Post by -|E|- on May 30, 2007 10:07:10 GMT -5
May 22, 2007
"The Math of the Wrath" blog by Rohn Schmidt
Hi, this is Rohn Schmidt and I directed "The Math of the Wrath". The most devoted of our Shield fans will recognize my name as the "Director of Photography" for all the Shield episodes before last week's episode (side note I got a panicked e-mail from an old friend saying "are you in trouble? Dude they really screwed up the spelling of your name last week"). No, the director of photography for that week was Richard Cantu, one of the two great camera operators on our show (with of course Bill Gierhart on the other camera). Richard took over for me so I could prepare to direct this episode. It was very hard letting someone else shoot, sort of like letting your teenager drive to the store alone for the first time. When I first sought to direct an episode I realized that besides having no directing experience, one of the biggest impediments was "who would shoot the show if I was directing?". Richard did great (and thank you to the rest of the crew for the solid support for Richard).
So how did I end up directing an episode of The Shield? It wasn't easy, remember I'm competing with people like Frank Darabont, John Badham, David Mamet, D. J. Caruso and Davis Guggenheim (not to mention all the A-list series Directors we have) for one of 13 spots. Those guys have about a jillion dollars in box-office gross between them! With help from my lords and mentors (Shawn Ryan and Scott Brazil) I was given a show - but not before spending a year studying with our stable of regular directors, editors and cast.
It has been a year since we shot "Math of the Wrath". A lot of it is a blur now - was I really there? I remember being told about this cool idea where Hernan has to kill someone to keep his cover then he and Vic have a wonderful scene together where they each separately contemplate how far they should go for the greater good. Except there was some problem with the actor who played Hernan, so we spent the entire episode looking for someone we never see. It was a heroic last minute fix by writer Chic Eglee, but I never found it satisfying. It was one of those episodes that laid the foundation for future storylines. One of these storylines involved Franka Potente. We had heard rumors that there was a star who wanted a part and I was so thrilled to learn it was Franke! She is one of my favorite actresses and she was great on the show. Little side trivia note, when we were shooting the pilot, one of the films we studied for style was "Run Lola Run".
I gotta go. I hope you enjoyed the episode.