welcome welcome very much a conversation a dear friend of mine for a one thousand years ago it seems now but many many long years he's been involved in my life in a way that we've lost touch a little bit more reckon touch now and that's john stein  ok well those are features that are good for if you're a director as you know yet um you know when you direct most people think there's a big creative thing really but it's not the most important thing for a television  director to be precise ok with us was actually a feature is you have correct background ok and you were made for right so your early life like an airing if you could and then how did you get you've been in new york a long time but yes the st six years of my life i spent in brooklyn thirty nine yeah thirty nine ok yeah right interestingly on the right you got you know the ship landed on that particular day in october which is the last day of the especially those here living in new york and the radio so been then yeah i think of new york as our environment yeah it's not every nation has it least a concept whereby young students could take an audition for the school and study dance drama or very unusual principal who grasped the concept that the performing arts would endeavor young people to learn their vocation and franklin jake held the principal interviewed personally each teacher to make sure that they didn't want just a plum job but have the aptitude to work with children and had the  cool i was the st one there and there was somebody else there and so i assumed he was a new student so i introduced myself i talked with him and said this is a terrific school teacher wonderful the courses so good i'm enjoying it all that stuff are you chatting with me a little bit and then when the bell rang we ended to go to all classes yeah i took a seat in the st row school for the performing arts is a part of the school education and yes yes yes ok but it seems like show a bit is you know it's like correct yeah it is it is still going not always just about  york city school system did the same mistake the school from the st day was a success because the enthusiasm of the youth maybe you really wouldn't want to be a star when you're a to begin with yeah but again as i say the educators didn't understand the concept they said if it's so good let's make of the biggest school that's not the paint the point is to audition every state applicant to make sure they have the aptitude like that other pro you mentioned earlier in this interview you know what was his name again the one who wanted to make sure they were ready to take  they built the building it was going there it was there you know where it is now yes but it wasn't there then correct ok yes what i thought i did yeah i got a lot of yeah they built the building and they have t showbiz person well this was supposed to be opposite lincoln center supposed to be for dance music drama maybe one o biology is not dance music and drama no i know that and you know and that's what the school was supposed to be you think something unique about people who are in show business no i don't owe franklin j the building still stands but it's not an old age home or not an age home a home for senior citizens to recreate themselves  regardless the building is still there but it's not as a school so with two thousand students what is the sense  it on the door and let anybody come in that wants to know where you're making a premise that i have a little hard time understanding the truth out i don't quite understand there's always going to be some people that don't have it well any disciplined you know a lot of writers but there's not very write with all kinds of accolades and kudos from the leaders of the educational community well i'm trying i guess is my guess i don't think i'd put my money on baby when i was going to college i had a good every saturday i had to go down in new york city to the stacks to correct to the main public library in the reference room you had to fill out a piece of paper with the books you wanted and then they would go down to the basement and bring the books up all that's and i spent all day in the research for room getting the information for my term papers and then after today it's all of aylmore on your  is i think the autodidacts are the best educated people that's what i'm saying yeah but you're making it as though they're doing something they don't want to do no no no no no idea if you're doing what they want to do about people should be doing what they want to do yeah rather than what somebody else you think you should do if you do it yourself albeit the recommendation think you will do it much better i agree for example i try to do most because i can it's because i want to because of what i do it i know what i'm going to do with the white way the way i want to done you're you seem to have a lot of faith so so you gotta get to theater if you do i mean to television we don't mind because i think of you as a master of as a director yet in television you said all of these skills could into what is needed for the role of a director and you've worked in all the big houses the big major networks and so whether as a director if i'm not mistaken you are a bit mistaken ok i only worked a few days at n b c freelance a couple of times soap operas is like that no no today it's mostly freelance free land yet in other words they hire you for a particular project or a project correct for that particular project and that busy gives them parties agree the two parties being the people hiring and the people being hired correct those are the two parties yes you know example any director may be fired for no reason whatsoever within i believe the st five days i'm not sure about that anymore because it's been some time or that was the case to me yeah because  a director maybe hired because of his sense of comedy and then find himself working for a soap opera or drama or something else to whittle why wouldn't he do that why would the directors of the holdovers bank keep you in comedy if production able to be achieved and how does that fit into a business model that wants to get more people to watch because their product is good so they can sell more cornflakes well from right every you know what i'm saying yeah yeah yeah well an employee is hired to direct the program for fifteen days and they work for only ten days and they have fifty five dollars days more on the books usually yeah yeah so the contract that takes into consideration and all the trade discussion about this kind of situation is there's some union there will argue for the rights of the individual director the yeah it's a group of people and they negotiate on one occasion it came to a disagreement and the directors guild went on strike really for but ok that's an interesting one thing i am and it stands out in your memory yeah yeah one thing i'm very very perturbed about and i mentioned it to people on one occasion our members gave well we don't want we kno occasion the membership wanted to good health care and the membership said they will give up their three and a half percent for three years give up their money to get a good health plan yeah yeah and then the walt disney company purchased the a b c television network ok and they substituted another part of the coverage doesn't cover you now that's a little tricky of word play a lot that's right begin to look up at the sky and say what is going on right right and to this didn't good faith we got a very good contract we gave up our celery he put three and three years to get the health care to health care and then the disney company how can you give up salary for three