What Sharat is doing now… well, not this second but you know… "professionally" or whatever
First day was short because a previous episode had some additional scenes to film, so we had a half day. Good way to start, though – one scene on location and another on stage before we wrapped.
First shoot day of the year! Long day in the swamp tomorrow.
Happy New Year, five readers! After holiday hiatus I’m back in New Orleans about to go out and shoot tomorrow, Day 1 of NCIS: New Orleans. Spent a good deal of time over the break writing and finishing up a script that maybe I’ll talk about in another post.
But now I’m back in NCIS mode. It is absolutely pouring with a possible tornado coming tonight so that should make our day exterior work tomorrow morning interesting. This entire shoot is going to be a lot of fun, though. Good action, interesting story so hopefully I’ll bring it all together. Daily haiku-like updates coming up.
This begins a long stretch of directing, pretty much non-stop until April. I’m incredibly grateful that now, a little more than two years after directing my first episode of television, I have been able to have a pretty good streak going with more work coming in the foreseeable future. So here’s to a good 2017 of more storytelling and magic making.
In New Orleans about to start my first day of prep on NCIS: New Orleans. I’ve been here for a week enjoying one of my favorite cities on the planet.
I’m really looking forward to working on this show – the cast is great and they do a lot of fun things like ride in fan boats on the bayous and shoot on the water and from helicopters. And New Orleans is featured very prominently in the show – the diverse locations and people and energy. So it’s going to be a blast, and good to get back in the saddle after about a month behind the computer.
Not-quite-daily reports to come.
For now – here are two unrelated photos of me on the set of How to Get Away With Murder in which I appear to be enjoying my job.
(I do enjoy my job, for the record. In the left photo, I’m with Alfred Enoch who plays “Wes.” In the right, I’m with Aja Naomi King who plays “Michaela.”In both photos, I’m the old one.)
Suddenly, I’m working on this show:
I say “suddenly” because I got a call Monday with an offer to start working … on Tuesday! Life of a hitman.
Criminal Minds has been on CBS for 11 years and they do a lot of cool stuff so it’ll be fun to work on here in LA. First show for CBS and first time getting booked on a show with zero mental prep so I’m just going to dive in. More updates to come.
Promo for the first of two Mistresses episodes I directed – airs on ABC this Monday June 22 at 10pm Eastern/Pacific, 9 Central.
Tune in, five readers!
In other news – just before I left for a few weeks of international travel, I got booked on Once Upon a Time – ABC‘s great fantasy show that will be entering its sixth season. I’ll be directing that in January in Vancouver. Great characters, sets (both virtual and practical), costumes, and just a really cool world Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis (of Lost fame) have created. So glad I can be a small part of it.
In case you’re keeping score at home, that means I am (so far) booked on five shows this coming season: How to Get Away With Murder, The Catch, NCIS: New Orleans, Once Upon a Time and Scandal.
Pretty incredible, considering I directed my first one nineteen months ago. I’m going to keep enjoying the hell out of this for as long as it lasts.
Now back to writing.
Tune in at 9pm Eastern/Pacific for the Grimm episode I directed – “Inugami” with great guest stars Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Keiko Agena and Matthew Yang King!
Final day of the longest TV shoot I’ve yet done. Although it was for two episodes, it was essentially putting together one long 2-hour movie over two weeks of shooting. The final day was part of a double-up day – the incoming director started shooting his Day 1 and this was my final day. Mostly straightforward scenes that we had to finish quickly because we had a lot of them. Finished up at night with a couple of pieces of coverage that we had to save until now. Spent about 6 weeks with the same people – I’m going to miss them.
Biggest day of the shoot, in production terms. About 100-125 extras, creative stage lighting effects, three cameras including one on a crane, and almost all of the principle cast. All in all, a pretty great day – shot some really fun and interesting scenes.
Final day of the week, spent entirely on stage on a house set and then one more temporary set. I had a pretty bad sore throat going. But a strong finish to a busy first full week of shooting. One more full week and a couple days to go.
Spent all day at the Hummingbird Nest Ranch in Simi Valley. Shot in two locations there for the entire day. Incredibly beautiful estate and grounds.
Sharat Raju 