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Are you about to leave Uni with a filmmaking degree? Or want to change careers and work in a creative industry? We want to give you the tools you need to enter the real world of production or freelancing. Honest and open career advice from people in the business.
We also talk to those in other creative industries to discuss their careers, the potential cross over with film production and practical tips for a successful and fulfilling career.
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The Honest Filmmaker
How to turn a Short Film into a Television Career with Jamie Donoughue
#filmpodcast #doctorwho #filmproducer
This week I'm talking to Television Director Jamie Donoughue - Jamie had a very interesting route into television directing. He started out by creating a short film called Shok that went onto get an Oscar Nomination, this led to him working on big budget US Television shows like "The Last Kingdom" before returning to the UK to direct the season finale of the latest series of Doctor Who starring Ncuti Gatwa.
Jamie gave me som great tips for working in television as a director, what to do and what not to do when meeting with television executives and his advice for starting your career.
The moment Shok was Oscar Nominated: https://youtu.be/xLHU3D88n_k?si=MwOVuWTI8SB-YE8K
Watch the short film Shok https://vimeo.com/564100836
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HONEST, OPEN ADVICE ABOUT YOUR FILMMAKING CAREER
Are you about to leave Uni with a filmmaking degree? Or want to change careers and work in a creative industry? We want to give you the tools you need to enter the real world of production or freelancing. Honest and open career advice from people in the business.
We also talk to those in other creative industries to discuss their careers, the potential cross over with film production and practical tips for a successful and fulfilling career.
Join the community: http://www.thehonestfilmmaker.co.uk
[Music] hi Jim here and you're listening to the honest filmmaker podcast career advice from people in the business this week I'm speaking to television director Jamie Donahue Jamie had a really interesting route into television directing he started off with a short film called Shock which went on to get an Oscar nomination and then moved into directing big budget American television shows before finally working his way back to the UK to direct the latest series Doctor Who this this was a really good chat with Jamie because he was really honest about his route into directing television uh we talked about his short film his first debut short film that got him an Oscar nomination and then how that led to the work he got on television he also spoke about what it was like to go to those all important meetings with the executives from those TV shows and he gives you some tips on what to do and what not to do in those meetings uh but really insightful great chat enjoy so with most people I start with this question is did you go to university did you study where did you start with film I had a bit of a weird Journey actually I had very little to do with film and TV I think a lot of people as kids like grow up and they want to be a director or they want to be an actor um all I ever wanted to do was Judo my entire life was doing Judo um right and that's what I was going to plan to do and then very randomly um we used to run this annual Judo contest and one of the kids' fathers said would you like to film it and it turned out he was from um a company called provision in leads that used to supply all the cameras to emale and I went yeah sure and he turned up with the most incredible equipment and it was like this three cam multi multi- shoot and I ended up finding myself directing this Judo contest and that's where I got the bug for it um so after that then I took a year out and I went to work for a corporate production company locally in leads and I learned to be a camera operator and then I decided that was going to be my path so I actually went to Salford uni where I studied uh film and television production right and do you so you came looking at your IMDb profile so you've sort of done something that people always and I know it's a lot it's a lot harder than this in practice but when you look at your IMDb profile you've gone short film short film short film bang he's directing television um with the shorts was that a strategy were you like right I'm going to make some short films get myself noticed or did you just end up making short films how did that work it's really like I'm always fascinated and back then I was always looking at every other director how did they make it how did they get in what was their path and as we know in this there is no set path at all into it and the IMDb as useful as it is it never tells the full story at all um and actually how I ended up in it it's it's quite crazy but it came from um I came out of University and I decided to set up a production company and I became a music video director um and it was we were all set up in leads and um we had what was quite a successful music video company back then and we got known for breaking new artists and we got to work with some incredible artists and we were like um doing first stuff for like Michael Kian Nuka and the vaccines and Royal Blood and then we started um started growing as a company um and then we had to take on a lot of things to make it work and we end end up doing like videos for Susan Bo and The X Factor oh nice and but I realized I was so unhappy because I ended up I was I was being a director of a company wor worrying about payroll and I wasn't directing and this just wasn't what I wanted to do at all so um I made a big decision and I decided to sell the company and leave the company um and come down to London to get signed as a director to do drama so I came down all buoyant trying to get an agent thinking everybody had sign me and absolutely nobody cared