Speaker 1: Hey, Hey, this is John O'Bryant, entrepreneur and a fellow
Speaker 1: builder just like you. Thanks for the help of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Prudential Financial, I'd like to present to
Speaker 1: you my brand new podcast. It's called Building the Good
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Speaker 1: I'm Emilia. On this podcast, I'm taking you on a search,
Speaker 1: a search for love hard working Latina, but there were
Speaker 1: other reasons I felt like I couldn't always be myself.
Speaker 1: My mom's in prison. This Crumbs my love story. It's
Speaker 1: to show about the things we set up for and
Speaker 1: the bits of ourselves that make us who we are.
Speaker 1: Listen to Crumbs on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Colleen with joined
Speaker 1: me the host of Eating Wall Broke podcast. While I
Speaker 1: eat a meal created by self made entrepreneurs, influencers, and
Speaker 1: celebrities over a meal they once ate when they were broke.
Speaker 1: Today I have the lovely aj Crimson, the official Princess
Speaker 1: of compon Asia Kidding and Assia. This is the professor.
Speaker 1: We're here on Eating Wall Broke and today I'm gonna
Speaker 1: break down my meal that got me through a time
Speaker 1: when I was broken. Listen to Eating Wall Broke on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, on Apple podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. I'm Ken Kappas. I I am
Speaker 1: a director. I directed the pilot of the Office and
Speaker 1: many other episodes. Hello, everybody, this is the Office Deep
Speaker 1: Dive and I am your host, Brian baum Gartner. How's
Speaker 1: everybody doing out there? Is everybody? Okay? I wish I
Speaker 1: could hear you. Um today you will be listening to
Speaker 1: me and my conversation with Ken Kappas now as usual,
Speaker 1: no one can put it better than Greg Daniels, and
Speaker 1: Greg described Ken as the country vet who birthed this puppy,
Speaker 1: this puppy being the American Office, and this is so true.
Speaker 1: Ken was. He was the director of the pilot, but
Speaker 1: also so many of our most beloved episodes. He directed
Speaker 1: Diversity Day, Booze, Cruise, The Fire, The Job, Casino Night
Speaker 1: Gave which the finale. Honestly, there are too many to
Speaker 1: name but you should go look him up. Ken is
Speaker 1: such um sweet nice guy one and two he he
Speaker 1: also has a really unique directing style. Um. He wrote
Speaker 1: a book recently actually called but what I really want
Speaker 1: to do is direct lessons from a life behind a camera.
Speaker 1: And to get to sit down and talk with him
Speaker 1: about all of that, that was my pleasure. So on
Speaker 1: that note, in homage to Ken Ken, go ahead, Bubble
Speaker 1: and squeak. I love it. Bubble and squeaker, bubble and
Speaker 1: squeaker cookiet every month left over from the night before. Hello, sir,
Speaker 1: I'm coming around for another. Yes, it's so good to
Speaker 1: see you. So good is the I And I'm glad,
Speaker 1: uh you're doing this well. I think that there's a
Speaker 1: story here that needs to be told. I you know
Speaker 1: what I was saying to Margaret that I have been
Speaker 1: It's not a book about the office, but I'm actually
Speaker 1: I'm writing a book about directing, right, just a general
Speaker 1: book about directing, and it certainly includes, you know, some
Speaker 1: of our experiences. But I but I have been approached
Speaker 1: by a bunch of people and I've just basically now,
Speaker 1: I say, is Greg doing this right? So right? The
Speaker 1: first person that I went to was Greg, and I said, look,
Speaker 1: this is what we want to do, and he was
Speaker 1: totally supportive. And you know they're finishing editing his or sorry,
Speaker 1: finished shooting his show right this week, well in fact
Speaker 1: on Raleigh, because that's where Angela and I were doing
Speaker 1: this other show. So literally I saw Greg. I wander
Speaker 1: 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 and uh but yeah, no, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see it. Ye see it? Um? Now did
Speaker 1: you had you worked with Greg before the Office? I
Speaker 1: met him when I was invited to meet him to
Speaker 1: direct the pilot of the Office. Okay, so so before
Speaker 1: the pilot, what what were you were working on Bernie Mac? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that seems specifically what I was doing. I had worked
Speaker 1: on the show Malcolm in the Middle. I directed nineteen
Speaker 1: episodes of Malcolm in the Middle. I helped launch the
Speaker 1: Bernie Max Show with Larry Wilmore, and I was working
Speaker 1: on I think. Yeah, so I was working on the
Speaker 1: Bernie Mac Show when I got the call to meet
Speaker 1: with Greg. Right, and were you familiar with the British
Speaker 1: version of the show. I was familiar with it, but
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen much of it. I think I may
Speaker 1: have only seen the pilot episode of the British show, right,
Speaker 1: and now we shot the pilot and the first season
Speaker 1: in the production offices above the sound stage, right. I
Speaker 1: mean we built within a We built within a practical space.
