April 6, 2021 • 49 mins
If The Office were a puppy, director Ken Kwapis would be “the country vet that birthed it” (according to Greg Daniels, at least). Ken speaks on the decisions he made that let the audience feel like they were catching the action on screen by accident, how no one was allowed on set while filming the first few episodes - not even hair and make-up - and the moment he knew that Phyllis just belonged in a paper company.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Hey, this is John O'Bryant, entrepreneur and a fellow
builder just like you. Thanks for the help of I
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(00:22):
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Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.
I'm Emilia. On this podcast, I'm taking you on a search,
a search for love hard working Latina, but there were
other reasons I felt like I couldn't always be myself.
(00:44):
My mom's in prison. This Crumbs my love story. It's
to show about the things we set up for and
the bits of ourselves that make us who we are.
Listen to Crumbs on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Colleen with joined
me the host of Eating Wall Broke podcast. While I
(01:05):
eat a meal created by self made entrepreneurs, influencers, and
celebrities over a meal they once ate when they were broke.
Today I have the lovely aj Crimson, the official Princess
of compon Asia Kidding and Assia. This is the professor.
We're here on Eating Wall Broke and today I'm gonna
break down my meal that got me through a time
when I was broken. Listen to Eating Wall Broke on
(01:28):
the I Heart Radio app, on Apple podcast or wherever
you get your podcasts. I'm Ken Kappas. I I am
a director. I directed the pilot of the Office and
many other episodes. Hello, everybody, this is the Office Deep
(01:55):
Dive and I am your host, Brian baum Gartner. How's
everybody doing out there? Is everybody? Okay? I wish I
could hear you. Um today you will be listening to
me and my conversation with Ken Kappas now as usual,
no one can put it better than Greg Daniels, and
(02:16):
Greg described Ken as the country vet who birthed this puppy,
this puppy being the American Office, and this is so true.
Ken was. He was the director of the pilot, but
also so many of our most beloved episodes. He directed
(02:37):
Diversity Day, Booze, Cruise, The Fire, The Job, Casino Night
Gave which the finale. Honestly, there are too many to
name but you should go look him up. Ken is
such um sweet nice guy one and two he he
(02:58):
also has a really unique directing style. Um. He wrote
a book recently actually called but what I really want
to do is direct lessons from a life behind a camera.
And to get to sit down and talk with him
about all of that, that was my pleasure. So on
(03:18):
that note, in homage to Ken Ken, go ahead, Bubble
and squeak. I love it. Bubble and squeaker, bubble and
squeaker cookiet every month left over from the night before. Hello, sir,
(03:52):
I'm coming around for another. Yes, it's so good to
see you. So good is the I And I'm glad,
uh you're doing this well. I think that there's a
story here that needs to be told. I you know
(04:12):
what I was saying to Margaret that I have been
It's not a book about the office, but I'm actually
I'm writing a book about directing, right, just a general
book about directing, and it certainly includes, you know, some
of our experiences. But I but I have been approached
by a bunch of people and I've just basically now,
I say, is Greg doing this right? So right? The
(04:36):
first person that I went to was Greg, and I said, look,
this is what we want to do, and he was
totally supportive. And you know they're finishing editing his or sorry,
finished shooting his show right this week, well in fact
on Raleigh, because that's where Angela and I were doing
this other show. So literally I saw Greg. I wander
(04:56):
over to his that math. Did you go visit? No,
I haven't been there yet, this massive out of this
space whatever worship and uh but yeah, no, I can't
wait to see it. Ye see it? Um? Now did
you had you worked with Greg before the Office? I
met him when I was invited to meet him to
(05:17):
direct the pilot of the Office. Okay, so so before
the pilot, what what were you were working on Bernie Mac? Yeah,
that seems specifically what I was doing. I had worked
on the show Malcolm in the Middle. I directed nineteen
episodes of Malcolm in the Middle. I helped launch the
Bernie Max Show with Larry Wilmore, and I was working
(05:40):
on I think. Yeah, so I was working on the
Bernie Mac Show when I got the call to meet
with Greg. Right, and were you familiar with the British
version of the show. I was familiar with it, but
I hadn't seen much of it. I think I may
have only seen the pilot episode of the British show, right,
and now we shot the pilot and the first season
(06:03):
in the production offices above the sound stage, right. I
mean we built within a We built within a practical space.
And in fact, one of the things that we did
when we moved to the whatever we call it warehouse,
what are we calling that the warehouse? I guess when
we built the dunder Mifflin's set, one of the things
(06:26):
that Greg and I definitely discussed was the idea of
not making any walls movable wild a bold and the
idea was that since this was a you know, quote documentary,
that directors had to respect the physical limitations of the space,
so that if you couldn't get an angle, you couldn't
get an angle. And that was again it was it
(06:47):
was sort of a way to signal to directors coming
down the line that you know, you had to kind
of honor the space. And again, if this were any
other kind of either single camera or multi cameras situation,
you just move a wall out of the way and
get back and in some cases get almost a presenium
view of the action and One of the things I loved,
(07:09):
not just in the pilot but in episodes in the
second season in particular, was creating a sense that we
were blocked from seeing the action properly, or or even
that you know, some either a pillar or a file cabinet,
something was in our way and we couldn't quite get
a good angle on things, and that increased the realism. Yeah,
(07:31):
I mean, I think that so much of what Greg
and I discussed in terms of, you know, a camera
style was how to uh, you know, create a sense
that we were there observing people, observing characters. Obviously, it's
not a secret that the staff of dunder Mifflin knows
they're being observed. They know they're being filmed. Most of
the staff members don't want to be filmed, except for
(07:53):
you know, Michael Scott. So part of it was just
trying to come up with visual ideas that would either
we would sort to be in a character's face and
and and you know, for instance, if I was shooting you, you,
if I was this far from you, you'd know I'm there,
or we'd we'd you know, kind of hide behind a
shrub or a file cabinet and sort of eavesdrop on
(08:13):
the action a little bit more so that we could
sort of observe without characters knowing we were there looking
at them. And I'm always mindful that, you know, it
was Greg's decision not to shoot the series at a studio.
We you know, we weren't at Universal, we weren't, you know,
And it was his choice to you know, find this
(08:34):
warehouse in this scrubby section of the valley, so that
even if it wasn't actual scruting, it was definitely not
Hollywood and it definitely felt like, you know, where were we?
Why are we coming all the way out into this
kind of bizarre area to shoot this show in a warehouse?
And you know, it wasn't like we used the surroundings
(08:55):
very often, but I think Greg really wanted to give
us an opportunity to not feel like we were in
a show. Right. We're definitely gonna talk a little bit
more about that. But um, so you and Greg met
and was there any discussion at that time about making
the American version, let's just call it that, the American
(09:15):
version versus where there are things that you wanted immediately
to do differently before we started work on the pilot,
as I recall there was a British show and I'm
blanking out on the name of it. It was a comedy.
It was kind of like a romantic slash sex comedy show. God,
I can't remember the name of it, but anyways, it
was a show that either NBC or some other network
(09:37):
tried to do a U S version of and it
didn't work. And one of the things that Greg and
I definitely discussed was the need to maintain the kind
of the unorthodox approach of the UK show, not exactly
mimicking the tone of it, but for me as a
director visually sort of trying to maintain the style that
(09:59):
what's the right way to put it where where it
feels like we were catching the action by accident that
things were not being staged for the camera. And I
mean everyone, I think you know there are a lot
of people were saying, well, this is going to fail
because no network will allow you to do what they
did in the UK version. But in fact, I think,
you know, Greg leading the charge and certain people at
(10:20):
NBC understanding that it wouldn't work unless it it wouldn't
work if it traveled down the middle of the road,
or it had to at least aspire to the same
kind of you know, offbeat quality that the original had,
or else it just wouldn't play, and so on on
every level. That affected every decision. I mean, I can
(10:40):
go through any number of things, including the decision to
do screen tests and improvisation instead of the traditional, you
know approach of bringing the finalists for a role in
front of a bunch of really humorists network executives, right right,
And so I mean in place of that, we we
(11:01):
shot a lot of screen tests with different combinations of actors,
and I feel like that made all the difference in
the world in terms of I don't know, it just
it changed the whole tenor of how the cast played
the scenes that we weren't trying to sell them. It
wasn't joking. We weren't selling jokes. It was it was.