whatsoever and they used to reel off my uh reel off all my music videos and go I've done Susan Bo's music video and uh nobody cared at all um and my my sort of advice I got was you've got to prove yourself in drama and maybe a short film could be the way um but then completely randomly on I ended up going to Kosovo for three days which is um out in the balk and I didn't know very much about it um and on the second day the Icelandic volcano erupted I don't know if you remember that yeah remember it yeah yeah and all flights had been um had been grounded and I ended up getting stuck in that country for five weeks and it completely changed my life and I had no idea what had gone over on over there but there would there had been this horrendous war in the late 90s um led by mosovich and um I started to learn all about the and the people brought me into their families and told me their experiences um and I just couldn't believe that something like this had gone on over there um in modern times um and I thought to myself this is the story I want to tell I need to tell these people's story um so I was all buoyant I eventually got back to London I said right I've got this idea and I went to try and raise a load of funding and um nobody would fund me at all they were like okay you want to go to an ex water on Yugoslav country um and with a language that you don't speak and make us sure you're okay no thanks so I was like so nobody would back me but I knew I had to do this and it wasn't it wasn't so much about making a sh in order to get recognized as a director it became about the cause of what I wanted to do and use film to tell these people's stories so for the next four years I went back and forth between Kosovo and London um learned to speak the language as best as I could learn all the history and everything that I possibly could and I took a job building Garden sheds um and I eventually saved up enough money and I went over there and then I shot my short film um and then I brought it I brought it back and I had absolutely no idea whether anybody would like it at all or not um and uh we put it into festivals and we still wasn't sure whether we like it and then we our first Festival we got back was Aspen and we won all three Awards there and then it went crazy and then it went we won 22 festivals back to back across the world and then it got nominated for an Oscar and all of a sudden I found myself sat next to Spielberg at the Oscars and I was like how the hell has this happened um so very quickly my life changed overnight and um of course I got an agent off the back of that an amazing agent uh and uh that's what got me into TV wowers so that's interesting because it's it is the route that a lot of students think is going to work so I'm going to make a short film going to get noticed but obviously behind all of that is all this other stuff where you've kind of had to take crap jobs and you know what I mean it's been a total passion projects that's amazing and I've seen a video I think if I'm right it's your team getting told their that your Oscar um nominated and it is what as a filmmaker you would dream it would be like it's like you've won the FA Cup Final or some you'd go the whole lot Go Bananas in I mean what was that moment like when you found out it was actually nominated it nearly didn't happen because we were making a decision whether we would go and get everybody together for the live nomination because I was like if this doesn't happen it's going to be the most depressing moment of my life and my producer Harvey Ascot said yes but if it does it's going to be something that we'll we'll remember forever and it was it's so hard to describe you you can't really take a breath across that whole moment and it's only when you look back that you really appreciate it but it it really it transcended what the short film was because Kosovo wasn't recognized across the world as a country and for them to get a nomination for the Oscar meant so much more it as I said it transcended film off you know off the back of that um you know the film was spoke about about the UN in the UN we um we were invited by the pope to go to the Vatican for the consecration of Mother Teresa it was all off all off the back of that and the actors and what happened to covo was it was an incredible thing and it meant more than that short film it was a recognition on the world stage so I think that's what that emotion was that was let out at that point but um yeah I can't watch that back actually it it still gets me now it is a great moment and it is on YouTube so you can just search it up watch it there's a there's some blue language in there but it's as you would expect just people swearing with joy um so that's awesome so so just talking about so it's called Shock isn't it the yes spell sh h k which it means friend in Albanian right and can you can you where can you watch that now if you wanted to go back and see it uh it's on Vimeo um and it's on YouTube and um I'm sure you can get it anywhere I'm sure it's been ripped a million times mainly Vimeo and YouTube Vimeo and YouTube okay and so you were just saying you were directing in a foreign language learned a bit of the language what how how on Earth do you do that um it was it's I mean Albanian is a very very tough language to learn and I'm not very good at learning languages as well so I I tried I tried my very best and I actually to be fair because I immersed myself over there quite a few years ago I got reasonably good at Albanian as well and then on top of that it became more of a technical thing and what and it was a great lesson for me because what I realized is when I was watching the performances in another language um it didn't matter fully whether I completely understood the language or not you can feel a good performance and then all I needed to do after that when I felt it was I turn to my script supervisor and I double check the pronunciation and language I say you're happy is that bang on those