This April marks the publication of the third edition of one of the best books ever written on directing, Bethany Rooney and Mary Lou Belli‘s “Directors Tell the Story.” A comprehensive guide to the hundreds of aesthetic, managerial, and logistical problems a director faces every day on set and how best to solve them, its strength comes from the position of authority from which Rooney and Belli write — between them, they’ve got over 75 years of experience on set as episodic television directors.
Rooney alone has hundreds of hours of television on her resume thanks to a career that stretches back to 1985 and her big break on the medical drama “St. Elsewhere.” Since then, she has worked in virtually every genre imaginable, from comic book shows (“Arrow”) and teen dramas (“Beverly Hills 90210,” “Dawson’s Creek”) to action (“MacGyver,” “Lethal Weapon”), horror (“The Originals,”), procedurals (numerous iterations of “NCIS,” “Law & Order,” and “FBI”), and dramedies (“Ally McBeal,” “Ugly Betty”).
Rooney stopped by IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about her career and her process, beginning with a discussion of her early days working for Bruce Paltrow and Mark Tinker and how that led to her first directing gig. “They created a show called ‘St. Elsewhere’ and made me the associate producer, which meant I was responsible for all of post-production,” Rooney said. “During that time, I took an acting class off and on for about five years and begged my boss Bruce to give me the opportunity to direct.”
By the time Paltrow gave Rooney her shot, she was ready thanks to her background in the editing room. “It really taught me how to tell a story visually, because I saw every frame of every episode hundreds of times,” Rooney said, adding that just because she was prepared didn’t mean she wasn’t nervous. “I was sick to my stomach every morning, but by the time I had rehearsed the first scene, I felt like I was off and running. I loved it so much and felt like I found my calling. I still say to this day that it was the seven best consecutive days of my life because I was on an adrenaline high the whole time.”
The downside of Rooney’s first experience was an older actor who did not like the idea of being directed by a young woman on her first assignment. “That was his idea of hell, and he made it hell for me,” she said. “To this day, it’s still the worst I’ve been treated by an actor, ever.” Rooney notes that one of the tricky parts of TV directing is that often the director has far less clout than the actors at the top of the call sheet, who have been on the shows for years while the director is a hired gun coming in and out in a matter of weeks. “There is not a single advantage to getting in a confrontational relationship because they have the power.”
To that end, Rooney has learned techniques over the years for fostering productive collaborations under challenging circumstances. “I try to be loving and nurturing, and often I give a little to get a lot,” she said. “Meaning I give them something that they want so that I can tell the story I need to tell. It might be just a change in blocking, or a change in a line reading. Whatever it is, I want to be their friend, as well as the person who’s the leader on set.” To that end, Rooney says one of the single most important attributes for a director to have is the ability to function as a kind of psychologist on set.
“You have to be able to quickly ascertain what someone’s motivation is and why they’re saying what they’re saying and how you as the director can fit into that,” Rooney said. “A guest director has seven days to prep and then on their eighth day they’re the boss on set, so you have to be able to feel what each person needs from you.” To that end, Rooney says that knowing when to talk and when to stay quiet is key. “You have to listen and observe people: Who they are, what they need, where they fit in the power structure, how we can make a good show together.”
Another tricky aspect of episodic television directing is that the director often isn’t getting the script until that first day of prep. “Sometimes there’s a draft that I’m allowed to have before that, but usually it’s right when you’re about to start,” Rooney said. “But it is my job in the months or weeks leading up to that to stay on top of what they have made, the episodes that have aired, and I ask for all the scripts that they can give me and all the cut episodes that haven’t aired so that when I come in to prep, I should be very up to date on everything they’ve done.”
Given the wide range of Rooney’s output, one might wonder if she has a favorite show or genre — or maybe one that’s not such a favorite. “I’ll answer that this way,” Rooney said. “People always ask me my favorite show to direct, and the true answer to that is whatever I most recently worked on or whatever I’m working on now. Because in order to do a good job as a director, I have to embrace it, wholeheartedly, a thousand percent.”
To that end, Rooney and her peers in the world of episodic television are largely today’s version of 1940s and 1950s directors like Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher, and Douglas Sirk who were under contract to studios and found ways of merging personal expression with whatever script they happened to be assigned. “I can’t be judgmental,” Rooney said. “I guess I’m like the old-time studio director who just takes the script and says, ‘Okay, I’m gonna love this. It’s gonna be great.’ I might go into it thinking, ‘Oh, this show isn’t very strong.’ But by the time I begin shooting, I’m absolutely in love with it.”
The third edition of “Directors Tell the Story” is now available for pre-order and will be published on April 21. To hear the entire interview with Bethany Rooney, and to make sure you don’t miss other in-depth filmmaking conversations, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