(11:21):
One of the hallmarks of the show, obviously, is the
kind of very understated, often kind of mute quality that
you know, like characters who have nothing to say, we're
just sort of stuck there without And I think that
was that's not the kind of thing you're going to
communicate well in a traditional network executive audition, like in
(11:44):
a network test it's like theater in a huge room
with no camera there. And I think Jenna and Rain
both talked about you brought the camera in and asked
the actors to also behaviors of the camera work character.
And I think that, you know, every actor sort of
developed his or her own relationship with the camera, and
(12:07):
some people were more eager to acknowledge the camera, like
you know, John's character, I think pretty quickly, you know,
kind of makes a friend of the camera. Jenna. I
think there's moments where it feels like Jenna wants to
crawl under the reception desk, right, And so I think
everybody had their own specific relationship to the camera, and
that's something we started to uh explore in the in
(12:28):
the screen test period. So that was one choice or
one thing that Greg insisted on. And all credit to
Greg for insisting that we not go the traditional route
in terms of bringing actors to a network for the auditions.
Do you remember was there any pushback about that? No,
I don't remember any pushback about it, because again, I
(12:50):
feel like the people at NBC at that moment sort
of I don't want to say they indulged Greg or
indulged us, but I think they just knew on some
level they had to let us do this in a
different way. The UK show was so beloved, partly because
of its tone, partly because of its very unusual visual style,
(13:11):
and I think they knew to like kind of get
out of the way at least in certain ways. I mean,
I can say that. One of the other things we
did during the pilot shoot itself was we started each
day with, you know, shooting basically documentary footage of the
whole cast, the entire ensemble, just at their desks, and
both Greg and I kind of borrowed Ricky Gervais and
(13:34):
Stephen Merchants phrase general views. We didn't call them establishing shots.
We keep calling them b roles, but general but that
was that was I don't know if that's a general
term in Great Britain for an establishing shot or something,
but Ricky said, oh, we we just do general views.
And so each morning during the pilot shoot we started
(13:54):
the day with quote general views of people at work.
And what was about it was there was no story
going on. It was just everyone at their desks, you know,
you and Angela and Oscar sort of you know, doing
accounting work. We would take shots of things that were
just by definition like so mundane like and some of
them I think got into the credit role at the
(14:16):
beginning the title sequence, like I think rain like sticking
the things into the paper shredder and things like that,
shredding me doing the absolutely yeah, adding machine, the adding machine.
Those were things I think that came out of the
general views. Definitely. I think Steve adjusting his little trophy
on his desk was one of the general views. And
(14:37):
what I do remember you asked about network pushback was
I remember getting a comment from some executive not understanding
why for example, there were like lunge like lengthy shots
of like the water cooler or you know, why is
there a lengthy shot of rain sharpening pencils? What is
(14:59):
the purpose of this? So it wasn't exactly paying you
for this, so I wasn't pushedback, but it was definitely like, huh,
what are you guys doing? And and and by the way,
you can shoot a lot of footage and a half hour,
and we usually spent about a half hour before we
kind of slid into a scene. And one of the
things that I discovered in this process is that the
(15:24):
cast during the I'll call it the g V section
of each of our days. They knew they were being observed,
they knew they were the subject of a documentary, and
that when we then moved into a scene, it wasn't
like we now went into show mode. You know, it
was like we we we were still in a kind
of documentary mode. And so I think the general views
(15:44):
created it kind of lived in reality. It feels like
they've been there working there for years. Well that's that's fascinating.
I think it did something else as well, And I'm
curious if this was an unwitting benefit or if there
was some thought to this. I mean, you had every
actor essentially there from four thirty or five am or
(16:08):
whatever time it was, to be ready by seven or
seven thirty in the morning. We didn't do the general
views when it was convenient during the day when everyone
was there. It was about bringing everybody in and I
think that that is what started building the ensemble. You know.
It's funny because I one of the things, um, one
(16:29):
of the advantages we had is that the pilot takes
place by and large in the bullpen, So it wasn't
like there were scenes in the parking lot or anywhere
else and the bullpen. Except for the HR section of
the office, the bullpen requires everyone to be there, and
in theory, each the actors are not entirely clear when
the camera's going to find them. So when we did
(16:49):
the general views, yeah, I mean, it definitely created a
sense of ensemble. And I would also say that it
felt like whatever else you might think of that pilot,
and I love the pilot. One of the things that
really strikes me when I look at it now, it
doesn't feel like, oh, new show. It feels like we've
we've we've wandered into a place that's, you know, going
(17:11):
about its dreary way, the same way it has been
for the past couple of years or more. So I
think it kind of helped, uh people just sort of
start to create a little sense of what their normal
days like. There was also something we did that it
was kind of impractical to continue doing this over time.
But during the pilot shoot, with the exception of Peter
(17:34):
Smokeler who was shooting Greg and myself and maybe maybe
the boom operator I'm not even sure, probably, but no
one else actually was allowed on the set, including hair
and makeup, And as I recall, we kind of gave
everyone a little compact And obviously this is not something
you could sustain for a long time, but that was
(17:56):
definitely something Greg and I spoke of to kind of
create a set that what's the right way to put it, basically,
how do you how do we create a real space,
a real workplace. But my hope was that it just
made people feel, you know, a little bit trapped in
their workplace right well, and that isn't a great word
that I use all the time. Trapped We were trapped
(18:18):
within the confines the walls. There were no movable walls.
We were all there together and all arriving at roughly
the same time and showing up on set at the
same time, which forced us to make relationships. I've actually
never talked with Greg about this, but I mean that
Greg's decision to embed within the ensemble writers also I
(18:41):
think help grow the grew that sense of ensemble in
a way that it wouldn't have if they if the
writing staff was always at arms length from the from
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(22:20):
I want to go back for a second to the
casting and um, how obvious was it to you or
how difficult were the decisions for you in casting? You know,
it wasn't obvious across the board because there are a
lot of good people who came in and and so
there were like a lot of viable, you know, versions
(22:41):
of different characters. But I do think that, um, I
mean again, part of what was fun in the screen
tests was just sort of starting to not only see
people in pairs, but starting to see a whole picture
of a group of people. I mean that. And by
the way, when you talk about ensemble, one of the
things I was so happy about with the pilot is
(23:03):
even if some characters aren't don't have speaking parts, they
are they're they're very present, and I remember that, you know,
one of the things that Greg insisted on, you know,
as you as with any half hour comedy, at the
end of the pilot shoot, the network sends down a
photographer to do, like, you know, a bunch of glossy
shots of the actors looking cute and jumping up and
(23:25):
down and all that. And we were so determed. That
was you know, we pushed back, I shouldn't say we.
Greg pushed back and insisted that we not do anything
traditional like that, anything that would scream comedy, so that
what we did instead was the our Christmas card photo.
So we got the group together for a kind of
(23:45):
candid dunder Mifflin, you know, Xmas card photo, and that
was our marketing photo. That was it. There were and
if you go to if you like, if you were
to go to NBC at that time and walk down
the halls, you know, you'd see giant glossy shots of
each of the comedy stars, not the ensemble. And that
was the other part of it. It wasn't Steve standing.
(24:08):
And in fact, I think there was actually a discussion
on the set about you know, let's put Steve in
the foreground of the shot of the group for the
Christmas card, and I think Steve or Greg or you know,
both of them said absolutely not he's he's in the group,
and that boy, that really sent the right signal. Yeah, absolutely,
I mean the work that you all did to create
(24:30):
that ensemble early on. And of course, you know, as
you know, really no one was famous that you know,
Steve had done the Bruce Almighty movie and he was
on the Daily Show before the Daily Show was cool.
And you know Rain had done the one arc on
six ft Under and that was pretty much it. Why
(24:51):
was that so important for you? Well, I again, I
will defer to Greg because it was Greg's decision, and
Greg was the one who no doubt made the argument
to the network that it's best not to have known
faces in the show. I mean, I think the again,
everything has to do with creating this kind of Barris
similitude that this is a ship, this is not a show,
(25:12):
it's a it's part of a documentary about a group
of people who work in a paper company. So you
wouldn't know them. There's no need, there's no reason you'd
see a star in a in a workplace like that.
