Film Courage: What are the four different levels of being a director?
Pete Chatmon, Director/Author: Again I'll preface, there's no higher level of importance per se
it's just like maybe it's not a totem pole, maybe it's a hieroglyphic wall that goes left to right,
but I think you've got a short films and web series
and in that space you're doing, things that are narrative but they're going to take less time
at least on the production end you. You could do a film that takes a great deal of prep but typically
just with the amount of money being spent and the nature of the content I think you've got
short film and web series. I think then you've got commercials and music videos and branded content
and those are maybe the distinguishing factor to consider is that your outright selling a product,
you're selling this lotion, you're selling this some of the stuff I did in on in my day was like
this kind of sponsored documentary profiles where a brand might want to interview a bunch of people
about what they do but like that type of person is their direct customer what I mean so it's much
more of a clear intent to sell and then I think you've got television which is obvious and then
you've got feature films which are obvious but the distinction being it's the medium for the
director and features and it's the medium for the writer in TV and I think I would offer that
trying all of them and being able to direct in all of them is a great skill set to develop
because you never know when one of them will be called upon so as an example I did
the fifth episode of the final season of Silicon Valley and so it's just like it's this whole
it was inclusive of an opening a Mad Max kind of opening with Russ Hanneman and he's on a
motorcycle and these women in these kind of Mad Max cars are chasing him and it's he's
blowing them up like with this hand gesture or whatever and so HBO being HBO was like oh let's
go shoot the thing so I was like oh we're going to actually shoot that so we took an extra day
outside of our production window for the episode and shot that thing but then there was also
the characters sold a tequila in the show called Tres Comas which the three commas for
being a billionaire and so HBO and an ad agency partnered up to actually sell that tequila so
the last part of that five hour window where I sat the Mad Max was getting like 18 different
lines of him selling the Vodka which would be used for online commercials and it was like oh
I got you they were like how I was like I got this here's how we'll shoot it but we'll
motorcycle will pull up he'll step off I'll get each line and I'll get half of them in this shot
we'll reset I'll get half in that shot it'll take us about 10 minutes and it was like this thing I
had done it's kind of a running theme that this thing I had done for all these years was like now
a very great asset for what I was doing at that moment and even like a lot of the documentary
stuff that I did you'd have to walk into a room and say okay I'm thinking of for My documentary on
on the black tankers 761st we secured an interview with General Colin Powell and we had 15 minutes of
his time and like that was like 14 plus one to take a photo right and so got down to Virginia
and they're like you can do it in this room and this room was like the office furniture Cemetery
so in 20 minutes they're like get all that stuff out of here let's leave that chair all right we're
going to gel the windows I think I saw a flag in the lobby let's go get the flag from the lobby
all right there's a plant and doing that like has helped me with production design when walking into
a location that is a potential location for an episode but I have to Envision what it could look
like before I can say I think this works or not like we don't everything we walk into isn't what
it will ultimately be so I feel like I've left the the the the farm and entered in another world here
but I there are all these like takeaways from each of these kind of four types of directing
that I think help you in your execution of each other one sure and then also two managing stress
and also having the confidence to say I can do that and I'm sure totally different world being
in Virginia getting maybe security clearance to go somewhere and and interview this man right
versus what seems like it would be a really fun set in Silicon Valley but I'm sure there's a lot
of moving pieces and just right the pressure but saying yes I can do that that's really cool yeah I
mean so many great directors started doing product yeah I think it's a I mean if you can tell a story
in 30 seconds and be aware of who your audience is be aware of what the brand thinks of itself
because that's really the guiding the North Star for how you need to choose your production design
your wardrobe your frame composition like all those things if you can do that in 30 seconds
that's one type of story then if you can take that and you actually understand
human beings and their emotions and their wants and needs and subtext I think it just makes you
very capable at doing this job how much time did you spend at each of those levels
one thing I often say is I'm platform agnostic so that that's the flip side of like that's the
end game of delivery right like I don't care if it's TV film I guess Quibi came and went
but I thought that was cool like a web is great with me like if it's a story I'm interested in
where it ends up fine with me I have the same feeling for the so-called levels that we're
talking about too like I would make a short film next weekend if I had a script because
they keep I love there's a different challenge of short filmmaking which is it's about an event
and something well you introduce a status quo you introduce an event and you then are left to
imagine how the world resolves itself after this event has impacted the protagonist world or life
so I would do that next weekend in between directing an episode of Television
I'm writing a script now a feature script I'm co-writing a heist script that I hope
to make as soon as I can finish it between directing these shows
and I still have a commercial agent so I'm they all kind of coexist to me but in the in the
years where the goal was to get to TV I would say it was feature filmmaker
for well it was like feature filmmaker and short filmmaker from 99 to
08. because I made my short they went to Sundance I made another short that went to a bunch more
festivals in 04 I made premium in 761st in that time so I'm kind of jockeying back and
forth and then from 08 to 2015 I made a couple web series I made I didn't do any short I made another
short film that brought me back to TV and I was writing feature scripts all that time as well
and then now and let's say from 2015 to 2022 I've made a narrative podcast that was going
to be a short film but with covet I couldn't personally absorb the covet costs that would be
put on the production in terms of testing and everything that would go with that so I
was like well let's do a narrative version of it an audio podcast and I'm very proud of it
what's it called sorry it's called Wednesday morning and it's centered around it was like
a conversation around the 2020 election but in a very surreal kind of discrete charm of
the bourgeoisie scenario and I got to work with my wife who's an actor Kelly McCreary,
Coleman Domingo who's an actor, Spencer Garrett so it was great to just the thing that I know
I learned from that project was It was kind of easier to get people for the narrative podcast
because it was and no one worked for more than two hours because it was like all right you're 12 to 2
in the studio and we'll get your your character in this 50 page script and we'll knock it out
and so that had my mind clicking of like I need to write another narrative podcast because then that
could maybe be something that becomes intellectual property and then can transition to a TV show like
home like Homecoming, the Sam Esmail project so anyhow I feel like that for me it's like
wherever a story can live is the best place to put it and live might be the different format
you might say well I can explore more of this world or this character in TV versus two hours
with a film great you might also be having to consider money and so maybe the same idea and the
themes of that are better served in a short film because you have five thousand dollars and can
make it short which is better than an idea that you just talk about so I think they're all just
like they're almost like lenses like which lens is your favorite well the one that gets the shot.