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4 days ago
- Entertainment
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What's the Secret to Comedic Timing? The Creators and Artisans of ‘The Four Seasons' Pull Back the Curtain
There's something very aspirational these days about being able to take a vacation during spring, summer, fall, and winter. But the creative team behind 'The Four Seasons' miniseries had some goals of their own in mind when adapting the 1981 Alan Alda film of the same title. Co-creators, writers, and executive producers Tina Fey, Tracey Wigfield, and Lang Fisher, have all been involved in legendary comedy series from '30 Rock' to 'Never Have I Ever,' but 'The Four Seasons' demanded more character-driven and even 'indie movie' focus to its visual style than your standard sitcom. ' In the shows that Tina and Tracey and I have done before, it's been really rapid fire and there's been a lot of tight coverage and I feel like when we first started talking to [cinematographer Tim Orr], we'd like to play things looser,' co-creator and director Lang Fisher told IndieWire as part of a recent USG University Panel. 'To have more cinematic composition in the shots we're doing and more movement and, you know, to have it feel more like an indie movie.' More from IndieWire Cowboys vs. Accountants: The Real World of International Production Financing | Future of Filmmaking Summit at Cannes Richard Linklater Explains Why You Need to Be a 'Cheap Hustler' to Make Indie Films | Future of Filmmaking Summit at Cannes The plot of that indie movie is, fittingly, broken up into fourths as it checks in on a set of friends, all well-to-do couples, across four different vacations. Steve Carell and Kerri Kenney-Silver's Nick and Anne go through the biggest changes, beginning with a hail mary vow renewal that the latter puts on to save their marriage; but Tina Fey and Will Forte's Kate and Jack have their own struggles about how they do (or don't) show up for each other; and Colman Domingo and Marco Calvani's Danny and Claude sometimes have very different ways of looking at the world. Co-creator and actor Tina Fey was drawn to the original movie's tone, as well as the groundedness of Alda's writing. 'It felt like you were just really with these people. I loved what we refer to as the container play rules of the original. We're only seeing them on vacation. We never see their homes. We never see them at work. We pick up clues about who they are and what they do on the vacations,' Fey said. The original cast wasn't too shabby, either, and one of the highlights of the second episode of the Netflix series is the rare Alan Alda appearance, as he shows up at the vow renewal to give a little relationship advice to the current iteration of characters before dealing with the consequences of a spicy cup of coffee. 'It was all people that you love from other things coming together. And so that was our goal as producers,' Fey said. 'Could we put together this ensemble that people go, 'Wait, I like these people from other things and now they're all together. There's something kind of fun about that.' Assembling the right team behind the camera was just as crucial. 'We want this to be a beautiful show,' Co-creator and writer Wigfield told IndieWire. 'We want the visual language of the show to be prettier, slower, cozy, [to] welcome you in. But these kinds of words are nonsense coming out of my mouth if we don't hire the right people to interpret them and make real decisions based on them.' Chief among the interpreters were cinematographer Tim Orr and production designer Sharon Lomofsky, who tried to craft each season to be very classy and elegant while also hinting at the mess each of the characters would very much like to leave behind on vacation. 'We all wanted to make it feel timeless to where the cinematography was naturalistic and grounded but still had a richness and texture that was built through the lighting and where we placed the camera and how we moved it,' Orr told IndieWire. Orr avoided handheld coverage, which might be more ungainly, and an over-reliance on the tight shot-reverse shots sitcoms often employ to make sure that each improv riff gets captured. Dolly work and wide shots, to capture a sense of environment and of the characters' relationship to each other, and to themselves, did more storytelling work. 'And that's a thing I really appreciated about this show, is that there was a fearless attitude towards it [being OK] to play it in that wide shot,' Orr said. Likewise, Lomofsky wanted the homes and vacations we see in the show to look quite classy but to always give the audience some information about the characters they wouldn't necessarily say themselves. 