And I think that, you know, in terms of the
wardrobe choices, the makeup and hair choices. I mean, you know,
everything was sort of designed to make it feel like
(25:33):
these are people who don't belong on television, let alone
on a primetime half hour comedy. And Steve, you know,
I felt that one of the things that Steve did
so well is that he's the one character who's who's
so excited about a documentary crew being there because Michael
Scott fancies himself a superstar. But weirdly enough, even Steve,
(25:55):
I think somehow both played to the camera but also
it was himself the subject of a documentary to see somehow,
and it's It's one of the things I just marvel at.
You know, Michael Scott is grandstanding and you know, making
jokes and he's playing to the camera, but the character
(26:17):
doesn't quite realize it, but we're observing him. He's he's
under the microscope. And Steve somehow kind of found that
weird duality. Tell me about what's true and what's what's
lore or fairy tale? How did Phillis get cast in
the show? I well, I will tell you what happened. So, um,
(26:43):
we were doing uh probably you know, kind of more
traditional auditions, and in the room Greg, myself, Phillis Allison,
and the setup was is that I sat next to
a video camera, and on the other side of the
video camera, Phillis was sitting and Phillis was reading off
and Phillis was her casting associate. And I hadn't met Phyllis.
(27:04):
All I knew is I was sitting next to her,
and there was a camera between us and the actors
who were auditioning were some of them were kind of
playing it to the hilt and kind of working a
little too hard. Phillis meanwhile, was reading her lines in
in this very kind of monotonal way, sometimes not even
looking up at the actors, just looking down at the
(27:27):
sheet of paper. And I just became fascinated with her
and started looking at her. And there was a couple
of actors whose auditions I kind of missed because I
kept throwing Phyllis these sense glances. And I finally, during
a break, I took Greg aside and I said, this
woman really belongs in a paper company, and so we
(27:47):
Greg thought about it and he said sure, And now
there's there is there is one additional detail that's so
wonderful and that is that a r. Greg said, sure,
let's ask her to be in the bullpen and she
agreed to do it. That Greg and I had a
discussion and Greg said, do you know if she can act?
(28:10):
And I took Phillis aside, and I said, do you
have a lot of acting experience? And she said not
not really. But she said that some years earlier that
she had, you know, worked in burlesque in Branson, Missouri.
And I said stop it. And she then later that
(28:31):
week brought in a photo of herself into like a
very you know, wonderfully old fashioned burlescout. It was on
her desk for ten years and the So that is
the Phillis story and and I couldn't be happier that
she became such a beloved member of the ensemble. I
(28:51):
feel also responsible for Creed and I and I so
tell the Creed story. How did you know Creed? When
I was on the Bernie Max Show, Creed was a
stand in. And I remember one day, that's Creed and
another stand in. We're just having a conversation while we
were lighting, and I was wandering around and I kept
(29:13):
eavesdropping on little bits of the conversation and at one
point I heard Creed say something like, oh yeah, and
then Hendricks taught me this lick that one night, and
I walked away and I thought, what the what the
heck is he talking about? And then I turned back
over my shoulder and he was doing some air guitar
for this fellow stand in, and I thought, what's going
(29:34):
on here? So I went up to him and I
introduced myself, and he introduced himself as Creed Bratton, formerly
of the Grassroots, that nineteen sixties pop band that in
the mid sixties actually opened for people like Janis Joplin
and the Doors. They were, you know, a Bay Area band,
but Creed was in this band during its earliest incarnation
(29:57):
and and literally hung out at the Whiskey a go
go with the likes of Janis Joplin. So we became
pals on the Bernie Mac Show, and then I went
off to do other things and lost touch with them
for quite a while, actually not quite a while, but
a while, and then I heard through a mutual friend
that he was looking for work, and he heard that
(30:19):
I was directing the pilot of the office and did
they need stand ins? And so I contacted Creed and
I said, you know, the truth is the style of
the show is that we're making a mock documentary and
trying to do a minimal amount of lighting. Therefore there's
not really a need for standings. But there are a
(30:40):
couple of empty desks in the back of the bulletpen.
And again there's no guarantee of anything. But if you
want to just you know, be an extra in the
background of this paper company for a week, you know
or whatever. How how long was the pilot seven shooting days? Maybe? Um,
you know, you're welcome to take a seat at this desk.
And he did and and stayed. Yes, he stayed. And
(31:05):
poor Devon, Poor poor Devon. Um, but one more thing
about sort of before we leave this really early time
that um, the idea that you and Greg cast regular
looking people in terms of making the show really accessible
(31:26):
to people. You know, the conventional wisdom is we want
beautiful people that people want to look at. But but
really choosing real people taking place in a real place. Um,
how that really made people fall in love with the people?
I mean, I I feel like again this was part
of trying to make sure that we lived up to
(31:48):
the standards of the UK original because certainly that's the
case in the UK. Original people are not glamorous who
work at Warnham Hog. But I also think it's a
tribute to Alison Joe. I mean, she's so exceptional and
and one of her gifts is finding people who look real,
who do not look glamorous, who nevertheless kind of draw
(32:11):
you in, who are so compelling. I mean, I think
that again. My the way I always put it is,
if you tuned into the Office during its first season,
you'd say, none of these people belong on television, right, Yes,
and weirdly, for like Rain, that's still true. He does
not belong on television at all. Um. Did you bring
(32:32):
any other of the staff or crew members with you
when you came and joined the pilot? Did you know
Peter Smokeler or well, Peter Smokeler and I had. I
did not hire Peter, but I was excited when I
heard he was shooting the pilot because Peter was the
DP of the Larry Sanders show, Gary Shandling's show, and
(32:56):
of course Peter has important mockumentary credentials having shot this
is spinal tap and in fact, Peter and I actually
I don't want to say budded heads about documentary style.
But we definitely had a lively debate about how to
shoot a documentary. And this is actually a really important
(33:18):
thing that from Peter's point of view, is if you're
a documentarian, you use a whip zoom, you're you know,
let's say I'm getting a medium shot of you, and
now I'm gonna zoom in really quickly and get a
tight shot of you. The intention for the documentary filmmaker
is too. Then in the cutting room, eliminate the whip.
You know, the documentary filmmaker will get rid of those
(33:40):
pans so that it feels like the documentary recreates the
feeling of a traditionally covered story. And I remember saying
to Peter, well, I think no, I think we're going
to keep those and he and the heat and I
actually disagree. He goes, well, that's not good documentary filmmaking.
I go, yeah, but I think we need to kind
of signal to the viewer, you know, that we're making
(34:02):
this documentary. And I tried to justify it. I said, well,
you know, it's not the finished documentary, like I was
trying to rationalize it. But I mean, he's right, if
you look at you know great And by the way,
Greg and I also talked about cinema verite documentaries. We
talked about the Mazel Brothers, about great films like Salesmen
or Greg Gardens and those films generally, yes, the the
(34:25):
erratic camera moves to get from angle to angle are
eliminated so that you were more quote involved with the story.
But anyway, so I did not I wasn't part of
the decision to invite Peter, but I was thrilled that
he was on board. How did you feel when you
when you saw the final version where you proud of it?
