Ever since he was a young boy – especially as a child actor at “Everybody Hates Chris” – Tyler James Williams Knew he wanted to become a director. In his own words he fell in love not only with being at TVAnd with manufacturing TV, and he couldn’t wait to get behind the camera one day.
What he might not expect was that his direction debut would be one of the most difficult ”Abbott elementary“Episodes for shooting: Season 4, section 13,“ Science Fair. “
“It wasn’t until we really started breaking it down, it was like,” Oh, this is huge, “Williams told IndieWire after the episode aired.” There is a scene where Janine (Quinta Brunson) builds the volcano with Clarissa ( Amentii Sledge). She leaves her classroom and goes to Melissa’s classroom (Lisa Ann Walter). While we are there, the smallest child (Dillion Blake Allen runs in, steals beaker, runs out of that room. In the corridor with Gregory (Williams) and then encounter AVA (Janelle James) at the same time. We had to cross three sets at once, mainly, so that the whole scene would run together.
It is just one of many challenging scenes-there is also Ava and Janine approaching the office and an inevitable driving with Ava’s father Frank (Keith David), and then the very science fair in the third act, which includes a sequence where Williams had to Get to leave their position at the displays, “Go into a pocket” and then go out as the scene continues.
Williams began to prepare for “Science Fair” at the beginning of the season-or perhaps as early as he was a teenager, worked with producing director Jerry Levine and asked him as many questions as possible. When Season 4 began, Williams started sitting at production meetings, tone meetings, concept meetings and asking questions. He started conversations with the crew, with the camera department, with the executive producer Randall Einhorn, and began to break down the section office before specific dialogue or characters had been added to it.
“Because I know the space and I know a kind of language in our show and how it works, I can begin to understand what this needs to move and how this needs to look,” he said. “It’s really hard to explain, and I guess this is where the vision part of it comes in, where I just start to see it when I read. This person eventually comes in and says something along these lines, which makes this character do this. I can see it a little in real time. ”
As one of the best directors in the hockumentary space, Einhorn helped “Abbott” and similar shows find their rhythm with the camera operators who behave as characters themselves.
“We had a lot of conversation about not only where the camera could be for the shot, but is it meaningful to the documentary on the other side of the camera?”, Said Williams. “Play with these camera operators and cameras as characters in this world. What are their views on everything? Why do they get this shot they are? It affected many of the decisions I made. “
It helped Williams “worked symbiotic with this camera department as if I have no one else. Everyone always asks, ‘What is the secret to Gregory’s fourth wall -breaking look? That is the relationship. Jeremiah Smith and a camera calculated me as an actor within the first few weeks, to where he could find these moments when I found them. “Williams described the experience that essentially prepared the section as another character:” I only make choices and decisions for each character on the page, including the camera operators. “
At the same time, he says that the experience freed him as an actor in some ways, such as not feeling so prone to criticize his own performance between scenes.
“I think one of the things that is always the type of pet for actors is, if you feel you have it, why don’t we go further?”, He said. “I found that I couldn’t really direct myself, but more remembers the moment for how it felt when we shot it. It is something I think I will now transfer as an actor and what to do. I don’t think we should ever look at our performances, because there will be things we don’t like … But did it feel right at that moment? If it felt right, then it is good, we can move on. “
“Abbott” is obviously a show where dozens of young extras come with the territory, but “Science Fair” was still a “Big Kid Day”, as Williams puts it. Each of 24 students had to have a science project (with functional practical effects, unfortunately cut for time), and then there must be enough others to explore the fair and fill in the gym. In Mr. Morton’s (Jerry Minor) laboratory must be buns Burner Flames edited because children’s actors cannot be within five meters from an open flame. He repeated the big scenes “to the point where it is like music”, and ensured that the children moved quickly and instinctively during a detailed photography.
Williams sounds significantly relieved that the episode was finally released, as the “Abbott” production continues to play catch -up after a break during the fires. He is different safe as an actor, with his unmatched respect for production only stronger.
“You have to have a good crew,” he said. “You can’t make a good show but a fantastic crew. I had a crew of people that I built a relationship with over the past four years, and how they showed up for me this week – I’m just over grateful for the way they did. That’s what they do every week. Actors get a lot of praise and all this; showing success live or die with the crew. It’s something I know for sure now – I thought I knew it before, but now Know That’s true. “
New section of “Abbott Elementary” air on Wednesdays at ABC and flows on Thursday on Hulu.
