As a precursor to our 12-part The Road To Emmy series which gets underway June 6 on SHOOTonline and in The SHOOT>e,dition, we connect with a couple of showrunners who have a major hand in shaping notable shows that figure to be strong contenders for Emmy nominations this coming awards season.
Plus a two-time primetime Emmy nominee, editor Scott Gamzon, reflects on his work on a show that could have him returning to the nominations circle.
We start out with Beau Willimon, showrunner, exec producer, writer and creator of Netflix’s House of Cards which last year for its inaugural season earned nine Emmy nominations, including for Best Drama. House Of Cards was in the running to become the first series not shown on a broadcast or cable network to take the Best Drama honor. Ultimately that Emmy went to Breaking Bad (AMC). However, Vince Gilligan, the creator of the Breaking Bad series, noted that if it weren’t for streaming services like Netflix, his show wouldn’t have survived to see season two.
House of Cards wound up winning three Emmys in 2013—David Fincher for Outstanding Director on a Drama Series, Eigil Bryld for Outstanding Cinematography For A Single-Camera Series, and casting directors Larry Mayfield, CSA, and Julie Schubert, CSA, for Casting For A Drama Series.
There were some new wrinkles in season two, among the most notable being a new cinematographer, Igor Martinovic, HFS, who succeeded the Emmy-winning Bryld. “We’ve been fortunate to have two great cinematographers on the show so far,” related Willimon. “Eigil worked with David [Fincher] to help establish the look and feel of the show. The tone and feel that they established has driven what we have done in every episode since. Igor then brought his own eye and creativity into the mix. We stuck to a lot of the visual filmic rules we established in season one and Igor expanded upon all that.”
Martinovic earlier told SHOOT, “The first season ended on more of a film noirish style with a crime element. That made it feel appropriate to go with a darker look this season—shadows, silhouettes.”
Willimon corroborated that in season two the cinematography became a bit “more muted, the color palettes more restricted, the lighting even darker. This all fit where the story was going and Igor helped take us there. Both he and Eigil are incredibly collaborative cinematographers. From a production standpoint, they held all these episodes together as different directors came and went. They [the cinematographers] were the visual lynchpin. They provided a continuity which made the show feel cohesive visually over 13 hours each season.”
To have one cinematographer handle a 13-episode season “is far more than a full-time job,” assessed Willimon. “Eigil and Igor somehow did it—on set every day for 12 to 14 hours a day, working with a director on prep for the next episode, working with post on the editing. Each—Eigil in season one and Igor in season two—juggled all this at once. It’s a titanic job.”
Several directors were brought into the House of Cards fold for season two—John David Coles who helmed three episodes, and Jodie Foster and Robin Wright, who directed one apiece. A series cast member, Wright had expressed an interest in directing “and we thought that was a great idea,” said Willimon. “She was a complete natural as a director. This was the first thing she directed. She had built a relationship with the crew over a year and a half and that showed. She had a clear vision and did a great job.”
Coles had worked with David Manson, an executive producer on House of Cards, previously, including collaborations on the TNT series Saved.
Foster is no stranger to Netflix as a director. Last year she directed an episode of Orange is the New Black. Her feature directorial filmography includes Little Man Tate and The Beaver.
And among the directors who continued from season one to work on season two of House of Cards were James Foley and Carl Franklin.
At press time, Willimon was deep into writing season three for House of Cards with filming scheduled to get underway in the coming weeks. Among the factors—such as the chance to work with Fincher—which attracted Willimon to the show to begin with was what amounted to “an extraordinary commitment at the time from Netflix—to give us two full seasons. That was unheard of back then. Since, we’ve seen more commitments emerge elsewhere for full seasons. For me, that initial two season commitment meant we could look at story and the development of characters over 26 hours. You can layer stories and characters over time and not feel the necessity to front load anything. You can be patient in how things develop. You can lay the groundwork for something in season one that won’t come to pass until much later the next season. You have the time to make characters and stories more sophisticated and multi-faceted.”
These opportunities in turn led to attracting high-caliber directors to take on episodes after the first two helmed by Fincher in season one.
“We thought of season one as a 13-hour movie,” related Willimon. “We wanted bold, risk-taking filmmakers. Even some of our directors who have done most of their work in TV had also been involved in feature films or approached television with a filmic sensibility.” Willimon noted that the same approach applied to season two—which too was “a 13-hour movie.”
Willimon and most of his colleagues on the show hadn’t worked in television before. “Ignorance is bliss,” he observed. “We weren’t bound by convention or habit. We took a cinematic approach to the storytelling and to the filmmaking itself.”
Vikings
Michael Hirst, showrunner, EP, creator and the lone writer of the History channel series Vikings—now in its second season—is a master of drama with historical roots as reflected in a pedigree that includes his BAFTA Film Award-nominated screenplay for the 1998 feature film Elizabeth and his creation of Showtime’s The Tudors, a lauded series about Henry VIII’s life, era and ill-fated wives.
Hirst had long aspired to bring his creative touch to a story centered on the Vikings culture and its profound influence on the world. Yet that aspiration was hardly shared by others as his efforts to generate momentum for a TV show went unfulfilled for many years. Remarkably, though, the times caught up with Hirst as what he described as “a certain zeitgeist” for the Norsemen and paganism took hold, translating into History being “super-charged” over his idea to base a show on the 8th Century Scandinavian warriors.
