Dan Attias, Director, Producer and Author: The fundamental director question for me is How does this make me feel?
Film Courage: Can you be a TV director if you don’t love story?
Dan: I don’t think you can be much of a director if you don’t love story because I think that’s what the director is, a storyteller. I guess people do get into it for different motivations. It’s a glamour position, the people, the culture really lifts up people in the entertainment business. But I don’t think there are too many successful directors who don’t come at it with some sort of driving passion to tell stories and in my case, to understand myself more. I feel in finding my connection to stories what moves me about them, what I want to see happen, I’m really exploring myself, I’m really having to look within to find out not what I’d like, how I’d like to be, but how I am because I’m using myself always as the barometer. The fundamental director question for me is How does this make me feel? That’s something I realized in kind of deconstructing my process when I started mentoring young directors and speaking at festivals which led ultimately to me writing this book which I’ll mention again at your suggestion Directing Great Television: Inside TV’s New Golden Age.
Film Courage: And you just wrote that sorry to interrupt but in 2020?
Dan: Just an hour ago! I took advantage of the pandemic because I had to suspend my directing career and I had started the book several months before but during the pandemic I really just devoted myself full time to it…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BUY THE BOOK – DIRECTING GREAT TELEVISION: Inside TV’s New Golden Age
BIO:
Dan Attias has worked as a director in the film and television industry for 37 years. As a director of series television he has received the Directors Guild of America award for outstanding direction of dramatic television and has been nominated for multiple Emmy awards for his comedy directing. He continues to work on some of the most celebrated and critically acclaimed American television shows, including Homeland, The Americans, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Billions, and The Boys. Previously he has directed The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, True Blood, Entourage, The Killing, The Walking Dead, True Detective, Ray Donovan, Bloodline, Friday Night Lights, Northern Exposure, House, Lost, Alias, among many others. His first professional directing assignment was the feature film, Stephen King’s Silver Bullet, produced by Dino DeLaurentiis. Dan started his career studying acting, then worked as an assistant director on E.T. The Extraterrestrial, Airplane!, One From the Heart and several other feature films. He has taught acting and directing workshops in the United States, and has appeared as a guest speaker at festivals in Italy, Brazil, Greece, Mexico and Canada. Before working in the film and television industry, Dan was enrolled in a Ph.D. program in English literature at U.C.L.A., then transferred to the Theater Arts Department where he earned an M.F.A. in film production.
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