films in development about that thing and mine
was never going to compete I think that those questions that demand self-reflection help you
avoid getting mired into something that you think is what it's not can we learn
soft skills can we learn how to I mean we all think we know how to work with other people but
sometimes life shows us that that's not the case I think we can learn them I had to learn them
yeah I mean I think I had some a handful of them but to your earlier question if I would have
been offered TV coming out of out of Sundance and it would have been different and so I think
and I and over the next years years and even I learned a new soft skill last week I'm sure
I think the thing it's not the it's not the ability to learn it's the appetite to learn
because we can we can keep learning until the day we die but if we think that we've
we've got it all figured out then that's off the table.