Speaker 1: I'm Ken Kappas. I I am a director. I directed
Speaker 1: the pilot of the Office and many other episodes. Hello everybody,
Speaker 1: this is the Office Deep Dive, and I am your
Speaker 1: host Brian baum Gartner. How's everybody doing out there? Is everybody? Okay?
Speaker 1: I wish I could hear you. Um today you will
Speaker 1: be listening to me and my conversation with Ken Kappas
Speaker 1: now as usual, no one can put it better than
Speaker 1: Greg Daniels. And Greg described Ken as the country vet
Speaker 1: who birthed this puppy, this puppy being the American Office,
Speaker 1: and this is so true. Ken was. He was the
Speaker 1: director of the pilot, but also so many of our
Speaker 1: most beloved episodes. He directed Diversity, Day, Booze, Cruise, The Fire,
Speaker 1: The Job, Casino Night Gave which the finale. Honestly, there
Speaker 1: are too many to name, but you should go look
Speaker 1: him up. Ken is such um sweet nice guy one
Speaker 1: and two. He He also has a really unique directing style. Um.
Speaker 1: He wrote a book recently actually called but what I
Speaker 1: really want to do is direct lessons from a life
Speaker 1: behind a camera. And to get to sit down and
Speaker 1: talk with him about all of that, that was my pleasure.
Speaker 1: So on that note in homage to Ken Ken Go ahead,
Speaker 1: bub I love it, Bubble, We're gonna bubble and Squeaker
Speaker 1: cook at every moment left over from the nut before. Hello, sir,
Speaker 1: I'm coming around for another hacks. Yes, it's so good
Speaker 1: to see you, So good to see you, to see you.
Speaker 1: I and I'm glad, uh you're doing this well. I
Speaker 1: think that there's a story here that needs to be told.
Speaker 1: I you know what I was saying to Margaret that
Speaker 1: I have been It's not a book about the office,
Speaker 1: but I'm actually I'm writing a book about directing, right,
Speaker 1: just a general book about directing, and it certainly includes,
Speaker 1: you know, some of our experiences. But I but I
Speaker 1: have been approached by a bunch of people and I've
Speaker 1: just basically now, I say, is Greg doing this right?
Speaker 1: So right? The first person that I went to was Greg,
Speaker 1: and I said, look, this is what we want to do,
Speaker 1: and he was totally supportive. And you know, they're finishing
Speaker 1: editing his or sorry, finished shooting his show this week,
Speaker 1: well in fact on Raleigh, because that's where Angela and
Speaker 1: I were doing this other show. So literally I saw Greg.
Speaker 1: I wander over to his that math did you go visit. No,
Speaker 1: I haven't been there yet, this massive out of this
Speaker 1: space whatever worship right and uh, but yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to see it. Yeah, see it? Um? Now
Speaker 1: did you had you worked with Greg before the Office?
Speaker 1: I met him when I was invited to meet him
Speaker 1: to direct the pilot of the Office. Okay, so so
Speaker 1: before the pilot, what what were you were working on
Speaker 1: Bernie Mac? Yeah, that seems specifically what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I had worked on the show Malcolm in the Middle.
Speaker 1: I directed nineteen episodes of Malcolm in the Middle. I
Speaker 1: helped launch the Bernie Max Show with Larry Wilmore, and
Speaker 1: I was working on I think. Yeah, so I was
Speaker 1: working on the Bernie Mac Show when I got the
Speaker 1: call to meet with Greg. Right, and were you familiar
Speaker 1: with the British version of the show. I was familiar
Speaker 1: with it, but I hadn't seen much of it. I
Speaker 1: think I may have only seen the pilot episode of
Speaker 1: the British show, right. And now we shot the pilot
Speaker 1: and the first season in the production offices above the
Speaker 1: sound stage, right. I mean we built within, We built
Speaker 1: within a practical space, and in fact, one of the
Speaker 1: things that we did when we moved to the whatever
Speaker 1: we call it warehouse. What are we calling that the warehouse?
Speaker 1: I guess. When we built the dunder Mifflin's set, one
Speaker 1: of the things that Greg and I definitely discussed was
Speaker 1: the idea of not making any walls movable while the bowl.