The pilot? Oh, well, here's what actually happened. I worked
(34:50):
on the cut of the pilot, and I worked on
it with Greg for a little while. Then I left
and I went off to work on a film. And
by the way, while I was working on the film,
there was a lot of discussion about whether this show
would make the cut and get on the air, And
so I was on the phone with Greg occasionally and
and he was not always very optimistic. But in the meantime,
(35:11):
in the interim, I did see you know, his final
cut of the pilot, and I just loved it. And
I loved again. One of the things I'm so happy
with how he cut the pilot, as he preserved he
didn't cut it for tempo. Rather, let me put it
more specifically, it wasn't up tempo. It had weird slack
pauses where we're on any other television show, you would
(35:34):
either have the sound of an audience laughing, you'd have
you know, three jokes where in that space or and
this is so significant, or you would hear music. You know,
nine seasons of the Office and other than that, you
know opening title song that that is the driest show
on broadcast networked out. You know, there's nothing, there's no music,
(35:57):
and it really that is a significant part of the
what distinguishes the show. Give us the over attention. We
need everything you've got fast Waiting on Reparations, we beat
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(36:20):
fight for the people because they got us in the
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we wait in the reparations. Listen to Waiting on Reparations
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(36:45):
family home, just waiting for the and there they go,
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Oh but the diaper bag wasn't posed. Typers and toys
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(37:06):
car seat buckle for the toddler. And now the eldest daughter,
who looks to be about nine or ten, has secured
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(37:29):
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(37:51):
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the U S Department of Health, that Human Service as
administration for Children and Families and the ACT Council. So
(38:24):
Diversity Day, we get the order. You come back and
you're directing Diversity Day. Now. Was there any thought once
we were now veering, you know, if the pilot was
very much like the original UK version pilot, What was
the thought about beginning to americanize the show now that
it had gotten picked up? Do you remember any conversation
(38:46):
about that. I don't remember any conversation about americanizing the
show when we worked on Diversity Day, because, if anything,
I felt Diversity Day was and I still think it
is one of the boldest episodes. Me too. And you know,
there was a lot of people at the time, who
you know would say, oh, the office, Yeah, it was
kind of slow coming out of the gate and all
(39:06):
this stuff, And I thought, well, you're kidding you watch
episode two University Day. It's like it's it's it's as
strong as we we get. It's very good. And and
so I don't remember any discussion about that. I do remember,
um no, I'm trying to know. I can think about
many other things. Um, were you proud of how bold
(39:27):
that episode was. I'm proud of that episode for a
number of reasons, one of which is um In the
script it said that, you know, Michael Scott's you know,
diversity training seminar took place in the conference room, as
did Mr Brown's seminar, And I remember there was a
(39:47):
lot of discussion about whether or not we should move
the seminar out into the bullpen, because otherwise the whole
episode was going to be stuck in the conference room.
And there was and it was like, oh my god,
it's our second show. We're trying to prove to the
network that this is a viable show, and and and
and our second episode is going to take place in
(40:08):
a small room. And it's like so I remember there
was a there wasn't pressure. I do remember talking to
Greg and a few others about was there a version
of it where like the seminar basically was spread out
into the into the into the bullpen. And I remember
just having a strong gut feeling that it would be
funnier if everyone was once again trapped in a small space,
(40:31):
and it made it more challenging to shoot. And again
it forced us to respect the limitations of the set.
There were no wild walls. Sometimes the cameras were in
people's faces a bit too much. There were instances where,
you know, actors blocked one another that I thought worked
really well. So that's just a small but important staging
(40:53):
decision we made. I also remember Greg and I discussing
the casting of Mr Brown, and at the time, Larry
Wilmore was a consultant on the show. He but he
had not been on the pilot, but he was, you know,
working with us on the second season. And there were
a lot of different names being bandied about from Mr Brown.
But I do remember, and I'd worked with Larry a lot,
(41:16):
you know, on Bernie mac Show. So I remember taking
Greg aside and saying, you know, I think I think
Mr Brown's sitting in an office down the hall here,
and happily Greg liked that idea, and and uh and
Larry did such a great created such a great character.
But I do I guess what I feel is that
(41:36):
that episode, I just felt like everyone was sort of
in top form. You know, everyone brought their a game
to that episode. You know, b J's script is remarkable.
And again I think the idea of all of us
being cooped up in that little room once again, it's
sort of contributed to that sense of ensemble. Had we
(41:56):
staged the you know, Michael Scott's seminar out in the bullpen,
it would have been cutaways two people in different parts
of the space. But in the conference room, everyone was
in everyone's shot, Everyone was together. M I something I
don't know why, I just occurred to me, or I
started thinking about if those of you you were listening.
(42:18):
Obviously there's this, it's a stereotype. But when a scene
begins and the camera start rolling and the director is ready,
they say action and Ken doesn't say this. He says, um,
It's very hard to describe, but basically oftentimes will act
as though he's about to tell you something and then says, no,
(42:42):
go ahead, And I'm wondering, is that's something that you
have always done, because that in terms of what you
were talking about earlier, having us there to do the
general views altogether and not oh we're showing up and
now we're going to perform that the go head isn't
now start acting. I just wanted to hear your take.
(43:04):
Is that something you've always done or it's not something
I've always done. I can tell you exactly when I
started doing it. I directed the pilot episode of The
Larry Sanders Show. And when Gary and I were prepping
the pilot, he, I mean, he very much wanted, you know,
a sense of verisimilitude about the you know, the talk
(43:27):
show world and and although that show is not a
mock documentary, you know, it definitely has a kind of
well observed quality, and he wanted He came up to
me and he said, is there any way that you
can develop a shooting style so that the actors actually
don't know when the cameras on? And I mean it
was kind of a brilliant idea, but I didn't know
(43:48):
what to do with it. This We shot the Larry
Sanders Show in sixteen millimeter, so you have to constantly
reload magazines. That was not something you could hide from
the cast. So I finally came up with the idea
that we would start each scene, you know, without the
usual announcements, without a first ad saying you know, rolling
(44:09):
speak and like all those things, or the sound person
saying rolling. And what I said to Gary was that
will roll the cameras without letting anyone know, and I'll
just give you a signal to start. And I said,
I'll just say, like, I don't know, go ahead or
something like that. And what often happened with Gary was
(44:30):
I'd say go ahead, and let's say it was a scene,
you know, in in Larry Sanders office with a number
of people. Gary would take the signal, but then he
would just sort of like chat with the cast for
a while, and then it's some you know, arbitrary point
just launched into the scene. So that there was this
sense that the line between acting and not acting kind
(44:52):
of got very blurry. And after working on that show
with Gary, I just stopped using the word action. And
I feel like um actors find that it does sort
of take a little bit of the onus off of
act the acting part is it's like there's real life
(45:12):
and then there's the scene, and so if you can
erase the line between real life and the scene, that
might help. And then sometimes I mean, I've I mean,
this is just something I've also done is occasionally actually
interrupted take without cutting, so that even I'm I'm like
now just having a like we're in a scene and
I just start talking to you and I said, oh,
(45:33):
you know, go back to such and stuff, So that again,
it just sort of keeps the atmosphere less about you know, oh,
I don't know, scene acting you that's brilliant. Alright, guys,
(45:59):
every word out of Kent's mouth is so fascinating to me.
But I'm gonna I'm gonna interrupt the scene. But you
will get to hear much more from Ken in a
later episode, including lots more about his work on the
Office in later season. Until then, tune in next week
for my conversation with the brilliant I can't wait for
(46:20):
this casting director Alison Jones, and of course lots more
of the cast and crew after that. Thank you all
for listening, and uh have a wonderful week. The Office.
Deep Dive is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner,
(46:41):
alongside our executive producer Langley. Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer,
our associate producer is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor
is Diego Tapia. My main man in the booth is
Alec Moore. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by
my great friend Creep, and the episode was mixed by
(47:02):
Seth o Landsky. Hello, and welcome to our show. I'm
(47:26):
Zoe de Chanelle and I'm so excited to be joined
by my friends and cast mates Hannah Simone and Lamar
and Morris to recap our hit television series New Girl.
Join us every Monday on the Welcome to Our Show podcast,
where we'll share behind the scenes stories of your favorite
New Girl episodes. Each week, we answer all your burning
questions like is there really a bear in every episode
(47:46):
of New Girl? Plus you'll hear hilarious stories like this
that was one of your things you brought back from
yea all professional basketball players seven Yeah. Listen of the
Welcome to Our Show podcast on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi. I'm
(48:08):
Glory Adam, host of Well Read Black Girl. Each week,
we journey together through the cultural moment where art, culture
and literature collide and pay homage to the women whose
books we grew up reading. It's the literary kickback you
never knew you needed. Listen to a well read Black
Girl on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
(48:31):
wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Colleen with Join me
the host of Eating While Broke podcast. While I eat
a meal created by self made entrepreneurs, influencers, and celebrities
over a meal they once eight when they were broke.