Speaker 1: And in fact, one of the things that we did
Speaker 1: when we moved to the whatever we call it warehouse,
Speaker 1: what are we calling that the warehouse? I guess when
Speaker 1: we built the dunder Mifflin's set, one of the things
Speaker 1: that Greg and I definitely discussed was the idea of
Speaker 1: not making any walls movable wild a bold and the
Speaker 1: idea was that since this was a you know, quote documentary,
Speaker 1: that directors had to respect the physical limitations of the space,
Speaker 1: so that if you couldn't get an angle, you couldn't
Speaker 1: get an angle. And that was again it was it
Speaker 1: was sort of a way to signal to directors coming
Speaker 1: down the line that you know, you had to kind
Speaker 1: of honor the space. And again, if this were any
Speaker 1: other kind of either single camera or multi cameras situation,
Speaker 1: you just move a wall out of the way and
Speaker 1: get back and in some cases get almost a presenium
Speaker 1: view of the action and One of the things I loved,
Speaker 1: not just in the pilot but in episodes in the
Speaker 1: second season in particular, was creating a sense that we
Speaker 1: were blocked from seeing the action properly, or or even
Speaker 1: that you know, some either a pillar or a file cabinet,
Speaker 1: something was in our way and we couldn't quite get
Speaker 1: a good angle on things, and that increased the realism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that so much of what Greg
Speaker 1: and I discussed in terms of, you know, a camera
Speaker 1: style was how to uh, you know, create a sense
Speaker 1: that we were there observing people, observing characters. Obviously, it's
Speaker 1: not a secret that the staff of dunder Mifflin knows
Speaker 1: they're being observed. They know they're being filmed. Most of
Speaker 1: the staff members don't want to be filmed, except for
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Scott. So part of it was just
Speaker 1: trying to come up with visual ideas that would either
Speaker 1: we would sort to be in a character's face and
Speaker 1: and and you know, for instance, if I was shooting you, you,
Speaker 1: if I was this far from you, you'd know I'm there,
Speaker 1: or we'd we'd you know, kind of hide behind a
Speaker 1: shrub or a file cabinet and sort of eavesdrop on
Speaker 1: the action a little bit more so that we could
Speaker 1: sort of observe without characters knowing we were there looking
Speaker 1: at them. And I'm always mindful that, you know, it
Speaker 1: was Greg's decision not to shoot the series at a studio.
Speaker 1: We you know, we weren't at Universal, we weren't, you know,
Speaker 1: And it was his choice to you know, find this
Speaker 1: warehouse in this scrubby section of the valley, so that
Speaker 1: even if it wasn't actual scruting, it was definitely not
Speaker 1: Hollywood and it definitely felt like, you know, where were we?
Speaker 1: Why are we coming all the way out into this
Speaker 1: kind of bizarre area to shoot this show in a warehouse?