Speaker 1: And the idea was that since this was a you know,
Speaker 1: quote documentary, that directors had to respect the physical limitations
Speaker 1: of the space, so that if you couldn't get an angle,
Speaker 1: you couldn't get an angle. And that was again it
Speaker 1: was it was sort of a way to signal to
Speaker 1: directors coming down the line that you know, you had
Speaker 1: to kind of honor the space. And again, if this
Speaker 1: were any other kind of either single camera or multi
Speaker 1: camera situation, you just move a wall out of the
Speaker 1: way and get back and in some cases get almost
Speaker 1: a procenium view of the action. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I loved, not just in the pilot, but in
Speaker 1: episodes in the second season in particular, was creating a
Speaker 1: sense that we were blocked from seeing the action properly,
Speaker 1: or or even that you know, some either a pillar
Speaker 1: or a file cabinet, something was in our way and
Speaker 1: we couldn't quite get a good angle on things, and
Speaker 1: that increased the realism. Yeah, I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: so much of what Greg and I discussed in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, a camera style was how to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: create a sense that we were there observing people, observing characters. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's not a secret that the staff of dunder Mifflin
Speaker 1: knows they're being observed, they know they're being filmed. Most
Speaker 1: of the staff members don't want to be filmed, except
Speaker 1: for you know, Michael Scott. So part of it was
Speaker 1: just trying to come up with visual ideas that would
Speaker 1: either we would sort of be in a character's face
Speaker 1: and and and you know, for instance, if I was
Speaker 1: shooting you, you, if I was this far from you,
Speaker 1: you'd know I'm there. Or we'd wed, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of hide behind a shrub or a file cabinet and
Speaker 1: sort of eavesdrop on the action a little bit more
Speaker 1: so that we could sort of observe without characters knowing
Speaker 1: we were. They're looking at them. And I'm always mindful that,
Speaker 1: you know, it was Greg's decision not to shoot the
Speaker 1: series at a studio. We you know, we weren't at Universal,
Speaker 1: we weren't, you know, and it was his choice to
Speaker 1: you know, find this warehouse in this scrubby section of
Speaker 1: the valley, so that even if it wasn't actual Scranton,
Speaker 1: it was definitely not Hollywood, and it definitely felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, where were we? Why are we coming all
Speaker 1: the way out into this kind of bizarre area to
Speaker 1: shoot this show in a warehouse? And you know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't like we used the surroundings very often, but I
Speaker 1: think Greg really wanted to give us an opportunity to
Speaker 1: not feel like we were in a show. Right. We're
Speaker 1: definitely gonna talk a little bit more about that, but
Speaker 1: um so you and Greg met and was there any
Speaker 1: discussion at that time about making the American version. Let's
Speaker 1: just call it that the American version versus where there
Speaker 1: are things that you wanted immediately to do differently before
Speaker 1: we started work on the pilot. As I recalled, there
Speaker 1: was a British show and I'm blanking out on the
Speaker 1: name of it. It was a comedy. It was kind
Speaker 1: of like a romantic slash sex comedy show. God, I
Speaker 1: can't remember the name of it, but anyways, it was
Speaker 1: a show that either NBC or some other network tried
Speaker 1: to do a U S version of and it didn't work,
Speaker 1: And one of the things that Greg and I definitely
Speaker 1: discussed was the need to maintain the kind of the
Speaker 1: unorthodox approach of the UK show, not exactly mimicking the
Speaker 1: tone of it, but for me as a director visually
Speaker 1: sort of trying to maintain the style that what's the
Speaker 1: right way to put it where where it feels like
Speaker 1: we were catching the action by accident that things were
Speaker 1: not being staged for the camera, and I mean everyone,
Speaker 1: I think you know, there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: were saying, well, this is going to fail because no
Speaker 1: network will allow you to do what they did in
Speaker 1: the UK version. But in fact, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: Greg leading the charge, and certain people at NBC understanding
Speaker 1: that it wouldn't work unless it it wouldn't work if
Speaker 1: it traveled down the middle of the road, or it
Speaker 1: had to at least aspire to the same kind of
Speaker 1: you know, offbeat quality that the original at or else
Speaker 1: it just wouldn't play, and so on on every level
Speaker 1: that affected every decision. I mean, I can go through
Speaker 1: any number of things, including the decision to do screen
Speaker 1: tests and improvisation instead of the traditional, you know, approach
Speaker 1: of bringing the finalists for a role in front of
Speaker 1: a bunch of really humorist network executives, right right, And
Speaker 1: so I mean in place of that, we we shot
Speaker 1: a lot of screen tests with different combinations of actors,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that made all the difference in
Speaker 1: the world in terms of I don't know, it just
Speaker 1: it changed the whole tenor of how the cast played
Speaker 1: the scenes that we weren't trying to sell them. It
Speaker 1: wasn't joking. We weren't selling jokes. It was it was.
Speaker 1: One of the hallmarks of the show, obviously, is the
Speaker 1: kind of very understated, often kind of mute quality that
Speaker 1: you know, like character is who have nothing to say,
Speaker 1: We're just sort of start there with us. And I
Speaker 1: think that was that's not the kind of thing you're
Speaker 1: going to communicate well in a traditional network executive audition,
Speaker 1: Like in a network test. It's like theater in a
Speaker 1: huge room with no camera there. And I think Jenna
Speaker 1: and Rain both talked about you brought the camera in
Speaker 1: and asked the actors to also behave as though the
Speaker 1: camera were character. And I think that, you know, every
Speaker 1: actor sort of developed his or her own relationship with
Speaker 1: the camera, and some people were more eager to acknowledge
Speaker 1: the camera, Like, you know, John's character, I think pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of makes a friend of the camera, Jenna.