nuances of the language that I would never be able to know so and it was a mixture of that and then I just learned a few technical terms in Albanian um for dealing with the crew and everything um but yeah it didn't really make that much difference for me because as I said you can feel it and I've taken that on into everything else I've directed before it doesn't matter exactly the words I said and stuff you feel it inside you there's there's an emotional resonance when you when you get get a good performance definitely and um so Oscar nominated uh I'm assuming you were at the Oscars sat in the audience way on the night how does that work uh yeah we I mean we were that everyone always ask me what it's like I I suppose the the best way of describing it is it's like a American presidential election campaign you go on this journey for six weeks non-stop touring America showing your film interviews and it's and and then it all culminates in the night as well and then obviously you're in the audience as well so it was as I said it was a whirlwind and you don't really get to take it all in at that moment and actually a couple of years after that my producer Harvey and I we went back to the Oscars just as guests um and actually in a way I sort of enjoyed it more then because we managed to all those memories flooded back but without the huge amen pressure that came with it yeah I can imagine and how soon after Oscars did you get your first TV gig um so I signed with I actually signed with my agent before I got the nomination because um Harriet Harriet who was it was back then at troa but she's she now runs lar um she'd seen my film and then signed me on so there was things getting in motion so as soon as I got back from the Oscars I was put into generals and this is usually what happens as a director when you when you become a new director on the scene you go and meet loads of different production companies and they get to know you and know that you're on the scene so I did generals for about for about a month um and then um probably within about three weeks after that um and I met Carnival for the last Kingdom um and i' I'd met on something else before and I didn't get the job and I learned a really really valuable lesson because a lot of getting jobs on in on on directing as well on TV is is in the interview process and the first job that I went up for I went in and I was so sheepish and I was like oh my God I'm gonna I'm potentially going to get a TV job here and it was for season two or something and the producer asked me what would you change from season 1 and I I was like well who am I to criticize them and and this program and I was like oh nothing nothing it's all great it's all great and I came out of there and I didn't get the job and remember my agent said to me don't ever do that again be honest they whether whether they like your view or not as long as you've got a Clear Vision of what you want to do you'll either get the job or you won't but people want Clarity in a vision and I took so much from that and I went into my last Kingdom interview and I was really clear and I remember walking out that room and I was like they will either never call me again for any production at carnival or they'll give me the job and luckily they gave me the job amazing that's a great tip um and then so now you're doing this huge TV show with swords and big sets and costumes and all of that so what's what's it like making the step from a short film to suddenly doing that it's um it can get overwhelming you know you I obviously ly I'd done music videos and i' done my short and I'd had a crew about 20 and then the last kingdom is TV on steroids even back then you know we would have 300 essay um we'd have huge Crews um and it it was just a mammoth production the sets were and and and I walked onto there and I think the two things that stopped me getting overwhelmed was one I thought no matter what this can never be more ner nerve-wracking or more pressure than what I'd been through at the Oscars and the Oscars gave me that barometer to deal with anything which was great um and then the other thing is I got I got a really great piece of advice from um from a friend of mine a producer in lead's called Howard um and I always I've taken this on wherever you go because things can get quite overwhelming and get ahead of you and I realized that all filming at the end of the day is just a camera and an actor and then the rest around it is just bump it's just and depending on your budget it's bigger or smaller but that's irrelevant it actually all comes down to just a camera and an actor and when you can take out all the noise around it and then whenever you feel overwhelmed with anything or think things are getting ahead of you you just go back to that one scene one shot at a time camera and an actor and then you move on and then you build and then you know very quickly you know the the novelty does wear off and get used to all of this around you so um but you know what I was ready that was the other thing I was ready i' I'd done this for so so long you know trying to break into the industry that I just took the opportunity with both hands and run with it yeah it's cool and so hna just just to understand Logistics of it when you're working on a TV show like that and I've seen in your rdb again you've done you do two SE two episodes here three of this two of that do you um are you there while the other ones are being made do you read every single episode in the series do you speak to the other directors how does that work or do you just come in for your bit what you know how's it work um it it depends on it depends on the show yes you read every single script you're part of a massive jigsaw and you have to understand what's going be before you and what's going to come ahead of you as well and to be a to be able to direct you should never be directing for your episode you should always have the bigger picture which is um which is the whole series um so