Speaker 1: And you know, it wasn't like we used the surroundings
Speaker 1: very often, but I think Greg really wanted to give
Speaker 1: us an opportunity to not feel like we were in
Speaker 1: a show. Right. We're definitely gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about that. But um, so you and Greg met
Speaker 1: and was there any discussion at that time about making
Speaker 1: the American version, let's just call it that, the American
Speaker 1: version versus where there are things that you wanted immediately
Speaker 1: to do differently before we started work on the pilot,
Speaker 1: as I recall there was a British show and I'm
Speaker 1: blanking out on the name of it. It was a comedy.
Speaker 1: It was kind of like a romantic slash sex comedy show. God,
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of it, but anyways, it
Speaker 1: was a show that either NBC or some other network
Speaker 1: tried to do a U S version of and it
Speaker 1: didn't work. And one of the things that Greg and
Speaker 1: I definitely discussed was the need to maintain the kind
Speaker 1: of the unorthodox approach of the UK show, not exactly
Speaker 1: mimicking the tone of it, but for me as a
Speaker 1: director visually sort of trying to maintain the style that
Speaker 1: what's the right way to put it where where it
Speaker 1: feels like we were catching the action by accident that
Speaker 1: things were not being staged for the camera. And I
Speaker 1: mean everyone, I think you know there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people were saying, well, this is going to fail
Speaker 1: because no network will allow you to do what they
Speaker 1: did in the UK version. But in fact, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, Greg leading the charge and certain people at
Speaker 1: NBC understanding that it wouldn't work unless it it wouldn't
Speaker 1: work if it traveled down the middle of the road,
Speaker 1: or it had to at least aspire to the same
Speaker 1: kind of you know, offbeat quality that the original had,
Speaker 1: or else it just wouldn't play, and so on on
Speaker 1: every level. That affected every decision. I mean, I can
Speaker 1: go through any number of things, including the decision to
Speaker 1: do screen tests and improvisation instead of the traditional, you
Speaker 1: know approach of bringing the finalists for a role in
Speaker 1: front of a bunch of really humorists network executives, right right,
Speaker 1: And so I mean in place of that, we we
Speaker 1: shot 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 characters who have nothing to say, we're
Speaker 1: just sort of stuck there without And I think that
Speaker 1: was that's not the kind of thing you're going to
Speaker 1: communicate well in a traditional network executive audition, like in
Speaker 1: a network test it's like theater in a huge room
Speaker 1: with no camera there. And I think Jenna and Rain
Speaker 1: both talked about you brought the camera in and asked
Speaker 1: the actors to also behaviors of the camera work character.
Speaker 1: And I think that, you know, every actor sort of
Speaker 1: developed his or her own relationship with the camera, and
Speaker 1: some people were more eager to acknowledge the camera, like
Speaker 1: you know, John's character, I think pretty quickly, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of makes a friend of the camera. Jenna. I
Speaker 1: think there's moments where it feels like Jenna wants to
Speaker 1: crawl under the reception desk, right, And so I think
Speaker 1: everybody had their own specific relationship to the camera, and
Speaker 1: that's something we started to uh explore in the in
Speaker 1: the screen test period. So that was one choice or
Speaker 1: one thing that Greg insisted on. And all credit to
Speaker 1: Greg for insisting that we not go the traditional route
Speaker 1: in terms of bringing actors to a network for the auditions.
Speaker 1: Do you remember was there any pushback about that? No,
Speaker 1: I don't remember any pushback about it, because again, I
Speaker 1: feel like the people at NBC at that moment sort
Speaker 1: of I don't want to say they indulged Greg or
Speaker 1: indulged us, but I think they just knew on some
Speaker 1: level they had to let us do this in a
Speaker 1: different way. The UK show was so beloved, partly because
Speaker 1: of its tone, partly because of its very unusual visual style,
Speaker 1: and I think they knew to like kind of get
Speaker 1: out of the way at least in certain ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can say that. One of the other things we
Speaker 1: did during the pilot shoot itself was we started each
Speaker 1: day with, you know, shooting basically documentary footage of the
Speaker 1: whole cast, the entire ensemble, just at their desks, and
Speaker 1: both Greg and I kind of borrowed Ricky Gervais and
Speaker 1: Stephen Merchants phrase general views. We didn't call them establishing shots.