Speaker 1: I think there's moments where it feels like Jenna wants
Speaker 1: to crawl under the reception desk, right, And so I
Speaker 1: think everybody had their own specific relationship to the camera,
Speaker 1: and that's something we started to uh explore in the
Speaker 1: in the screen test period. So that was one choice
Speaker 1: or one thing that Greg insisted on. And all credit
Speaker 1: to Greg for insisting that we not go the traditional
Speaker 1: route in terms of bringing actors to a network for
Speaker 1: the auditions. Do you remember was there any pushback about that? No,
Speaker 1: I don't remember any crush back about it, because again,
Speaker 1: I feel like the people at NBC at that moment
Speaker 1: sort of I don't want to say they indulged Greg
Speaker 1: or indulged us, but I think they just knew on
Speaker 1: some level they had to let us do this in
Speaker 1: a different way. The UK show was so beloved, partly
Speaker 1: because of its tone, partly because of its very unusual
Speaker 1: visual style, and I think they knew to like kind
Speaker 1: of get out of the way at least in certain ways.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can say that one of the other
Speaker 1: things we did during the pilot shoot itself was we
Speaker 1: started each day with, you know, shooting basically documentary footage
Speaker 1: of the whole cast, the entire ensemble, just at their desks,
Speaker 1: and both Greg and I kind of borrowed Ricky Gervais
Speaker 1: and Stephen Merchants phrase general views. We didn't call them
Speaker 1: establishing shots right then. We keep calling them b roles,
Speaker 1: but general but that was that was I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's a general term in Great Britain for an
Speaker 1: establishing shot or something, but Ricky said, oh, we would
Speaker 1: just do general views. And so each morning during the
Speaker 1: pilot shoot we started the day with quote general views
Speaker 1: of people at work. And what was great about it
Speaker 1: was there was no story going on. It was just
Speaker 1: everyone at their desks, you know, you and Angela and
Speaker 1: Oscar sort of you know, doing accounting work. We would
Speaker 1: take shots of things that were just by definition like
Speaker 1: so mundane like and some of them I think got
Speaker 1: into the credit role at the beginning the title sequence,
Speaker 1: like I think rain like sticking the things into the
Speaker 1: paper shredder and things like that, shredding me doing the
Speaker 1: absolutely yeah, adding machine, the adding machine. Those were things
Speaker 1: I think that came out of the general views. Definitely.
Speaker 1: I think Eve adjusting his little trophy on his desk
Speaker 1: was one of the general views. And what I do
Speaker 1: remember you asked about network pushback was I remember getting
Speaker 1: a comment from some executive not understanding why. For example,
Speaker 1: they were like lunge like lengthy shots of like the
Speaker 1: water cooler, or you know, why is there a lengthy
Speaker 1: shot of rain sharpening pencils? What is the purpose of this?
Speaker 1: So it wasn't exactly paying you for this, So I
Speaker 1: wasn't pushedback, but it was definitely like what are you
Speaker 1: guys doing? And then and and by the way, you
Speaker 1: can shoot a lot of footage and a half hour,
Speaker 1: and we usually spent about a half hour before we
Speaker 1: kind of slid into a scene. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that I discovered in this process is that the
Speaker 1: cast during the i'll call it the g V section
Speaker 1: of each of our days, they knew they were being observed,
Speaker 1: They knew they were the subject of a document entry,
Speaker 1: and that when we then moved into a scene, it
Speaker 1: wasn't like we now went into show mode, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like we we we were still in a
Speaker 1: kind of documentary mode. And so I think the general
Speaker 1: views created it kind of lived in reality. It feels
Speaker 1: like they've been there working there for years. Well, that's
Speaker 1: that's fascinating. I think it did something else as well,
Speaker 1: And I'm curious if this was an unwitting benefit or
Speaker 1: if there was some thought to this. I mean, you
Speaker 1: had every actor essentially there from four thirty or five
Speaker 1: am or whatever time it was, to be ready by
Speaker 1: seven or seven thirty in the morning. We didn't do
Speaker 1: the general views when it was convenient during the day
Speaker 1: when everyone was there. It was about bringing everybody in
Speaker 1: and I think that that is what started building the ensemble.