Today I have the lovely aj Crimson, the official Princess
of compon Asia Kidding, and Asia is Professor. We're here
(48:54):
on Eating While Broken. Today, I'm gonna break down my
meal that got me through a time when I was broken.
Listen to Eating While Broke on the iHeart Radio app,
on Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, Hey, this is John O'Bryant, entrepreneur and a fellow
builder just like you. Thanks for the help of I
Heart Radio and Prudential Financial, I'd like to present to
you my brand new podcast. It's called Building the Good
where each week a special friend and I will unpack
and talk in detail about financial literal building, generational well building,
back community building the best version of you. Make sure
(00:22):
to listen to Building a Good Life on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.
I'm Emilia. On this podcast, I'm taking you on a search,
a search for love hard working Latina, but there were
other reasons I felt like I couldn't always be myself.
(00:44):
My mom's in prison. This Crumbs my love story. It's
to show about the things we set up for and
the bits of ourselves that make us who we are.
Listen to Crumbs on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Colleen with joined
me the host of Eating Wall Broke podcast. While I
(01:05):
eat a meal created by self made entrepreneurs, influencers, and
celebrities over a meal they once ate when they were broke.
Today I have the lovely aj Crimson, the official Princess
of compon Asia Kidding and Assia. This is the professor.
We're here on Eating Wall Broke and today I'm gonna
break down my meal that got me through a time
when I was broken. Listen to Eating Wall Broke on
(01:28):
the I Heart Radio app, on Apple podcast or wherever
you get your podcasts. I'm Ken Kappas. I I am
a director. I directed the pilot of the Office and
many other episodes. Hello, everybody, this is the Office Deep
(01:55):
Dive and I am your host, Brian baum Gartner. How's
everybody doing out there? Is everybody? Okay? I wish I
could hear you. Um today you will be listening to
me and my conversation with Ken Kappas now as usual,
no one can put it better than Greg Daniels, and
(02:16):
Greg described Ken as the country vet who birthed this puppy,
this puppy being the American Office, and this is so true.
Ken was. He was the director of the pilot, but
also so many of our most beloved episodes. He directed
(02:37):
Diversity Day, Booze, Cruise, The Fire, The Job, Casino Night
Gave which the finale. Honestly, there are too many to
name but you should go look him up. Ken is
such um sweet nice guy one and two he he
(02:58):
also has a really unique directing style. Um. He wrote
a book recently actually called but what I really want
to do is direct lessons from a life behind a camera.
And to get to sit down and talk with him
about all of that, that was my pleasure. So on
(03:18):
that note, in homage to Ken Ken, go ahead, Bubble
and squeak. I love it. Bubble and squeaker, bubble and
squeaker cookiet every month left over from the night before. Hello, sir,
(03:52):
I'm coming around for another. Yes, it's so good to
see you. So good is the I And I'm glad,
uh you're doing this well. I think that there's a
story here that needs to be told. I you know
(04:12):
what I was saying to Margaret that I have been
It's not a book about the office, but I'm actually
I'm writing a book about directing, right, just a general
book about directing, and it certainly includes, you know, some
of our experiences. But I but I have been approached
by a bunch of people and I've just basically now,
I say, is Greg doing this right? So right? The
(04:36):
first person that I went to was Greg, and I said, look,
this is what we want to do, and he was
totally supportive. And you know they're finishing editing his or sorry,
finished shooting his show right this week, well in fact
on Raleigh, because that's where Angela and I were doing
this other show. So literally I saw Greg. I wander
(04:56):
over to his that math. Did you go visit? No,
I haven't been there yet, this massive out of this
space whatever worship and uh but yeah, no, I can't
wait to see it. Ye see it? Um? Now did
you had you worked with Greg before the Office? I
met him when I was invited to meet him to
(05:17):
direct the pilot of the Office. Okay, so so before
the pilot, what what were you were working on Bernie Mac? Yeah,
that seems specifically what I was doing. I had worked
on the show Malcolm in the Middle. I directed nineteen
episodes of Malcolm in the Middle. I helped launch the
Bernie Max Show with Larry Wilmore, and I was working
(05:40):
on I think. Yeah, so I was working on the
Bernie Mac Show when I got the call to meet
with Greg. Right, and were you familiar with the British
version of the show. I was familiar with it, but
I hadn't seen much of it. I think I may
have only seen the pilot episode of the British show, right,
and now we shot the pilot and the first season
(06:03):
in the production offices above the sound stage, right. I
mean we built within a We built within a practical space.
And in fact, one of the things that we did
when we moved to the whatever we call it warehouse,
what are we calling that the warehouse? I guess when
we built the dunder Mifflin's set, one of the things
(06:26):
that Greg and I definitely discussed was the idea of
not making any walls movable wild a bold and the
idea was that since this was a you know, quote documentary,
that directors had to respect the physical limitations of the space,
so that if you couldn't get an angle, you couldn't
get an angle. And that was again it was it
(06:47):
was sort of a way to signal to directors coming
down the line that you know, you had to kind
of honor the space. And again, if this were any
other kind of either single camera or multi cameras situation,
you just move a wall out of the way and
get back and in some cases get almost a presenium
view of the action and One of the things I loved,
(07:09):
not just in the pilot but in episodes in the
second season in particular, was creating a sense that we
were blocked from seeing the action properly, or or even
that you know, some either a pillar or a file cabinet,
something was in our way and we couldn't quite get
a good angle on things, and that increased the realism. Yeah,
(07:31):
I mean, I think that so much of what Greg
and I discussed in terms of, you know, a camera
style was how to uh, you know, create a sense
that we were there observing people, observing characters. Obviously, it's
not a secret that the staff of dunder Mifflin knows
they're being observed. They know they're being filmed. Most of
the staff members don't want to be filmed, except for
(07:53):
you know, Michael Scott. So part of it was just
trying to come up with visual ideas that would either
we would sort to be in a character's face and
and and you know, for instance, if I was shooting you, you,
if I was this far from you, you'd know I'm there,
or we'd we'd you know, kind of hide behind a
shrub or a file cabinet and sort of eavesdrop on
(08:13):
the action a little bit more so that we could
sort of observe without characters knowing we were there looking
at them. And I'm always mindful that, you know, it
was Greg's decision not to shoot the series at a studio.
We you know, we weren't at Universal, we weren't, you know,
And it was his choice to you know, find this
(08:34):
warehouse in this scrubby section of the valley, so that
even if it wasn't actual scruting, it was definitely not
Hollywood and it definitely felt like, you know, where were we?
Why are we coming all the way out into this
kind of bizarre area to shoot this show in a warehouse?
And you know, it wasn't like we used the surroundings
(08:55):
very often, but I think Greg really wanted to give
us an opportunity to not feel like we were in
a show. Right. We're definitely gonna talk a little bit
more about that. But um, so you and Greg met
and was there any discussion at that time about making
the American version, let's just call it that, the American
(09:15):
version versus where there are things that you wanted immediately
to do differently before we started work on the pilot,
as I recall there was a British show and I'm
blanking out on the name of it. It was a comedy.
It was kind of like a romantic slash sex comedy show. God,
I can't remember the name of it, but anyways, it
was a show that either NBC or some other network
(09:37):
tried to do a U S version of and it
didn't work. And one of the things that Greg and
I definitely discussed was the need to maintain the kind
of the unorthodox approach of the UK show, not exactly
mimicking the tone of it, but for me as a
director visually sort of trying to maintain the style that
(09:59):
what's the right way to put it where where it
feels like we were catching the action by accident that
things were not being staged for the camera. And I
mean everyone, I think you know there are a lot
of people were saying, well, this is going to fail
because no network will allow you to do what they
did in the UK version. But in fact, I think,
you know, Greg leading the charge and certain people at
(10:20):
NBC understanding that it wouldn't work unless it it wouldn't
work if it traveled down the middle of the road,
or it had to at least aspire to the same
kind of you know, offbeat quality that the original had,
or else it just wouldn't play, and so on on
every level. That affected every decision. I mean, I can
(10:40):
go through any number of things, including the decision to
do screen tests and improvisation instead of the traditional, you
know approach of bringing the finalists for a role in
front of a bunch of really humorists network executives, right right,
And so I mean in place of that, we we
(11:01):
shot a lot of screen tests with different combinations of actors,
and I feel like that made all the difference in
the world in terms of I don't know, it just
it changed the whole tenor of how the cast played
the scenes that we weren't trying to sell them. It
wasn't joking. We weren't selling jokes. It was it was.