years you'd star no no no no director make notes etc i went out to talk to this actress about the way she portrayed her partner and she looked at me bewildered etc and i couldn't believe it she didn't understand what i was talking about and that the world to me i can understand an intelligent person playing the part of a stupid person yeah but i can't understand a stupid pe intelligent person well there's certain very interesting thoughts that come to my mind with that sentence but spell it out for me a little bit i couldn't believe that it was that actress was that talent i couldn't believe it because she played the part so well and i told this to couple of directors and one director whom i was very close and friendly and he put his arm around me son you'll come to understand where you're my i was that something like that something like that you understand women when you get to be  all actors actresses was smart yes they'd be directors oh i see and tell me about the role of the director in the production of television programming at our major networks what is the director's role and what would you spend it on for a little bit what and where do they fit in in terms of the overall industry pattern to do great extent it's what the director intends to be he or herself whether we nurture so apart from being a director you know yeah ok because it depends on the individual each one of us each individual determines how they operate how they proceed how they interact with other people on their own some used humor yes director in motion pictures use these thought of as being one of the definitive parts of the creative part of average guy well names stand out that negates what i said earlier that directing uses their own techniques and you're right i think yeah i had to tested them seriously but yeah generally speaking eighteen inches ok that's interesting and in fact that's something that is part of the human condition ok yeah well you can you  can each one of the people in our audience today can try this out yeah on their own yeah when they meet somebody on the street or home i don't advise you walking up to get closer to somebody at a bus stop and getting closer than eighteen inches years eight years of age i was on the stage with a friend we were playing that ball game where you try to hit a penny on the sidewalk with the ball on the the other guy catches it i don't know that game but  matter yeah it's a new york city game anyway i hit the ball hit the penny with the ball and the ball bounces bounced off and went after them the ball and i was so intent on getting the ball i didn't see that there was a court a supermarket court between you and the penny no the ball on the street how yeah but it was a deliberate card now and the push is if i want to look astounded battery that is that that's really something yeah and that's why one i got i tell my friends when i was in military intelligence in the army and we were sitting at a table the director in the production of television fare do they have a an important in this role as say in the making of a motion picture they seem to be for the hosts the whole feel and everything for motion picture seems to be in the hands of the director is it the same with the television production if not what's the difference or if it's the same let me know and because i'm not so familiar no with the role of a director   comparing the motion picture industry seso be tamils or people produced i think the people who produced get the money and then a career out of part of it is the director who is the one who's responsible you have to worry about negotiating a contract or they get they get on with the actual making of a good program and getting a good quite good performance out of the course with as i can movies and yeah yeah a director but you have to have a good psychological yes television has a certain medium where we're together yeah you should go to toast but then that's good for the camera now in film yeah film is more intimate the camera and the microphone is much closer to the actor or the participant can't that be done by the bringing the focus of the camera delavan camera in closer i'm talking about the film camera ok talking about film and film yeah shows you in a more light and television the medium is more natural so there's a little more distance between the wood so if they have stood the audio problems with that as they do with the filmmaking  i studied fit in theory to you're not supposed to be way over there you're way off camera now that's what the director is going to be very upset with you getting out of camera that's what i'm trying to show ok where you're making a point i did it purposely  then television film is more intimate because the camera can come closer to you and the microphone is it because of the is the thing that makes it director of this thing here is going to be very upset with you being out of focus out of range i was trying to make a point then televisions and film is even more intimate more cool because the microphone and the camera comes closer to the participants or why can't you just bring the microphone you can't you do it with audio extension of the audio right through the air without it being a wire or something don't they have ways of doing that to control the audio yes but that sounds differently if it doesn't work that's correct for example it built why can't you keep the microphone there but the sound is being picked up at ten feet as well as fifteen feet with clear accuracy and so for you as they do that one of them make a microphone like that they can to something that's not the problem ok you would be what's called off mike you would sound like you're coming from legal next room because you were at a distance from the microphone so you're asking the audience to do something and it is impossible sit down and we get the the inner feelings of what the characters are expressing and they can bring them out and it's almost like a psychological thing where you know this is like a real thing is it the same on television as that with television drama yes it depends is the same i skill set yes for a director that is in the film but a scene does the director get as much attention in the television as it does in the movie because when you see a movie say who directed that's the main thing you the actress or the act toure but they give great credit to the film directors yes and not realizing it is the director who brought that emotion on who became a film as well as a television series as well as  home and television that skill set yet is relevant to a television director as it is to a film director yes ok it depends on the individuals able to utilize it so you got to be a bit of a psychologist psychology at city college now precisely for that not to find out about myself but what i my you know rosie's and if you got it all straight now you never g moment to moment as when you begin a sentence with a thought your emotion changes already by the time you reach the end of the sentence you think yeah right i guess that's probably true yeah right i don't think about it yeah well there directors would be thinking about that you know and the language the the the duty in the poetic mists of language and the kind of things are things that the director is concerned with is yeah yeah and also it depends i'm glad you mentioned language because it depends on the language now really puts yes as you know i speak german fluently yeah and i speak german without an english accent and i speak english without a german accent right but what is interesting in german the past tense of a noun is in the expressed until you get the end of the