Speaker 1: You know, It's funny because I one of the things, um,
Speaker 1: one of the advantages we had is that the pilot
Speaker 1: takes plays by and large in the bullpen, So it
Speaker 1: wasn't like there were scenes in the parking lot or
Speaker 1: anywhere else and the bullpen, except for the hr section
Speaker 1: of the office, the bullpen requires everyone to be there,
Speaker 1: and in theory, each the actors are not entirely clear
Speaker 1: when the camera's going to find them. So when we
Speaker 1: did the general views, yeah, I mean, it definitely created
Speaker 1: a sense of ensemble. And I would also say that
Speaker 1: it felt like whatever else you might think of that pilot,
Speaker 1: and I love the pilot. One of the things that
Speaker 1: really strikes me when I look at it now, it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like oh new show. It feels like we were,
Speaker 1: we've we've we've wandered into a place that's, you know,
Speaker 1: going about its dreary way the same way it has
Speaker 1: been for the past couple of years or more. So
Speaker 1: I think it kind of helped, uh people just sort
Speaker 1: of start to create a little sense of what their
Speaker 1: normal days like. There was also something we did that
Speaker 1: it was kind of impractical to continue doing this over time.
Speaker 1: But during the pilot shoot, with the exception of Peter
Speaker 1: Smokeler who was shooting Greg and myself and maybe maybe
Speaker 1: the boom operator I'm not even sure, probably, but no
Speaker 1: one else actually was allowed on the set, including hair
Speaker 1: and makeup, and as I recall, we kind of gave
Speaker 1: everyone a little compact. And obviously this is not something
Speaker 1: you could sustain for a long time, but that was
Speaker 1: definitely something Greg and I spoke of to kind of
Speaker 1: create a sense that what's the right way to put it, basically,
Speaker 1: how do you how do we create a real space,
Speaker 1: a real workplace. But my hope was that it just
Speaker 1: made people feel, you know, a little bit trapped in
Speaker 1: their workplace right well, and that is a great word
Speaker 1: that I use all the time. Trapped. We were trapped
Speaker 1: within the confines the walls. There were no movable walls.
Speaker 1: We were all there together and all arriving at roughly
Speaker 1: the same time and showing up on set at the
Speaker 1: same time, which forced us to make relationships. I've actually
Speaker 1: never talked with Greg about this, but I mean that
Speaker 1: Greg's decision to embed within the ensemble writers also, I
Speaker 1: think helped grow grew that sense of ensemble in a
Speaker 1: way that it wouldn't have if they if the writing
Speaker 1: staff was always at arm's length from the from the calf.
Speaker 1: I want to go back for a second to the casting,
Speaker 1: and um, how obvious was it to you or how
Speaker 1: difficult were the decisions for you in casting? You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't obvious across the board because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of good people who came in and and so
Speaker 1: there were like a lot of viable, you know, versions
Speaker 1: of different characters. But I do think that, um, I
Speaker 1: mean again, part of what was fun in the screen
Speaker 1: tests was just sort of you know, starting to not
Speaker 1: only see people in pairs, but starting to see a
Speaker 1: whole picture of a group of people. I mean that.
Speaker 1: And by the way, when you talk about ensemble, one
Speaker 1: of the things I was so happy about with the
Speaker 1: pilot is even if some characters aren't don't have speaking parts,
Speaker 1: they are they're they're very present. And I remember that,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that Greg insisted on,
Speaker 1: you know, as as with any half hour comedy, at
Speaker 1: the end of the pilot shoot, the network sends down
Speaker 1: a photographer to do, like, you know, a bunch of
Speaker 1: glossy shots of the actors looking cute and jumping up
Speaker 1: and down and all that, and we were so determed.
Speaker 1: That was you know, we pushed back, I shouldn't say we.
Speaker 1: Greg pushed back and insisted that we not do anything
Speaker 1: traditional like that, anything that would scream comedy. So that
Speaker 1: what we did instead was the our Christmas card photo.
Speaker 1: So we got the group together for a kind of
Speaker 1: candid dunder Mifflin, you know, Xmas card photo, and that
Speaker 1: was our marketing photo. That was it. There were and
Speaker 1: if you go to if you like, if you were
Speaker 1: to go to NBC at that time and walk down
Speaker 1: the halls, you know, you'd see giant glossy shots of
Speaker 1: each of the comedy stars, not the ensemble. And that
Speaker 1: was the other part of it. It wasn't Steve standing.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I think there was actually a discussion
Speaker 1: on the set about, you know, let's put Steve in
Speaker 1: the foreground of the shot of the group for the
Speaker 1: Christmas card. And I think Steve or Greg, or you know,
Speaker 1: both of them said absolutely not, he's he's in the group,
Speaker 1: and that boy, that really sent the right signal. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean the work that you all did to create
Speaker 1: that ensemble early on, and of course, you know, as
Speaker 1: you know, really no one was famous that you know,
Speaker 1: Steve had done the Bruce Almighty movie and he was
Speaker 1: on The Daily Show before the Daily Show was cool.
Speaker 1: And you know Rain had done the one arc on
Speaker 1: six ft Under and that was pretty much it. Why
Speaker 1: was that so important for you? Well, I again, I
Speaker 1: will defer to Greg because it was Greg's decision, and
Speaker 1: Greg was the one who, no doubt made the argument
Speaker 1: to the network that it's best not to have known
Speaker 1: faces in the show. I mean, I think the again,
Speaker 1: everything has to do with creating this kind of Barris
Speaker 1: similitude that this is a show, this is not a show.