Speaker 1: We keep calling them b roles, but general but that
Speaker 1: was that was I don't know if that's a general
Speaker 1: term in Great Britain for an establishing shot or something,
Speaker 1: but Ricky said, oh, we we just do general views.
Speaker 1: And so each morning during the pilot shoot we started
Speaker 1: the day with quote general views of people at work.
Speaker 1: And what was about it was there was no story
Speaker 1: going on. It was just everyone at their desks, you know,
Speaker 1: you and Angela and Oscar sort of you know, doing
Speaker 1: accounting work. We would take shots of things that were
Speaker 1: just by definition like so mundane like and some of
Speaker 1: them I think got into the credit role at the
Speaker 1: beginning the title sequence, like I think rain like sticking
Speaker 1: the things into the paper shredder and things like that,
Speaker 1: shredding me doing the absolutely yeah, adding machine, the adding machine.
Speaker 1: Those were things I think that came out of the
Speaker 1: general views. Definitely. I think Steve adjusting his little trophy
Speaker 1: on his desk was one of the general views. And
Speaker 1: what I do remember you asked about network pushback was
Speaker 1: I remember getting a comment from some executive not understanding
Speaker 1: why for example, there were like lunge like lengthy shots
Speaker 1: of like the water cooler or you know, why is
Speaker 1: there a lengthy shot of rain sharpening pencils? What is
Speaker 1: the purpose of this? So it wasn't exactly paying you
Speaker 1: for this, so I wasn't pushedback, but it was definitely like, huh,
Speaker 1: what are you guys doing? And and and by the way,
Speaker 1: you 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 documentary, and
Speaker 1: that when we then moved into a scene, it wasn't
Speaker 1: like we now went into show mode. You know, it
Speaker 1: was like we we we were still in a kind
Speaker 1: of documentary mode. And so I think the general views
Speaker 1: created it kind of lived in reality. It feels like
Speaker 1: they've been there working there for years. Well that's that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I think it did something else as well, And I'm
Speaker 1: curious if this was an unwitting benefit or if there
Speaker 1: was some thought to this. I mean, you had every
Speaker 1: actor essentially there from four thirty or five am or
Speaker 1: whatever time it was, to be ready by seven or
Speaker 1: seven thirty in the morning. We didn't do the general
Speaker 1: views when it was convenient during the day when everyone
Speaker 1: was there. It was about bringing everybody in and I
Speaker 1: think that that is what started building the ensemble. You know.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I one of the things, um, one
Speaker 1: of the advantages we had is that the pilot takes
Speaker 1: place by and large in the bullpen, So it wasn't
Speaker 1: like there were scenes in the parking lot or anywhere
Speaker 1: else and the bullpen. Except for the HR section of
Speaker 1: the office, the bullpen requires everyone to be there, and
Speaker 1: in theory, each the actors are not entirely clear when
Speaker 1: the camera's going to find them. So when we did
Speaker 1: the general views, yeah, I mean, it definitely created a
Speaker 1: sense of ensemble. And I would also say that it
Speaker 1: 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've
Speaker 1: we've we've wandered into a place that's, you know, going
Speaker 1: about its dreary way, the same way it has been
Speaker 1: for the past couple of years or more. So I
Speaker 1: think it kind of helped, uh people just sort of
Speaker 1: start to create a little sense of what their normal
Speaker 1: days like. There was also something we did that it
Speaker 1: 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 set 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 isn't 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 help grow the grew that sense of ensemble in
Speaker 1: a way that it wouldn't have if they if the
Speaker 1: writing staff was always at arms length from the from
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Speaker 1: I want to go back for a second to the
Speaker 1: casting and um, how obvious was it to you or
Speaker 1: how 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 starting to not only see
Speaker 1: people in pairs, but starting to see a whole picture
Speaker 1: of a group of people. I mean that. And by
