Women In The Director's Chair

[Soapsuds]

Nice to see you posting again Dan.

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I got the spelling wrong but oh well..lol

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[janea4old]

 

Heather Tom has directed on B&B. Her IMDB says 25 episodes, is that correct?
Were there any other female directors on B&B at the same time? I  have no idea.
HT also directed one episode of Y&R.

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According to their IMDB accounts:

Susan Flannery directed season 4 of the websoap Venice -- with Crystal Chappell.

Cady McClain directed season 5 of Venice -- with Crystal Chappell.

Hillary B. Smith directed season 6 of Venice -- with Crystal Chappell.
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Cady McClain is very active in encouraging women to become directors in film and TV.  In 2018, she released a documentary about women who direct called "Seeing is Believing: Women Direct." 

Kimberly McCullough was a Director in the ABC/DGA Creative Talent Program 2012-2014.   But I don't think she has directed soaps?

Cady McClain and Kimberly McCullough both seem more interested in directing than acting. 
 

Edited July 24, 2021 by janea4old

[DramatistDreamer]

In primetime television, Ava Duvernay has done a lot to bring a whole group of women into the directing ranks, and women of color in particular (something daytime has yet to do, despite having a loyal following among Black women) but this is all fairly recent.

There are a few ways that daytime drama genre, in it's earliest days can be regarded as fairly progressive but this is clearly not one of them. The genre more often than not, moves as slow as molasses. I also specifically mentioned daytime soaps on television as they are still where the money is (however scaled back).

Web soaps don't yet measure up to the ones on television, although if the budgets decline any further, they soon shall be. Venice and other web soaps are still primarily crowd-funded productions.

[janea4old]

Ava's show Queen Sugar is sort of a night-time soap. Excellent quality. I started watching and ended up bingeing all five seasons. It  is *so* good!  Every single episode of all the seasons have been directed by women.   Really really excellent.

[Pine Charles]

Francesca James directed episodes for All My Children.

I thought she had started directing in the ‘90s, but I was watching the 1987 episode where Erica famously drives a race car, and Francesca was the director of that particular show.

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Edited July 25, 2021 by Pine Charles

[allmc2008]

You mean, she should have been EP because she had pretty episodes? Okay! Perfect reason!!!

[sheilaforever]

Many execs worked as directors before getting this position. Ed Scott and David Shaughnessy for instance.

[Broderick]

Most definitely!   She'd been directing the show for seventeen years, and she'd been a line producer for four years.  She knew the show backwards and forwards, how it should flow, how it should sound, how it should look.  And she had a spark of creativity in her episodes that few others seemed to have.  She was passed over for executive producer in favor of someone else who appeared to have never watched the show before.  But such is life!     

[YRfan23]

Even now when Sally McDonald directs episodes of Y&R I notice the particular episode looks better. She’s been with the show since 1990 and has been directing since 1995 or 1996 so I also would have had her as EP. 

[mikelyons]

Cynthia Popp produces and directs THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL. She also directed a few episodes of FRASIER. 

Deveney Kelly has directed for B&B, THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, and DAYS OF OUR LIVES.

 

Sally is a great director. Actually, she directed the first post-Lynn Marie Latham, first Maria Bell episode of Y&R. She took the show back to basics by turning down the lights, opening tight on a shot of real flowers, and finding Nikki in the Newman living room. I don't know if that episode is online, but it's worth a look, especially if you compare it to LML's reign of destruction. 

Edited July 27, 2021 by mikelyons

[DemetriKane]

Good catch!

[watson71]

Jean Dadario Burke, Sherrell Hoffman, and Gigi Van Deckter were all directing Another World in 1988-89.  Susan Strickler and Linda Barker Laundra directed the show in the early 90s after being producers on the show.

[Paul Raven]

July 84

 At ceremonies held recently in New York City for the Daytime Emmy Awards, The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarded an Emmy to Susan B. Pomerantz, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Pomerantz of Pittsfield. Ms. Pomerantz was cited for outstanding achievement in technical excellence for a daytime drama. She is the associate director of ABC's "One Live to Live." As associate director, Ms. Pomerantz supervises post-production on the daytime drama as well as being directly involved in the in studio production. She has recently become a director and has done location segments for the soap opera. Ms. Pomerantz has been with ABC for seven years and has been an associate director on such shows as "All My Children," "Good Morning America" and ABC's "Wide World of Sports." During ABC's coverage of the Summer Olympics, Ms. Pomerantz will be the control director in New York for live segments. Ms. Pomerantz is a graduate of Pittsfield High School, Colby-Sawyer College and the University of New Hampshire. She is a member of the Directors Guild of America and is a resident of New York City.