you need a complete understanding of what's gone on before and where the story is going with regard to working with other directors um you know it depends what show it is some there was this thing I was that I I remember when we were at the last Kingdom and we ended up having three directors at once at one table and everybody was laughing saying we've never seen this before but for me direction should all be about collaborating it's and you know if someone else's episode is great then it's always going to help you because it's going to make the series better as well and that's the key thing now when I came on to last Kingdom I came on early and I asked to come on early and um luckily the first director was a guy called Peter hore um who's gone on to win he's just won two BS back to back um absolutely lovely lovely Guy and um he let me sit next to him at the Monitor and I sat through quite a lot of block one um and that was great and it was really good experience and I just watched the logistics of how everything worked um so uh yeah and then I think John East was before me as well um I know and John East is one of the most seasoned veteran directors you can imagine I remember seeing how he worked and he storyboards everything absolutely everything is laid out in the most beautifully drawn incredible book of storyboards um and I saw that and I panicked and I was like I can't draw I storyboard and honestly I don't shot list I do everything in my head mainly in the moment as well and I started possibly doubting myself a little bit is this how TV is done and then I realized everybody has their own process and it doesn't matter what it is as long as you can deliver you have your own process so you can't compare yourself to other people um so that was a great lesson for me and I learned so much so quickly in the last Kingdom across that first series yeah I mean I'm a storyboard man myself but rubbish stick men storyboards only because I find I forget stuff if I don't storyboard so I don't know how you managed to do that keep it all in your head and make sure you've I mean you know you got a shot this but make sure you've sort of captured all those moments what uh talking about being a TV director and a director in general what sort of personal attributes do you think you need to do that job um first of all I think it's about it's about getting rid of your ego that's a massive thing there's a lot of ego in this industry as well and being an amicable good person and being likable is a huge thing because essentially you've got a lot of great people around you and you just want everybody pulling in the in the right direction so having people like you and want you to do well and want the program to do well is a massive thing and also you know the ability to create a great atmosphere on set for people to enjoy their work as well is a massive thing because then people you know you're not people want to do better and want the show to uh to do better and you know it can be an extremely stressful environment so if you can take that stress out of it and enjoy it I've always found that you get a much better working crew and you can you can achieve what's in front of you um uh I think the ability to communicate is a huge thing Clarity one of the when one of one of the difficult things is as a director is you're never on anyone else's set really you've no idea how anybody else directs at all so I always ask actors or I ask crew about um when they've come off with somebody else oh what that what's that director like and if they're talking positive they always say one thing they were great they knew what they wanted and that's how the crew judge you if you know what you want and you can make a clear decision forward whatever that decision is and you've got to do it I mean you can get asked a thousand questions a day and you've just got to make a decision and be clear with it and I think that's one of the huge attributes that and being amicable is um and treating everybody equally as well you know yes we're in a hierarchy in the set and in a way it has to run like that but that doesn't mean that as people were not equal as well so um yeah that's how I've always tried to run my sets yeah it's good advice that's good advice and yeah that atmosphere is so important isn't it if you get that wrong then all this other stuff starts interfering with making the film or the TV project so let me skip ahead to Doctor Who so now you're doing the sort of season finale of like the biggest Sci-Fi show in the country and it's got new doctor um first off is there a is it more prestigious or is it harder to get the season finales or is that just something that's kind of do you have to pitch for that is because I would imagine that's a bigger deal is it doing the season finales or am I just imagining that because it sort of feels bigger when you watch it generally yes I mean the way TV's looked at is you can open a series um or if it's season one you can set the style to a degree so the opening and the finales are um usually have a little more Prestige with them as well but for me it makes no difference you know I I think sometimes middle blocks have better scripts as well so it's where the challenge is for me so every script I look at if if I ever look at something and think I could just turn up and with my eyes closed direct this then I never take it I've got to have a challenge and I've got to have a little fear in me because that pushes my creative so when I actually had read quite a lot of the scripts on do who I have a really good relationship with bad wolf from doing discovery of witches um the producer Vicky deow I knew from last Kingdom as well so I looked a lot of the scripts as well and then when they brought me the finale one of the great things about it was it was a two-parter it was almost quite Standalone and from the very beginning we were all describing it as the Doctor Who feature film and that's what attracted me with it as well that it was you know