Speaker 1: It's a it's part of a documentary about a group
Speaker 1: of people who work in a paper company, so you
Speaker 1: wouldn't know them. There's no need, there's no reason you'd
Speaker 1: see a star in a in a workplace like that.
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, in terms of the
Speaker 1: wardrobe choices, the makeup and hair choices, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, everything was sort of designed to make it
Speaker 1: feel like these are people who don't belong on television,
Speaker 1: let alone on a primetime half hour comedy. And Steve,
Speaker 1: you know though, I felt that one of the things
Speaker 1: Steve did so well is that he's the one character
Speaker 1: who's who's so excited about a documentary crew being there
Speaker 1: because Michael Scott fancies himself a superstar. But weirdly enough,
Speaker 1: even Steve, I think, somehow both played to the camera,
Speaker 1: but also it was himself the subject of a documentary too.
Speaker 1: He somehow, and it's it's one of the things I
Speaker 1: just marvel at. You know, Michael Scott is grandstanding and
Speaker 1: you know, making jokes, and he's playing to the camera,
Speaker 1: but the character doesn't quite realize it, but we're observing him.
Speaker 1: He's he's under the microscope and Steve somehow kind of
Speaker 1: found that weird duality. Tell me about what's true and
Speaker 1: what's what's lore or fairy tale. How did Phillis get
Speaker 1: cast in the show? I well, I will tell you
Speaker 1: what happened. So, um, we were doing, uh probably know,
Speaker 1: kind of more traditional auditions, and in the room Greg, myself,
Speaker 1: Phyllis Allison, and the setup was is that I sat
Speaker 1: next to a video camera and on the other side
Speaker 1: of the video camera Phillis was sitting and Phillis was
Speaker 1: reading off and Phyllis was her casting associate. And I
Speaker 1: hadn't met Phyllis. All I knew is I was sitting
Speaker 1: next to her, and there was a camera between us
Speaker 1: and the actors who were auditioning were some of them
Speaker 1: were kind of playing it to the hilt and kind
Speaker 1: of working a little too hard. Phillis, meanwhile, was reading
Speaker 1: her lines in in this very kind of monotonal way,
Speaker 1: sometimes not even looking up at the actors, just looking
Speaker 1: down at the sheet of paper. And I just became
Speaker 1: fascinated with her and started looking at her. And there
Speaker 1: was a couple of actors whose auditions I kind of
Speaker 1: missed because I kept throwing Phyllis these glances and I finally,
Speaker 1: during a break, I took Greg aside and I said,
Speaker 1: this woman really belongs in a paper company. And so
Speaker 1: we Greg thought about it and he said sure. And
Speaker 1: now there's a there is there is one additional detail
Speaker 1: that's so wonderful, and that is that after Greg said sure,
Speaker 1: let's ask her to be in the bullpen and she
Speaker 1: agreed to do it. That Greg and I had a
Speaker 1: discussion and Greg said, do you know if she can act?
Speaker 1: And I took Phillis aside and I said, do you
Speaker 1: have a lot of acting experience? And she said not
Speaker 1: not really. But she said that some years earlier that
Speaker 1: she had, you know, worked in burlesque in Branson, Missouri.
Speaker 1: And I said stop it. And she then later that
Speaker 1: week brought in a photo of herself into like a
Speaker 1: very you know, wonderfully old fashioned burlescout. It was on
Speaker 1: her desk for ten years and the So that is
Speaker 1: the Phillis story and and I couldn't be happier that
Speaker 1: she became such a beloved member of the ensemble. I
Speaker 1: feel also responsible for Creed and I and I so
Speaker 1: tell the Creed story. How did you know Creed? When
Speaker 1: I was on the Bernie Max Show. Creed was a
Speaker 1: stand in, and I remember one day that's Creed and
Speaker 1: another stand in. We're just having a conversation while we
Speaker 1: were lighting, and I was wandering around, and I kept
Speaker 1: eavesdropping on little bits of the conversation, and at one
Speaker 1: point I heard Creed say something like, oh yeah, And
Speaker 1: then Hendricks taught me this lick that one night, and
Speaker 1: I walked away and I thought, what the what the
Speaker 1: heck is he talking about? And then I turned back
Speaker 1: over my shoulder and he was doing some air guitar
Speaker 1: for this fellow stand in, and I thought, what's going
Speaker 1: on here? So I went up to him and I
Speaker 1: introduced myself and he introduced himself as Creed Bratton, formerly
Speaker 1: of the Grassroots that you know, ninth sixties pop band
Speaker 1: that in the mid sixties actually opened for people like
Speaker 1: Janis Joplin and the Doors. They were, you know, a
Speaker 1: Bay Area band, but Creed was in this band during
Speaker 1: its earliest incarnation and and literally hung out at you know,
Speaker 1: the Whiskey a go go with the likes of Janis Joplin.
