Director
Sheree Folkson is one of the directors on Netflix’s biggest ever series, the period drama Bridgerton. During a long career spanning TV and film, she has worked with some of the best actors and writers in the business. What does the job involve? We take a script and turn it into a living, breathing thing. That sounds simple, but surely it takes time to make a show? I start work, as sole director, on a fourpart drama in the UK at the end of April. Sole directors are involved in the early creative decisions and also have to cast and crew a series, so I’m already looking at actors and crew with the producers and writer. It will be shooting until September and editing until November. Is it done differently in the US? I work a lot in the US, where I can finish a one-hour episode in just three weeks – that’s maybe seven days’ prep, shooting for 10 and an edit in just four days. The American system is
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completely different, although not all US shows I make are shot that quickly. It depends on the budget. Who do you work with most closely on a production? The producer, director of photography (DoP), production designer, first assistant director, the cast, the editor and [with the US way of working] the writers and showrunner. If I start a show, I also work closely with the writer, costume, make-up and hair and casting departments. With the British system, you don’t work so much with the writers on set, but on Bridgerton, which was shot in the UK but using the US system, the writer or showrunner was on set every day. Do you enjoy sitting in the editing suite? I do enjoy the edit. There’s less time pressure and you haven’t got 100 people looking at you, thinking, “What now?” It’s just you and the editor in a room. The hardest bit of the job is being on set filming. But it also gives
Bridgerton you a great buzz of adrenaline, which you don’t get in the edit. How did you become a director? I was obsessed by old movies – I loved Hitchcock and William Wyler as directors, and watching Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Hollywood musicals. The directors were always men and I never thought about becoming one, but it was the female stars who often carried the movies. So, I went to drama school but then struggled to find much work, though I did play a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz at Newcastle Playhouse! I gave up acting and went to university and did a politics degree. Then I decided I needed to do something creative and was accepted by the BBC on its graduate trainee scheme. That sounds like great training? It was amazing – I spent two years working in different departments, working out where I fitted in. There was an eclectic mix of people – future BBC political editor Nick Robinson was in my year.
Netflix
WORKING LIVES