History and Hirst’s belief in the viability of such a show has been justified. In season one, Vikings earned three Emmy nominations (Outstanding Main Title Design, Sound Editing For A Series, and Special Visual Effects in a Supporting Role). Vikings has made History number one in cable in the Thursday 10-11 p.m. time slot for season two. Vikings has already been renewed for season three.
The season two premiere drew some 3.6 million viewers and the show is averaging 3.4 million (1.7 million adults age 25-54) per episode. The season two launch episode was Twitter’s most talked about cable program for the night, and History’s most tweeted about premiere year to date.
From dormant subject to a hot property, the Vikings story has indeed connected with a substantial audience. Asked why his series has resonated with viewers, Hirst observed, “It works on a visceral level—the battles and struggles are choreographed in an extraordinary way. We do a bit of CGI but overall the battles are live-action based and real. And the stories of these characters engage people. At the same time, though, there’s another level. This is a very intelligent drama about religious beliefs and philosophy.”
At its core, Vikings is a family saga, following the fortunes of warrior Ragnar Lothbrok and his band of Viking brothers and family members as they engage in epic battles, exploration and raids across early medieval Scandinavia. “Viewers are relating to the characters and at the same time discovering another culture, another world,” said Hirst. “The Vikings discovered North America hundreds of years before Columbus. They had a huge impact on Europe. These people were astonishing. This show is not make believe. It’s also not a pure history lesson but you can learn a lot about a different culture. When I was pitching this to American networks years ago, I used to say that ‘if you walk three blocks from here, you will in that time meet 70 Vikings.’ Many people are descendants of Vikings. People just don’t know how important and pervasive the Viking culture has been.”
Season two features some new wrinkles as compared to the first season. For one, Hirst had to find a successor for cinematographer John S. Bartley who decided to move on from the show. “We wanted the series to be authentic and grungy so John took blue out of the visual palette, creating a darker feel for the show. He did a great job of setting the tone for the series.”
But for season two, Hirst wanted to “open things up a bit visually. I think that stemmed from us getting a little more confident. We established our credentials during the first season and thought we could brighten things up, show sunshine over the fjords. It all comes from being confident of where you are, what you’re doing and where you’re going.”
In that light, cinematographer P.J. Dillon reinstituted blue into the color mix and opened Vikings up visually.
Also new to Vikings in season two are a couple of directors, including Kari Skogland. Hirst said of Skogland, “Having a female director on the show has been spectacular and wonderful. Women directors do violence and sex better than male directors. Kari has been astonishing. She did the bloody aspects of our pivotal episode seven this season, directed great sex scenes and more than anything else brought a kind of lyricism to the series. The way she captured and brought water into shots was astonishing. The show has gained a lot from her participation.”
History’s Emmy track record includes Gettysburg which garnered seven nominations and four Emmys in 2011, including a win for Outstanding Nonfiction Special. Then in 2012, History’s Hatfields & McCoys won three primetime Emmys, including Outstanding Lead Actor (Kevin Costner) and Outstanding Supporting Actor (Tom Berenger) in a Miniseries or Movie. Last year, Vikings earned its three aforementioned Emmy nominations with the promise of more to come in 2014.
Sleepy Hollow
Scott Gamzon, ACE, has a pair of primetime Emmy nominations on his résumé—both for the NBC series The Apprentice which earned him recognition in both 2004 and 2005 in the Best Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming (Single or Multi-Camera) category.
Back in 1998, Gamzon won a News and Documentary Emmy (shared with Tim Atzinger) for cutting Party Monster, a documentary chronicling the life of Club Kids party organizer and promoter Michael Alig and his murder of fellow Club Kid and drug dealer Angel Melendez.
However, if Gamzon gains a primetime Emmy nomination this year on the strength of Fox’s Sleepy Hollow, for which he has cut multiple episodes, it would mark TV Academy recognition in a narrative genre quite different from the documentary Party Monster and reality show The Apprentice. Still, Gamzon is no stranger to moving narrative as reflected in his work on season one of Friday Night Lights (NBC), a series regarded as breaking new storytelling ground in primetime.
For Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane is resurrected and pulled two and a half centuries through time to unravel a mystery that dates all the way back to the founding fathers. Editing the famed headless horseman carried an inherent challenge for Gamzon. “I joined the show mid-season and there were 500 visual effects shots in my first episode,” recalled Gamzon. “I’m cutting the headless horseman whose head is covered in green cloth for green screen. I have to remember that if the actor’s head does something interesting, I shouldn’t react. I can’t look at that. Instead I have to focus on what his body is doing.
Basically as an editor on this show, you have to train yourself to see what’s not there—and to not see what is there.”
As for what is there that he can acknowledge, Gamzon said of Sleepy Hollow, “There are great action sequences, inventive visual effects, the ability to do some really fun stuff visually but perhaps most importantly really human storytelling. The relationship between Crane and Abby [Lieutenant Mills, a sheriff detective in the small modern town of Sleepy Hollow] has a lot more heart than you would expect it might for this kind of series.”
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 12, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 11, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 10, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 9, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 8, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 7, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 6, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 5, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 4, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 3, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 2, click here.
To read The Road To Emmy, Part 1, click here.
To read Primetime Talent, Pre-Road To Emmy feature 1, click here.