Speaker 1: So we became pals on the Bernie mac Show, and
Speaker 1: then I went off to do other things and lost
Speaker 1: touch with them for quite a while, actually not quite
Speaker 1: a while, but a while. And then I heard through
Speaker 1: a mutual friend that he was looking for work, and
Speaker 1: he heard that I was directing the pilot of the
Speaker 1: office and did they need stand ins? And so I
Speaker 1: contacted Creed and I said, you know, the truth is,
Speaker 1: the style of the show is that we're making a
Speaker 1: mock documentary and trying to do a minimal amount of lighting. Therefore,
Speaker 1: there's not really a need for standings. But there are
Speaker 1: a couple of empty desks in the back of the bulletpen.
Speaker 1: And again there's no guarantee of anything. But if you
Speaker 1: want to, just you know, be an extra in the
Speaker 1: background of this paper company for a week, you know,
Speaker 1: or whatever. How how long was the pilot seven shooting days? Maybe? Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you're welcome to take a seat at this desk.
Speaker 1: And he did and and stayed, Yes, he stayed. And
Speaker 1: poor Devon, poor poor Devon. Um. But one more thing
Speaker 1: about sort of before we leave this really early time
Speaker 1: that um, the idea that you and Greg cast regular
Speaker 1: looking people in terms of making the show really accessible
Speaker 1: to people. You know, the conventional wisdom is we want
Speaker 1: beautiful people that people want to look at, but but
Speaker 1: really choosing real people taking place in a real place. Um,
Speaker 1: how that really made people fall in love with the people?
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like, again, this was part of
Speaker 1: trying to make sure that we lived up to the
Speaker 1: standards of the UK original, because certainly that's the case
Speaker 1: in the UK original people are not glamorous who work
Speaker 1: at Warnham Hogg. But I also think it's a tribute
Speaker 1: to Alison Jones. I mean, she's so exceptional and and
Speaker 1: one of her gifts is finding people who look real,
Speaker 1: who do not look glamorous, who nevertheless kind of draw
Speaker 1: you in, who are so compelling. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that again. My the way I always put it is,
Speaker 1: if you tuned into the Office during its first season,
Speaker 1: you'd say, none of these people belong on television, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: and weirdly, for like Rain, that's still true. He does
Speaker 1: not belong on television at all. Um, did you bring
Speaker 1: any other of the staff or crew members with you
Speaker 1: when you came and joined the pilot? Did you know
Speaker 1: Peter Smokeler or well, Peter Smokeler and I had. I
Speaker 1: did not hire Peter, but I was excited when I
Speaker 1: heard he was shooting the pilot because Peter was the
Speaker 1: DP of the Larry Sanders Show, Gary Shandlings Show, and
Speaker 1: of course Peter has important mockumentary credentials having shot this
Speaker 1: is spinal tap. And in fact, Peter and I actually
Speaker 1: I don't want to say budded heads about documentary style,
Speaker 1: but we definitely had a lively debate about how to
Speaker 1: shoot a documentary. And this is actually a really important
Speaker 1: thing that from Peter's point of view is if you're
Speaker 1: a documentarian, you use a whip zoom you're you know,
Speaker 1: let's say I'm getting a medium shot of you, and
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna zoom in really quickly and get a
Speaker 1: tight shot of you. The intention for the documentary filmmaker
Speaker 1: is too. Then in the cutting room, eliminate the whip.
Speaker 1: You know, the documentary filmmaker will get rid of those pants,
Speaker 1: so that it feels like the documentary re creates the
Speaker 1: feeling of a traditionally covered story. And I remember saying
Speaker 1: to Peter, well, I think, no, I think we're going
Speaker 1: to keep those and he and the heat and I
Speaker 1: actually disagree. He goes, well, that's not good documentary filmmaking.
Speaker 1: I go, yeah, but I think we need to kind
Speaker 1: of signal to the viewer, you know, that we're making
Speaker 1: this documentary. And I tried to justify it. I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not the finished documentary, Like I was
Speaker 1: trying to rationalize it. But I mean, he's right, if
Speaker 1: you look at you know great And by the way,
Speaker 1: Greg and I also talked about cinema verite documentaries. We
Speaker 1: talked about the Mazel Brothers, about great films like Salesmen
Speaker 1: or Great Gardens, and those films generally, yes, the the
Speaker 1: the erratic camera moves to get from angle to angle
Speaker 1: are eliminated so that you were more quote involved with
Speaker 1: the story. But anyway, so I did not I wasn't
Speaker 1: part of the decision to invite Peter, but I was
Speaker 1: thrilled that he was on board. How did you feel
Speaker 1: when you when you saw the final version? Were you
Speaker 1: proud of it? The pilot? Oh, well, here's what actually happened.