Speaker 1: the way, when you talk about ensemble, one of the
Speaker 1: things I was so happy about with the pilot is
Speaker 1: even if some characters aren't don't have speaking parts, they
Speaker 1: are they're they're very present, and I remember that, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that Greg insisted on, you know,
Speaker 1: as you as with any half hour comedy, at the
Speaker 1: end of the pilot shoot, the network sends down a
Speaker 1: photographer to do, like, you know, a bunch of glossy
Speaker 1: shots of the actors looking cute and jumping up and
Speaker 1: down and all that. And we were so determed. That
Speaker 1: 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 ship, 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: everything was sort of designed to make it feel like
Speaker 1: these are people who don't belong on television, let alone
Speaker 1: on a primetime half hour comedy. And Steve, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt that one of the things that Steve did
Speaker 1: so well is that he's the one character who's who's
Speaker 1: so excited about a documentary crew being there because Michael
Speaker 1: Scott fancies himself a superstar. But weirdly enough, even Steve,
Speaker 1: I think somehow both played to the camera but also
Speaker 1: it was himself the subject of a documentary to see somehow,
Speaker 1: and it's It's one of the things I just marvel at.
Speaker 1: You know, Michael Scott is grandstanding and you know, making
Speaker 1: jokes and he's playing to the camera, but the character
Speaker 1: doesn't quite realize it, but we're observing him. He's he's
Speaker 1: under the microscope. And Steve somehow kind of found that
Speaker 1: weird duality. Tell me about what's true and what's what's
Speaker 1: lore or fairy tale? How did Phillis get cast in
Speaker 1: the show? I well, I will tell you what happened. So, um,
Speaker 1: we were doing uh probably you know, kind of more
Speaker 1: traditional auditions, and in the room Greg, myself, Phillis Allison,
Speaker 1: and the setup was is that I sat next to
Speaker 1: a video camera, and on the other side of the
Speaker 1: video camera, Phillis was sitting and Phillis was reading off
Speaker 1: and Phillis was her casting associate. And I hadn't met Phyllis.
Speaker 1: All I knew is I was sitting next to her,
Speaker 1: and there was a camera between us and the actors
Speaker 1: who were auditioning were some of them were kind of
Speaker 1: playing it to the hilt and kind of working a
Speaker 1: little too hard. Phillis meanwhile, was reading her lines in
Speaker 1: in this very kind of monotonal way, sometimes not even
Speaker 1: looking up at the actors, just looking down at the
Speaker 1: sheet of paper. And I just became fascinated with her
Speaker 1: and started looking at her. And there was a couple
Speaker 1: of actors whose auditions I kind of missed because I
Speaker 1: kept throwing Phyllis these sense glances. And I finally, during
Speaker 1: a break, I took Greg aside and I said, this
Speaker 1: woman really belongs in a paper company, and so we
Speaker 1: Greg thought about it and he said sure, And now
Speaker 1: there's there is there is one additional detail that's so
Speaker 1: wonderful and that is that a r. 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 nineteen sixties pop band that in
Speaker 1: the mid sixties actually opened for people like Janis Joplin
Speaker 1: and the Doors. They were, you know, a Bay Area band,
Speaker 1: but Creed was in this band during its earliest incarnation
Speaker 1: and and literally hung out at the Whiskey a go
Speaker 1: go with the likes of Janis Joplin. So we became
Speaker 1: pals on the Bernie Mac Show, and then I went
Speaker 1: off to do other things and lost touch with them
Speaker 1: for quite a while, actually not quite a while, but
Speaker 1: a while, and then I heard through a mutual friend
Speaker 1: that he was looking for work, and he heard that
Speaker 1: I was directing the pilot of the office and did
Speaker 1: they need stand ins? And so I contacted Creed and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, the truth is the style of
Speaker 1: the show is that we're making a mock documentary and
Speaker 1: trying to do a minimal amount of lighting. Therefore there's
Speaker 1: not really a need for standings. But there are a
Speaker 1: 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 I feel like again this was part
Speaker 1: of trying to make sure that we lived up to