(11:21):
One of the hallmarks of the show, obviously, is the
kind of very understated, often kind of mute quality that
you know, like characters who have nothing to say, we're
just sort of stuck there without And I think that
was that's not the kind of thing you're going to
communicate well in a traditional network executive audition, like in
(11:44):
a network test it's like theater in a huge room
with no camera there. And I think Jenna and Rain
both talked about you brought the camera in and asked
the actors to also behaviors of the camera work character.
And I think that, you know, every actor sort of
developed his or her own relationship with the camera, and
(12:07):
some people were more eager to acknowledge the camera, like
you know, John's character, I think pretty quickly, you know,
kind of makes a friend of the camera. Jenna. I
think there's moments where it feels like Jenna wants to
crawl under the reception desk, right, And so I think
everybody had their own specific relationship to the camera, and
that's something we started to uh explore in the in
(12:28):
the screen test period. So that was one choice or
one thing that Greg insisted on. And all credit to
Greg for insisting that we not go the traditional route
in terms of bringing actors to a network for the auditions.
Do you remember was there any pushback about that? No,
I don't remember any pushback about it, because again, I
(12:50):
feel like the people at NBC at that moment sort
of I don't want to say they indulged Greg or
indulged us, but I think they just knew on some
level they had to let us do this in a
different way. The UK show was so beloved, partly because
of its tone, partly because of its very unusual visual style,
(13:11):
and I think they knew to like kind of get
out of the way at least in certain ways. I mean,
I can say that. One of the other things we
did during the pilot shoot itself was we started each
day with, you know, shooting basically documentary footage of the
whole cast, the entire ensemble, just at their desks, and
both Greg and I kind of borrowed Ricky Gervais and
(13:34):
Stephen Merchants phrase general views. We didn't call them establishing shots.
We keep calling them b roles, but general but that
was that was I don't know if that's a general
term in Great Britain for an establishing shot or something,
but Ricky said, oh, we we just do general views.
And so each morning during the pilot shoot we started
(13:54):
the day with quote general views of people at work.
And what was about it was there was no story
going on. It was just everyone at their desks, you know,
you and Angela and Oscar sort of you know, doing
accounting work. We would take shots of things that were
just by definition like so mundane like and some of
them I think got into the credit role at the
(14:16):
beginning the title sequence, like I think rain like sticking
the things into the paper shredder and things like that,
shredding me doing the absolutely yeah, adding machine, the adding machine.
Those were things I think that came out of the
general views. Definitely. I think Steve adjusting his little trophy
on his desk was one of the general views. And
(14:37):
what I do remember you asked about network pushback was
I remember getting a comment from some executive not understanding
why for example, there were like lunge like lengthy shots
of like the water cooler or you know, why is
there a lengthy shot of rain sharpening pencils? What is
(14:59):
the purpose of this? So it wasn't exactly paying you
for this, so I wasn't pushedback, but it was definitely like, huh,
what are you guys doing? And and and by the way,
you can shoot a lot of footage and a half hour,
and we usually spent about a half hour before we
kind of slid into a scene. And one of the
things that I discovered in this process is that the
(15:24):
cast during the I'll call it the g V section
of each of our days. They knew they were being observed,
they knew they were the subject of a documentary, and
that when we then moved into a scene, it wasn't
like we now went into show mode. You know, it
was like we we we were still in a kind
of documentary mode. And so I think the general views
(15:44):
created it kind of lived in reality. It feels like
they've been there working there for years. Well that's that's fascinating.
I think it did something else as well, And I'm
curious if this was an unwitting benefit or if there
was some thought to this. I mean, you had every
actor essentially there from four thirty or five am or
(16:08):
whatever time it was, to be ready by seven or
seven thirty in the morning. We didn't do the general
views when it was convenient during the day when everyone
was there. It was about bringing everybody in and I
think that that is what started building the ensemble. You know.
It's funny because I one of the things, um, one
(16:29):
of the advantages we had is that the pilot takes
place by and large in the bullpen, So it wasn't
like there were scenes in the parking lot or anywhere
else and the bullpen. Except for the HR section of
the office, the bullpen requires everyone to be there, and
in theory, each the actors are not entirely clear when
the camera's going to find them. So when we did
(16:49):
the general views, yeah, I mean, it definitely created a
sense of ensemble. And I would also say that it
felt like whatever else you might think of that pilot,
and I love the pilot. One of the things that
really strikes me when I look at it now, it
doesn't feel like, oh, new show. It feels like we've
we've we've wandered into a place that's, you know, going
(17:11):
about its dreary way, the same way it has been
for the past couple of years or more. So I
think it kind of helped, uh people just sort of
start to create a little sense of what their normal
days like. There was also something we did that it
was kind of impractical to continue doing this over time.
But during the pilot shoot, with the exception of Peter
(17:34):
Smokeler who was shooting Greg and myself and maybe maybe
the boom operator I'm not even sure, probably, but no
one else actually was allowed on the set, including hair
and makeup, And as I recall, we kind of gave
everyone a little compact And obviously this is not something
you could sustain for a long time, but that was
(17:56):
definitely something Greg and I spoke of to kind of
create a set that what's the right way to put it, basically,
how do you how do we create a real space,
a real workplace. But my hope was that it just
made people feel, you know, a little bit trapped in
their workplace right well, and that isn't a great word
that I use all the time. Trapped We were trapped
(18:18):
within the confines the walls. There were no movable walls.
We were all there together and all arriving at roughly
the same time and showing up on set at the
same time, which forced us to make relationships. I've actually
never talked with Greg about this, but I mean that
Greg's decision to embed within the ensemble writers also I
(18:41):
think help grow the grew that sense of ensemble in
a way that it wouldn't have if they if the
writing staff was always at arms length from the from
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(21:15):
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(22:20):
I want to go back for a second to the
casting and um, how obvious was it to you or
how difficult were the decisions for you in casting? You know,
it wasn't obvious across the board because there are a
lot of good people who came in and and so
there were like a lot of viable, you know, versions
(22:41):
of different characters. But I do think that, um, I
mean again, part of what was fun in the screen
tests was just sort of starting to not only see
people in pairs, but starting to see a whole picture
of a group of people. I mean that. And by
the way, when you talk about ensemble, one of the
things I was so happy about with the pilot is
(23:03):
even if some characters aren't don't have speaking parts, they
are they're they're very present, and I remember that, you know,
one of the things that Greg insisted on, you know,
as you as with any half hour comedy, at the
end of the pilot shoot, the network sends down a
photographer to do, like, you know, a bunch of glossy
shots of the actors looking cute and jumping up and
(23:25):
down and all that. And we were so determed. That
was you know, we pushed back, I shouldn't say we.
Greg pushed back and insisted that we not do anything
traditional like that, anything that would scream comedy, so that
what we did instead was the our Christmas card photo.
So we got the group together for a kind of
(23:45):
candid dunder Mifflin, you know, Xmas card photo, and that
was our marketing photo. That was it. There were and
if you go to if you like, if you were
to go to NBC at that time and walk down
the halls, you know, you'd see giant glossy shots of
each of the comedy stars, not the ensemble. And that
was the other part of it. It wasn't Steve standing.
(24:08):
And in fact, I think there was actually a discussion
on the set about you know, let's put Steve in
the foreground of the shot of the group for the
Christmas card, and I think Steve or Greg or you know,
both of them said absolutely not he's he's in the group,
and that boy, that really sent the right signal. Yeah, absolutely,
I mean the work that you all did to create
(24:30):
that ensemble early on. And of course, you know, as
you know, really no one was famous that you know,
Steve had done the Bruce Almighty movie and he was
on the Daily Show before the Daily Show was cool.
And you know Rain had done the one arc on
six ft Under and that was pretty much it. Why
(24:51):
was that so important for you? Well, I again, I
will defer to Greg because it was Greg's decision, and
Greg was the one who no doubt made the argument
to the network that it's best not to have known
faces in the show. I mean, I think the again,
everything has to do with creating this kind of Barris
similitude that this is a ship, this is not a show,
(25:12):
it's a it's part of a documentary about a group
of people who work in a paper company. So you
wouldn't know them. There's no need, there's no reason you'd
see a star in a in a workplace like that.