Speaker 1: I worked on the cut of the pilot, and I
Speaker 1: worked on it with Greg for a little while. Then
Speaker 1: I left and I went off to work on a film.
Speaker 1: And by the way, while I was working on the film,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of discussion about whether this show
Speaker 1: would make the cut and get on the air. And
Speaker 1: so I was on the phone with Greg occasionally and
Speaker 1: and he was not always very optimistic. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: in the interim, I did see, you know, his final
Speaker 1: cut of the pilot, and I just loved it. And
Speaker 1: I loved again one of the things I'm so happy
Speaker 1: with how he cut the pilot, as he preserved, he
Speaker 1: didn't cut it for tempo. Rather, let me put it
Speaker 1: more specifically, it wasn't up tempo. It had weird slack
Speaker 1: pauses where we're on any other television show, you would
Speaker 1: either have the sound of an audience laughing, you'd have
Speaker 1: you know, three jokes where in that space or and
Speaker 1: this is so significant, or you would hear music, you know,
Speaker 1: nine seasons of the Office and other than that, you know,
Speaker 1: opening title song that that is the driest show on
Speaker 1: broadcast networked out. You know, there's nothing, there's no music, right,
Speaker 1: and it really that is a significant part of the
Speaker 1: what distinguishes the Showy. So Diversity Day, we get the order,
Speaker 1: you come back and you're directing Diversity Day. Now, was
Speaker 1: there any thought once we were now veering, you know,
Speaker 1: if the pilot was very much like the original UK
Speaker 1: version pilot. What was the thought about beginning to americanize
Speaker 1: the show now that it had gotten picked up. Do
Speaker 1: you remember any conversation about that. I don't remember any
Speaker 1: conversation about americanizing the show when we worked on Diversity Day, because,
Speaker 1: if anything, I felt Diversity Day was and I still
Speaker 1: think it is one of the boldest episodes me too.
Speaker 1: And you know, there was a lot of people at
Speaker 1: the time who you know, would say, oh, the office, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was kind of slow coming out of the gate
Speaker 1: and all this stuff, and I thought, well, you're kidding
Speaker 1: you watch episode two Diversity Day. It's like it's it's
Speaker 1: it's as strong as we get. It's very good. And
Speaker 1: and so I don't remember any discussion about that. I
Speaker 1: do remember, um No, I'm trying to know. I can
Speaker 1: think about many other things. Um were you proud of
Speaker 1: how bold that episode was. I'm proud of that episode
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons, one of which is um
Speaker 1: In the script it said that, you know, Michael Scott's
Speaker 1: you know, diversity training seminar took place in the conference room,
Speaker 1: as did Mr Brown's seminar, and I remember there was
Speaker 1: a lot of discussion about whether or not we should
Speaker 1: move the seminar out into the bullpen, because otherwise the
Speaker 1: whole episode was going to be stuck in the conference room.
Speaker 1: And there was and it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's our second show. We're trying to prove to the
Speaker 1: network that this is a viable show, and and and
Speaker 1: and our second episode is going to take place in
Speaker 1: a small room. And it's like, so, I remember there
Speaker 1: was a there wasn't pressure. I do remember talking to
Speaker 1: Greg and a few others about was there a version
Speaker 1: of it where like that seminar basically was spread out
Speaker 1: into the into the into the bullpen. And I remember
Speaker 1: just having a strong gut feeling that it would be
Speaker 1: funnier if everyone was once again trapped in a small space.
Speaker 1: And it made it more challenging to shoot. And again
Speaker 1: it forced us to respect the limitations of the set.
Speaker 1: There were no wild walls. Sometimes the cameras were in
Speaker 1: people's faces a bit too much. There were instances where,
Speaker 1: you know, actors blocked one another that I thought worked
Speaker 1: really well. So that's just a small but important staging
Speaker 1: decision we made. I also remember Greg and I discussing
Speaker 1: the casting of Mr Brown and at the time Larry
Speaker 1: Wilmore was a consultant on the show. He but he
Speaker 1: had not been on the pilot, but he was, you know,
Speaker 1: working with us on the second season, and there were
Speaker 1: a lot of different names being bandied about from Mr Brown.
Speaker 1: But I do remember, and I had worked with Larry
Speaker 1: a lot, you know, on Bernie Maxhew. So I remember
Speaker 1: taking Greg aside and saying, you know, I think I
Speaker 1: think Mr Brown's sitting in an office down the hall here,
Speaker 1: and happily Greg liked that idea, and and uh and
Speaker 1: Larry did such a great created such a great character.
Speaker 1: But I do I guess what I feel is that
Speaker 1: that episode, I just felt like everyone was sort of
Speaker 1: in top form. You know, everyone brought their a game
Speaker 1: to that. So, you know, b J's script is remarkable.