Speaker 1: the standards of the UK original because certainly that's the
Speaker 1: case in the UK. Original people are not glamorous who
Speaker 1: work at Warnham Hog. But I also think it's a
Speaker 1: tribute to Alison Joe. I mean, she's so exceptional and
Speaker 1: and 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 Shandling's 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
Speaker 1: pans so that it feels like the documentary recreates 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 Greg Gardens and those films generally, yes, the the
Speaker 1: erratic camera moves to get from angle to angle are
Speaker 1: eliminated so that you were more quote involved with the story.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so I did not I wasn't part of
Speaker 1: the decision to invite Peter, but I was thrilled that
Speaker 1: he was on board. How did you feel when you
Speaker 1: when you saw the final version where you proud of it?
Speaker 1: The pilot? Oh, well, here's what actually happened. I worked
Speaker 1: on the cut of the pilot, and I worked on
Speaker 1: it with Greg for a little while. Then I left
Speaker 1: and I went off to work on a film. And
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: know opening title song that that is the driest show
Speaker 1: on broadcast networked out. You know, there's nothing, there's no music,
Speaker 1: and it really that is a significant part of the
Speaker 1: what distinguishes the show. Give us the over attention. We
Speaker 1: need everything you've got fast Waiting on Reparations, we beat
Speaker 1: the podcast. Tune in every Thursday, politics and wordplay. We
Speaker 1: fight for the people because they got us in the
Speaker 1: worst way, from the Hill Cooper, the Bomb Bay, to Kant,
Speaker 1: from the left enclave to what the neo kase every
Speaker 1: conversation and to break us off with some break because
Speaker 1: we wait in the reparations. Listen to Waiting on Reparations
Speaker 1: on I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. And we're live here outside the Perez
Speaker 1: family home, just waiting for the and there they go,
Speaker 1: almost on time. This morning. Mom is coming off the
Speaker 1: front door, strong with a double arm kid carry. Looks
Speaker 1: like Dad has the bags daughter he's bringing up the rear.
Speaker 1: Oh but the diaper bag wasn't posed. Typers and toys
Speaker 1: are everywhere. Oh but Mom has just nailed the perfect
Speaker 1: car seat buckle for the toddler. And now the eldest daughter,
Speaker 1: who looks to be about nine or ten, has secured
Speaker 1: herself in the booster seat. Dad zips the bad clothes
Speaker 1: and they're off. But looks like Mom doesn't realize your
Speaker 1: coffee cup is still on the roof of the car,
Speaker 1: and there it goes. That's a shame that mug was
Speaker 1: a fan favorite. Don't sweat the small stuff, just nailed
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Speaker 1: ad Council adoption of teams from foster care is a
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Speaker 1: Navigating Adoption presented by adopt Us Kids. Each episode brings
Speaker 1: you compelling, real life adoption stories told by the families
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Speaker 1: Adoption presented by adopt Us Kids, brought to you by
Speaker 1: the U S Department of Health, that Human Service as
Speaker 1: administration for Children and Families and the ACT Council. So
Speaker 1: Diversity Day, we get the order. You come back and
Speaker 1: you're directing Diversity Day. Now. Was there any thought once
Speaker 1: we were now veering, you know, if the pilot was
Speaker 1: very much like the original UK version pilot, What was
Speaker 1: the thought about beginning to americanize the show now that
Speaker 1: it had gotten picked up? Do you remember any conversation
Speaker 1: about that. I don't remember any conversation about americanizing the
Speaker 1: show when we worked on Diversity Day, because, if anything,
Speaker 1: I felt Diversity Day was and I still think it
Speaker 1: is one of the boldest episodes. Me too. And you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of people at the time, who
Speaker 1: you know would say, oh, the office, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: kind of slow coming out of the gate and all
Speaker 1: this stuff, And I thought, well, you're kidding you watch
Speaker 1: episode two University Day. It's like it's it's it's as
Speaker 1: strong as we we get. It's very good. And and