just short of two hours pece and treating it as one so um yeah so that that's why I went with it and there was so many challenges in it in in a different way that um because I'd looked at do who before you know and I'd been and kindly I'd been offered it and it it didn't feel right for me but now with the change of how it was with the ambition with Disney with Russell T Davis coming back it felt like yeah this is a challenge that I want to take on yeah it it looks like it's gone up a notch even just budget just looks everything looks bigger and you know it's almost like a big American TV show um and it's so nice so I've got two children it's so nice to be able to watch something with them and watch them engage with it so we really enjoyed the series thought it was really good love him as the doctor um so that's kind of a bit of a uh another jump in the the amount of special effects you're having to deal with uh what's that like how do you kind of balance the creativity with uh doing those special effects sequences yeah I mean do Hugh Doctor Who is huge now on the VFX side of things as well and I've luckily I've worked on a lot of shows with different types of VFX and it is a modern day skill you need as a director now as well but for me there's always a level with VFX there's a level where you push it too far you create a disconnect and by that I mean you create a disconnect with the audience um and you create a disconnect with the actors performing at the time so I always try and find a way around it and um I suppose one of the great examples is in episode seven there we have that time window now um where there's multiple different different doctors different timelines they go back and it's like this big visual time machine now the really easy way about going about something like that was we just put it in a green screen Studio but we didn't want to do that and it's for two reasons one we wanted to create an environment in which the actors could perform and feel it and secondly that's not the Doctor Who way as well a lot of things are done in camera we I always strive first and foremost my first point of call is what can we do in camera so actually that time window for one of the better word was built for real and what we did was we projected those images onto silk walls and then had it live camera tracked um and it was you know it was and from that I feel we got a better performance we had a better set to work in um and ultimately I think it landed and it's the same with the monster suek as well I mean obviously he's complete VFX but actually we could have just green screened there but what we didn't do that we built a puppet we had a live puppet here and then we pre-recorded the dialogue and we had that pump through on set with the speakers and then every single person on set saw the pre- renders of what suek was going to look like so it's as close to get getting the real thing on set as you possibly can um and for me whenever you can do something for real or create an atmosphere of reality on set I think it's going to land better yeah I into that and you when you when you get that wrong and the actors are all kind of they're looking in the right direction but they're not quite the eyelines aren't quite lining up it just takes you out of it immediately you having that physical thing yeah I didn't realize you had a puppet but that's awesome um so looking back on the career what do you wish you would have known at the beginning that's it's um okay one of the things you realize I think a lot of people have the ability to direct and by that I mean do cool shots break stuff down technically um get great performance with actors but the ability to direct in modernday TV is to direct within the ever restricting parameters of Television the first when I turned up on last Kingdom um I got brought into Gareth neem's office Gareth NE multi multi-win and ba producer and the only thing he ever said to me was make your days and I went yeah yeah yeah and he went no Jamie make your days because and by that it means complete what is on your call sheet because you don't realize the amount of money that is at stake if you go over by even 30 seconds you are costing a production tens of thousands of pounds as well it's so tight there so little time so the ability to do your creativeness direct and shoot something but keeping it within the time parameters is a huge thing that I wish I'd have known that is that's what TV directing is as well and on top of that dealing with the multiple politics that come with it because there are a lot of voices in TV there there's a lot of people who want to be heard and you've got to make a lot of people happy and you've got to manage all of that um so yeah I I wish I'd have known that I I mean luckily I fell into it and because because i' produced my own stuff as music as a music video director I think that helped me massively as well um I also think you know a lot of it is just people management especially with actors you've got a lot of talented people around you it's just as I said about creating that environment that they can show their talent off um and I suppose one of the more depressing things that I wish I'd have known is you know this industry unfortunately it's not necessarily meritocracy you know success doesn't necessarily mean longevity it's up and down roller coaster all the time and there's a lot of external factors coming in in this industry that determines success what's a successful program what you're working on at the time as well so you can never let how well you're doing as a director how you're seen as a director Define you as a person um you know there's so many factors out of your control as well hope you enjoyed that episode if you'd like to hear from more industry professionals how they got into the business and how you can do the same or you just want to listen to some cool stories from movie sets around the world then please do subscribe to the honest filmmaker podcast[Music]