And I think that, you know, in terms of the
wardrobe choices, the makeup and hair choices. I mean, you know,
everything was sort of designed to make it feel like
(25:33):
these are people who don't belong on television, let alone
on a primetime half hour comedy. And Steve, you know,
I felt that one of the things that Steve did
so well is that he's the one character who's who's
so excited about a documentary crew being there because Michael
Scott fancies himself a superstar. But weirdly enough, even Steve,
(25:55):
I think somehow both played to the camera but also
it was himself the subject of a documentary to see somehow,
and it's It's one of the things I just marvel at.
You know, Michael Scott is grandstanding and you know, making
jokes and he's playing to the camera, but the character
(26:17):
doesn't quite realize it, but we're observing him. He's he's
under the microscope. And Steve somehow kind of found that
weird duality. Tell me about what's true and what's what's
lore or fairy tale? How did Phillis get cast in
the show? I well, I will tell you what happened. So, um,
(26:43):
we were doing uh probably you know, kind of more
traditional auditions, and in the room Greg, myself, Phillis Allison,
and the setup was is that I sat next to
a video camera, and on the other side of the
video camera, Phillis was sitting and Phillis was reading off
and Phillis was her casting associate. And I hadn't met Phyllis.
(27:04):
All I knew is I was sitting next to her,
and there was a camera between us and the actors
who were auditioning were some of them were kind of
playing it to the hilt and kind of working a
little too hard. Phillis meanwhile, was reading her lines in
in this very kind of monotonal way, sometimes not even
looking up at the actors, just looking down at the
(27:27):
sheet of paper. And I just became fascinated with her
and started looking at her. And there was a couple
of actors whose auditions I kind of missed because I
kept throwing Phyllis these sense glances. And I finally, during
a break, I took Greg aside and I said, this
woman really belongs in a paper company, and so we
(27:47):
Greg thought about it and he said sure, And now
there's there is there is one additional detail that's so
wonderful and that is that a r. Greg said, sure,
let's ask her to be in the bullpen and she
agreed to do it. That Greg and I had a
discussion and Greg said, do you know if she can act?
(28:10):
And I took Phillis aside, and I said, do you
have a lot of acting experience? And she said not
not really. But she said that some years earlier that
she had, you know, worked in burlesque in Branson, Missouri.
And I said stop it. And she then later that
(28:31):
week brought in a photo of herself into like a
very you know, wonderfully old fashioned burlescout. It was on
her desk for ten years and the So that is
the Phillis story and and I couldn't be happier that
she became such a beloved member of the ensemble. I
(28:51):
feel also responsible for Creed and I and I so
tell the Creed story. How did you know Creed? When
I was on the Bernie Max Show, Creed was a
stand in. And I remember one day, that's Creed and
another stand in. We're just having a conversation while we
were lighting, and I was wandering around and I kept
(29:13):
eavesdropping on little bits of the conversation and at one
point I heard Creed say something like, oh yeah, and
then Hendricks taught me this lick that one night, and
I walked away and I thought, what the what the
heck is he talking about? And then I turned back
over my shoulder and he was doing some air guitar
for this fellow stand in, and I thought, what's going
(29:34):
on here? So I went up to him and I
introduced myself, and he introduced himself as Creed Bratton, formerly
of the Grassroots, that nineteen sixties pop band that in
the mid sixties actually opened for people like Janis Joplin
and the Doors. They were, you know, a Bay Area band,
but Creed was in this band during its earliest incarnation
(29:57):
and and literally hung out at the Whiskey a go
go with the likes of Janis Joplin. So we became
pals on the Bernie Mac Show, and then I went
off to do other things and lost touch with them
for quite a while, actually not quite a while, but
a while, and then I heard through a mutual friend
that he was looking for work, and he heard that
(30:19):
I was directing the pilot of the office and did
they need stand ins? And so I contacted Creed and
I said, you know, the truth is the style of
the show is that we're making a mock documentary and
trying to do a minimal amount of lighting. Therefore there's
not really a need for standings. But there are a
(30:40):
couple of empty desks in the back of the bulletpen.
And again there's no guarantee of anything. But if you
want to just you know, be an extra in the
background of this paper company for a week, you know
or whatever. How how long was the pilot seven shooting days? Maybe? Um,
you know, you're welcome to take a seat at this desk.
And he did and and stayed. Yes, he stayed. And
(31:05):
poor Devon, Poor poor Devon. Um, but one more thing
about sort of before we leave this really early time
that um, the idea that you and Greg cast regular
looking people in terms of making the show really accessible
(31:26):
to people. You know, the conventional wisdom is we want
beautiful people that people want to look at. But but
really choosing real people taking place in a real place. Um,
how that really made people fall in love with the people?
I mean, I I feel like again this was part
of trying to make sure that we lived up to
(31:48):
the standards of the UK original because certainly that's the
case in the UK. Original people are not glamorous who
work at Warnham Hog. But I also think it's a
tribute to Alison Joe. I mean, she's so exceptional and
and one of her gifts is finding people who look real,
who do not look glamorous, who nevertheless kind of draw
(32:11):
you in, who are so compelling. I mean, I think
that again. My the way I always put it is,
if you tuned into the Office during its first season,
you'd say, none of these people belong on television, right, Yes,
and weirdly, for like Rain, that's still true. He does
not belong on television at all. Um. Did you bring
(32:32):
any other of the staff or crew members with you
when you came and joined the pilot? Did you know
Peter Smokeler or well, Peter Smokeler and I had. I
did not hire Peter, but I was excited when I
heard he was shooting the pilot because Peter was the
DP of the Larry Sanders show, Gary Shandling's show, and
(32:56):
of course Peter has important mockumentary credentials having shot this
is spinal tap and in fact, Peter and I actually
I don't want to say budded heads about documentary style.
But we definitely had a lively debate about how to
shoot a documentary. And this is actually a really important
(33:18):
thing that from Peter's point of view, is if you're
a documentarian, you use a whip zoom, you're you know,
let's say I'm getting a medium shot of you, and
now I'm gonna zoom in really quickly and get a
tight shot of you. The intention for the documentary filmmaker
is too. Then in the cutting room, eliminate the whip.
You know, the documentary filmmaker will get rid of those
(33:40):
pans so that it feels like the documentary recreates the
feeling of a traditionally covered story. And I remember saying
to Peter, well, I think no, I think we're going
to keep those and he and the heat and I
actually disagree. He goes, well, that's not good documentary filmmaking.
I go, yeah, but I think we need to kind
of signal to the viewer, you know, that we're making
(34:02):
this documentary. And I tried to justify it. I said, well,
you know, it's not the finished documentary, like I was
trying to rationalize it. But I mean, he's right, if
you look at you know great And by the way,
Greg and I also talked about cinema verite documentaries. We
talked about the Mazel Brothers, about great films like Salesmen
or Greg Gardens and those films generally, yes, the the
(34:25):
erratic camera moves to get from angle to angle are
eliminated so that you were more quote involved with the story.
But anyway, so I did not I wasn't part of
the decision to invite Peter, but I was thrilled that
he was on board. How did you feel when you
when you saw the final version where you proud of it?
The pilot? Oh, well, here's what actually happened. I worked
(34:50):
on the cut of the pilot, and I worked on
it with Greg for a little while. Then I left
and I went off to work on a film. And
by the way, while I was working on the film,
there was a lot of discussion about whether this show
would make the cut and get on the air, And
so I was on the phone with Greg occasionally and
and he was not always very optimistic. But in the meantime,
(35:11):
in the interim, I did see you know, his final
cut of the pilot, and I just loved it. And
I loved again. One of the things I'm so happy
with how he cut the pilot, as he preserved he
didn't cut it for tempo. Rather, let me put it
more specifically, it wasn't up tempo. It had weird slack
pauses where we're on any other television show, you would
(35:34):
either have the sound of an audience laughing, you'd have
you know, three jokes where in that space or and
this is so significant, or you would hear music. You know,
nine seasons of the Office and other than that, you
know opening title song that that is the driest show
on broadcast networked out. You know, there's nothing, there's no music,
(35:57):
and it really that is a significant part of the
what distinguishes the show. Give us the over attention. We
need everything you've got fast Waiting on Reparations, we beat
the podcast. Tune in every Thursday, politics and wordplay. We
(36:20):
fight for the people because they got us in the
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from the left enclave to what the neo kase every
conversation and to break us off with some break because
we wait in the reparations. Listen to Waiting on Reparations
on I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you
get your podcasts. And we're live here outside the Perez
(36:45):
family home, just waiting for the and there they go,
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like Dad has the bags daughter he's bringing up the rear.