Speaker 1: so I don't remember any discussion about that. I do remember,
Speaker 1: um no, I'm trying to know. I can think about
Speaker 1: many other things. Um, were you proud of how bold
Speaker 1: that episode was. I'm proud of that episode for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons, one of which is um In the
Speaker 1: script it said that, you know, Michael Scott's you know,
Speaker 1: diversity training seminar took place in the conference room, as
Speaker 1: did Mr Brown's seminar, And I remember there was a
Speaker 1: lot of discussion about whether or not we should move
Speaker 1: the seminar out into the bullpen, because otherwise the whole
Speaker 1: 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 the 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'd worked with Larry a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, on Bernie mac Show. So I remember taking
Speaker 1: Greg aside and saying, you know, I think I think
Speaker 1: 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 episode. 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. M I something I
Speaker 1: don't know why, I just occurred to me, or I
Speaker 1: started thinking about if those of you you were 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 says, no,
Speaker 1: go ahead, And I'm wondering, is that's something that you
Speaker 1: have always done, because that in terms of what you
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, having us there to do the
Speaker 1: general views altogether and not oh we're showing up and
Speaker 1: now we're going to perform that the go head isn't
Speaker 1: 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 have to constantly
Speaker 1: reload magazines. That 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 ad saying you know, rolling
Speaker 1: speak and 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 just stopped using the word action. And
Speaker 1: I feel like um actors find that it does sort
Speaker 1: of take a little bit of the onus off of
Speaker 1: act the acting part is it's like there's real life
Speaker 1: and then there's the scene, and so if you can
Speaker 1: erase the line between real life and the scene, that
Speaker 1: might help. And then sometimes I mean, I've I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just something I've also done is occasionally actually
Speaker 1: interrupted take without cutting, so that even I'm I'm like
Speaker 1: now just having a like we're in a scene and
Speaker 1: I just start talking to you and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, go back to such and stuff, So that again,
Speaker 1: it just sort of keeps the atmosphere less about you know, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, scene acting you 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 Alison 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 Langley. Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer,
Speaker 1: our associate producer is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor
Speaker 1: is Diego Tapia. My main man in the booth is
Speaker 1: Alec Moore. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by
Speaker 1: my great friend Creep, and the episode was mixed by
Speaker 1: Seth o Landsky. Hello, and welcome to our show. I'm
Speaker 1: Zoe de Chanelle and I'm so excited to be joined
Speaker 1: by my friends and cast mates Hannah Simone and Lamar
Speaker 1: and Morris to recap our hit television series New Girl.
Speaker 1: Join us every Monday on the Welcome to Our Show podcast,
Speaker 1: where we'll share behind the scenes stories of your favorite
Speaker 1: New Girl episodes. Each week, we answer all your burning
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Speaker 1: of New Girl? Plus you'll hear hilarious stories like this
Speaker 1: that was one of your things you brought back from
Speaker 1: yea all professional basketball players seven Yeah. Listen of the
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Speaker 1: Glory Adam, host of Well Read Black Girl. Each week,
Speaker 1: we journey together through the cultural moment where art, culture
Speaker 1: and literature collide and pay homage to the women whose
Speaker 1: books we grew up reading. It's the literary kickback you
Speaker 1: never knew you needed. Listen to a well read Black
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Speaker 1: Today I have the lovely aj Crimson, the official Princess
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