Speaker 1: And again I think the idea of all of us
Speaker 1: being cooped up in that little room once again, it's
Speaker 1: sort of contributed to that sense of ensemble. Had we
Speaker 1: staged the you know, Michael Scott's seminar out in the bullpen,
Speaker 1: it would have been cutaways, two people in different parts
Speaker 1: of the space. But in the conference room, everyone was
Speaker 1: in everyone's shot, everyone was together, right, m I something
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I just occurred to me or
Speaker 1: I started thinking about if those of you you are listening,
Speaker 1: obviously there's this. It's a stereotype. But when a scene
Speaker 1: begins and the camera start rolling and the director is ready,
Speaker 1: they say action, and Ken doesn't say this, he says, um.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to describe, but basically oftentimes will act
Speaker 1: as though he's about to tell you something and then
Speaker 1: says go ahead. And I'm wondering, is that's something that
Speaker 1: you have always done? Because that in terms of what
Speaker 1: you were talking about earlier, having us there to do
Speaker 1: the general views altogether and not oh, we're showing up
Speaker 1: and now we're going to perform that the go ahead
Speaker 1: isn't now start acting. I just wanted to hear your take.
Speaker 1: Is that something you've always done or it's not something
Speaker 1: I've always done. I can tell you exactly when I
Speaker 1: started doing it. I directed the pilot episode of The
Speaker 1: Larry Sanders Show, and when Gary and I were prepping
Speaker 1: the pilot, he, I mean, he very much wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: a sense of verisimilitude about the you know, the talk
Speaker 1: show world and and although that show is not a
Speaker 1: mock documentary, you know, it definitely has a kind of
Speaker 1: well observed quality, and he wanted He came up to
Speaker 1: me and he said, is there any way that you
Speaker 1: can develop a shooting style so that the actors actually
Speaker 1: don't know when the cameras on? And I mean, it
Speaker 1: was kind of a brilliant idea, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: what to do with it. This we shot the Larry
Speaker 1: Sanders Show in sixteen millimeter, so you had to constantly
Speaker 1: reload magazines. It was not something you could hide from
Speaker 1: the cast. So I finally came up with the idea
Speaker 1: that we would start each scene, you know, without the
Speaker 1: usual announcements, without a first d D saying you know,
Speaker 1: rolling speak like all those things, or the sound person
Speaker 1: saying rolling. And what I said to Gary was that
Speaker 1: will roll the cameras without letting anyone know, and I'll
Speaker 1: just give you a signal to start. And I said,
Speaker 1: I'll just say, like, I don't know, go ahead or
Speaker 1: something like that. And what often happened with Gary was
Speaker 1: I'd say go ahead, and let's say it was a scene,
Speaker 1: you know, in in Larry Sanders office with a number
Speaker 1: of people. Gary would take the signal, but then he
Speaker 1: would just sort of like chat with the cast for
Speaker 1: a while, and then it's some you know, arbitrary point
Speaker 1: just launched into the scene, so that there was this
Speaker 1: sense that the line between acting and not acting kind
Speaker 1: of got very blurry. And after working on that show
Speaker 1: with Gary, I stopped using the word action. And I
Speaker 1: feel like, um actors find that it does sort of
Speaker 1: take a little bit of the onus off of act
Speaker 1: The acting part is it's like there's real life and
Speaker 1: then there's the scene. And so if you can erase
Speaker 1: the line between real life and the scene, that might help.
Speaker 1: And and and sometimes I mean, I I mean, this is
Speaker 1: just something I've also done is occasionally actually interrupted take
Speaker 1: without cutting, so that even I'm I'm like now just
Speaker 1: having a like we're in a scene and I just
Speaker 1: start talking to you and I said, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: go back to such and stuff. So that again, it
Speaker 1: just sort of keeps the atmosphere less about you know, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, scene acting, you know. So that's brilliant. Alright, guys,
Speaker 1: every word out of Kent's mouth is so fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna I'm gonna interrupt the scene. But you
Speaker 1: will get to hear much more from Ken in a
Speaker 1: later episode, including lots more about his work on the
Speaker 1: Office in later season. Until then, tune in next week
Speaker 1: for my conversation with the brilliant I can't wait for
Speaker 1: this casting director Allison Jones, and of course lots more
Speaker 1: of the cast and crew after that. Thank you all
Speaker 1: for listening, and UH have a wonderful week. The Office
Speaker 1: Deep Dive is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner,
Speaker 1: alongside our executive producer, lay Lee. Our senior producer is
Speaker 1: Tessa Kramer, our associate producer is Emily Carr, and our
Speaker 1: assistant editor is Diego Tapia. My main man in the
Speaker 1: booth is Alec Moore. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak,
Speaker 1: performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode
Speaker 1: was mixed by seth Olandski.