Oh but the diaper bag wasn't posed. Typers and toys
are everywhere. Oh but Mom has just nailed the perfect
(37:06):
car seat buckle for the toddler. And now the eldest daughter,
who looks to be about nine or ten, has secured
herself in the booster seat. Dad zips the bad clothes
and they're off. But looks like Mom doesn't realize your
coffee cup is still on the roof of the car,
and there it goes. That's a shame that mug was
a fan favorite. Don't sweat the small stuff, just nailed
(37:29):
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(37:51):
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Adoption presented by adopt Us Kids, brought to you by
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administration for Children and Families and the ACT Council. So
(38:24):
Diversity Day, we get the order. You come back and
you're directing Diversity Day. Now. Was there any thought once
we were now veering, you know, if the pilot was
very much like the original UK version pilot, What was
the thought about beginning to americanize the show now that
it had gotten picked up? Do you remember any conversation
(38:46):
about that. I don't remember any conversation about americanizing the
show when we worked on Diversity Day, because, if anything,
I felt Diversity Day was and I still think it
is one of the boldest episodes. Me too. And you know,
there was a lot of people at the time, who
you know would say, oh, the office, Yeah, it was
kind of slow coming out of the gate and all
(39:06):
this stuff, And I thought, well, you're kidding you watch
episode two University Day. It's like it's it's it's as
strong as we we get. It's very good. And and
so I don't remember any discussion about that. I do remember,
um no, I'm trying to know. I can think about
many other things. Um, were you proud of how bold
(39:27):
that episode was. I'm proud of that episode for a
number of reasons, one of which is um In the
script it said that, you know, Michael Scott's you know,
diversity training seminar took place in the conference room, as
did Mr Brown's seminar, And I remember there was a
(39:47):
lot of discussion about whether or not we should move
the seminar out into the bullpen, because otherwise the whole
episode was going to be stuck in the conference room.
And there was and it was like, oh my god,
it's our second show. We're trying to prove to the
network that this is a viable show, and and and
and our second episode is going to take place in
(40:08):
a small room. And it's like so I remember there
was a there wasn't pressure. I do remember talking to
Greg and a few others about was there a version
of it where like the seminar basically was spread out
into the into the into the bullpen. And I remember
just having a strong gut feeling that it would be
funnier if everyone was once again trapped in a small space,
(40:31):
and it made it more challenging to shoot. And again
it forced us to respect the limitations of the set.
There were no wild walls. Sometimes the cameras were in
people's faces a bit too much. There were instances where,
you know, actors blocked one another that I thought worked
really well. So that's just a small but important staging
(40:53):
decision we made. I also remember Greg and I discussing
the casting of Mr Brown, and at the time, Larry
Wilmore was a consultant on the show. He but he
had not been on the pilot, but he was, you know,
working with us on the second season. And there were
a lot of different names being bandied about from Mr Brown.
But I do remember, and I'd worked with Larry a lot,
(41:16):
you know, on Bernie mac Show. So I remember taking
Greg aside and saying, you know, I think I think
Mr Brown's sitting in an office down the hall here,
and happily Greg liked that idea, and and uh and
Larry did such a great created such a great character.
But I do I guess what I feel is that
(41:36):
that episode, I just felt like everyone was sort of
in top form. You know, everyone brought their a game
to that episode. You know, b J's script is remarkable.
And again I think the idea of all of us
being cooped up in that little room once again, it's
sort of contributed to that sense of ensemble. Had we
(41:56):
staged the you know, Michael Scott's seminar out in the bullpen,
it would have been cutaways two people in different parts
of the space. But in the conference room, everyone was
in everyone's shot, Everyone was together. M I something I
don't know why, I just occurred to me, or I
started thinking about if those of you you were listening.
(42:18):
Obviously there's this, it's a stereotype. But when a scene
begins and the camera start rolling and the director is ready,
they say action and Ken doesn't say this. He says, um,
It's very hard to describe, but basically oftentimes will act
as though he's about to tell you something and then says, no,
(42:42):
go ahead, And I'm wondering, is that's something that you
have always done, because that in terms of what you
were talking about earlier, having us there to do the
general views altogether and not oh we're showing up and
now we're going to perform that the go head isn't
now start acting. I just wanted to hear your take.
(43:04):
Is that something you've always done or it's not something
I've always done. I can tell you exactly when I
started doing it. I directed the pilot episode of The
Larry Sanders Show. And when Gary and I were prepping
the pilot, he, I mean, he very much wanted, you know,
a sense of verisimilitude about the you know, the talk
(43:27):
show world and and although that show is not a
mock documentary, you know, it definitely has a kind of
well observed quality, and he wanted He came up to
me and he said, is there any way that you
can develop a shooting style so that the actors actually
don't know when the cameras on? And I mean it
was kind of a brilliant idea, but I didn't know
(43:48):
what to do with it. This We shot the Larry
Sanders Show in sixteen millimeter, so you have to constantly
reload magazines. That was not something you could hide from
the cast. So I finally came up with the idea
that we would start each scene, you know, without the
usual announcements, without a first ad saying you know, rolling
(44:09):
speak and like all those things, or the sound person
saying rolling. And what I said to Gary was that
will roll the cameras without letting anyone know, and I'll
just give you a signal to start. And I said,
I'll just say, like, I don't know, go ahead or
something like that. And what often happened with Gary was
(44:30):
I'd say go ahead, and let's say it was a scene,
you know, in in Larry Sanders office with a number
of people. Gary would take the signal, but then he
would just sort of like chat with the cast for
a while, and then it's some you know, arbitrary point
just launched into the scene. So that there was this
sense that the line between acting and not acting kind
(44:52):
of got very blurry. And after working on that show
with Gary, I just stopped using the word action. And
I feel like um actors find that it does sort
of take a little bit of the onus off of
act the acting part is it's like there's real life
(45:12):
and then there's the scene, and so if you can
erase the line between real life and the scene, that
might help. And then sometimes I mean, I've I mean,
this is just something I've also done is occasionally actually
interrupted take without cutting, so that even I'm I'm like
now just having a like we're in a scene and
I just start talking to you and I said, oh,
(45:33):
you know, go back to such and stuff, So that again,
it just sort of keeps the atmosphere less about you know, oh,
I don't know, scene acting you that's brilliant. Alright, guys,
(45:59):
every word out of Kent's mouth is so fascinating to me.
But I'm gonna I'm gonna interrupt the scene. But you
will get to hear much more from Ken in a
later episode, including lots more about his work on the
Office in later season. Until then, tune in next week
for my conversation with the brilliant I can't wait for
(46:20):
this casting director Alison Jones, and of course lots more
of the cast and crew after that. Thank you all
for listening, and uh have a wonderful week. The Office.
Deep Dive is hosted and executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner,
(46:41):
alongside our executive producer Langley. Our senior producer is Tessa Kramer,
our associate producer is Emily Carr, and our assistant editor
is Diego Tapia. My main man in the booth is
Alec Moore. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by
my great friend Creep, and the episode was mixed by
(47:02):
Seth o Landsky. Hello, and welcome to our show. I'm
(47:26):
Zoe de Chanelle and I'm so excited to be joined
by my friends and cast mates Hannah Simone and Lamar
and Morris to recap our hit television series New Girl.
Join us every Monday on the Welcome to Our Show podcast,
where we'll share behind the scenes stories of your favorite
New Girl episodes. Each week, we answer all your burning
questions like is there really a bear in every episode
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meal that got me through a time when I was broken.
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on Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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