'It's a dance and a symphony, picking the right [color] palettes for each bedroom but making it all feel like one house,' Lomofsky told IndieWire. From an exploding pottery shed to eco-yurts on a beach resort that Lomofsky and her team constructed truly out of nothing but a mud field, the production designer had a lot of logistics to manage in her builds. But some of the groundedness that supports the comedy comes out of building in a sense of history into the vacation houses that we see, down to the smallest details. 'It was all composing different eras, in a way, because we are staying in this [vacation] house for a really long time and bringing in collections over time and family photographs, which take a lot to actually do. We had to do photo shoots to do the family photos on the wall,' Lomofsky said. 'What I'm always going for is that it looks effortless — but it's really not effortless at all.' 'The Four Seasons' is streaming on Netflix. IndieWire partnered with Universal Studio Group for USG University, a series of virtual panels celebrating the best in television art from the 2024-2025 TV season across NBC Universal's portfolio of shows. USG University (a Universal Studio Group program) is presented in partnership with Roybal Film & TV Magnet and IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking. Catch up on the latest USG University videos here. Best of IndieWire 2023 Emmy Predictions: Who Will Win at the Primetime Emmy Awards? 2023 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special 2023 Emmy Predictions: Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series
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4 days ago
- Entertainment
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‘The Penguin' Director Jennifer Getzinger: Learn How to Keep Quiet
When you're first starting out as a director, it can be easy to hold tight to your vision as if it were some kind of North Star that can do you no wrong. It's good to have that passion and confidence, but when it comes to actually executing most productions, time can't be wasted trying to explain the minutiae of your inner thoughts. In fact, as explained by TV director Jennifer Getzinger, more often than not conciseness and clarity is more appreciated from actors than trying to dissect every element of a scene. During the latest episode of 'What No One Tells You,' Getzinger told IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking that when she was training to become a director, she tended to be 'a little bit afraid' of working with actors. To overcome this fear, she took a workshop with Adrienne Weiss, an acting coach and instructor who came out of the Yale School of Drama. It was here that she started to understand what performers really needed out of a director. More from IndieWire 'Hacks' Renewed for Season 5 at HBO Max AI Experts Debate What Will (or Won't) Be Disrupted by the Technology | Future of Filmmaking Summit at Cannes 'You would rehearse the scenes and then you would put them up in front of the class,' Getzinger said. 'And then at the end, the director would sit up on stage and everyone would critique what you did as a director.' This was unusual as typically it's the director commenting on the work of the actor, but in creating this even playing field, Getzinger began noticing patterns within the notes that spoke to a persistent problem amongst many first-time directors. 'It's unlike anything you'll ever ever have in real life as a director because no actor is going to tell you like, 'Oh, this was terrible. That note you gave me was awful,'' she told IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking. 'And the thing I learned the most was just stop talking so much. Stop giving so many notes.' In pursuit of their own objectives, Getzinger realized many directors were treating actors as devices rather than human beings. This didn't ultimately help the performer, but instead just overcomplicated whatever perspective they were trying to bring to the scene. 'You can't give someone 5 things to play in between every take,' said Getzinger. 'I think every new director just keeps talking and talking and talking and is hoping they're saying something that has some wisdom in it and you really need to stop.' Getzinger went on to direct for 'Mad Men,' 'Westworld,' and most recently on HBO's hit series 'The Penguin,' starring Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti. Watch a clip from her episode of 'What No One Tells You' below. Want to find out more about Future of Filmmaking and 'What No One Tells You?' Visit our new Future of Filmmaking landing page and sign up for our weekly newsletter, 'In Development.' Best of IndieWire Nightmare Film Shoots: The 38 Most Grueling Films Ever Made, from 'Deliverance' to 'The Wages of Fear' Quentin Tarantino's Favorite Movies: 65 Films the Director Wants You to See The 19 Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in May, from 'Fair Play' to 'Emily the Criminal'
