A Director Prepares takes viewers on a journey through every stage of film production. We tell the story of how film is made from the unprecedented perspective of one working director’s collaborations with over fifty industry professionals––all of whom have worked with Bobby on at least one project.

These extensive interviews include actors, showrunners, editors, cinematographers, and more. Paired with never-before-seen B-Roll, Bobby’s own production documents (such as scripts, shot lists, and storyboards), and clips from dozens of finished shows, A Director Prepares compresses an entire film school education into a ten-part series.

Through case studies from Bobby’s diverse and extensive background in both film and television, we examine the whole process from script to shot list to dailies to finished product. We compare Bobby’s work on iconic television shows like Lost, Prison Break, and Grey’s Anatomy, to his own independent features, such as Heartbreakers, Jack the Dog, Berkeley, and Manhood, and showcase the different learning experiences that directing television can offer for independent filmmakers, and vice versa.

This dual approach is unique to documentaries about directing, and offers a fresh platform for learning the craft.

We emphasize the extensive preparation and time-management needed for the frenetic pace of network drama, the creative freedom and possibilities of independent cinema, and the ways these complement each other. Interviews with industry professionals on both sides of the film and television divide reveal the ways television directing makes you a more efficient filmmaker, and that bringing to television the humanist storytelling of independent cinema makes you a better visionary on the small screen, as well.

At the core of Bobby’s method in both film and television is the dictum to prepare extensively in order to be present for the actors during production.

A Director Prepares is divided into ten episodes of about twenty minutes apiece, each detailing a key stage of filmmaking. We begin with breaking down a script and collaborating with casting directors, production designers and cinematographers. We then move into several episodes on production and how to get actors to do what you want. Later episodes detail issues of post-production, with a focus on working with editors, and the final episode addresses the business element: how to get hired and how to get brought back to shows.

There are over 500 film programs in the US alone––double that number worldwide. Literally millions of people make their living––or aim to––in capacities directly related to filmmaking. This demographic is becomingly increasingly international and diverse in race, gender, and nationality.

At the center of this whole enterprise is the craft of directing for film and television, a position to which thousands of eager young people aspire. And yet the specific work involved in directing remains for most shrouded in mystery. Even at top film schools, many teaching directing have relatively limited working experience in the profession.

Bobby Roth’s Master Class fills a vital niche in the educational market by offering those interested in the world of film and television a look behind the scenes at the men and women who collaborate to produce entertainment. Our goal is for A Director Prepares to become the go-to textbook for filmmaking classes worldwide.

Bobby is uniquely qualified to undertake such an ambitious project: few, if any, directors with as much film and television experience as Bobby also have his experience teaching in university classrooms.

He received his MFA in filmmaking from UCLA in 1975 and has since taught intensive film seminars in Los Angeles at USC, AFI, and Art Center, as well as around the world––in Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney, Istanbul, Paris, and more. And few filmmakers, if any, have worked so extensively directing both network television and independent feature films. Bobby has directed thirteen award-winning features, twenty-five television movies, and more than eighty episodes of network drama. His films have been exhibited in over 100 international film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, and Sundance (where five of his films premiered, and where he was a judge in 1986).

Because the nature of directing is to collaborate with nearly every other position on the project, this documentary provides a unique vantage point for those interested in any part of the filmmaking process. Actors, editors and costume designers will benefit tremendously from this intensive crash course in filmmaking from the director’s perspective. Bobby Roth’s Master Class uniquely offers a look into the nuts and bolts of the film world from the singular perspective of his decades of personal experience with collaborators from every corner of the industry, and will be sure to interest anyone curious about film and television production in general. For the millions of fans of his work worldwide, A Director Prepares: Bobby Roth’s Master Class offers an exciting and informative look into the world of visual storytelling.

A Director Prepares is a riveting, fast-spaced video textbook that illuminates the craft of directing through lectures, demonstrations, and clips. At about twenty minutes each, ten individual episodes offer compact, digestible lessons distilled from Bobby and his collaborators’ decades of experience working in the business.

Episodes begin with a “cold open” featuring an anecdote or vignette from Bobby’s own classrooms. We then jump into interviews that expand upon, enrich, and even complicate the basic lesson. From interviews we intercut with clips that showcase the finished works produced by Bobby and the collaborators being interviewed, illuminating the process of filmmaking from rough materials to polished drama.

A Director Prepares is educational, but it feels like a film. Each episode tells a story, such as how to read a script, how to write a shot list, or how to work with actors. Each episode involves at least one extensive case study that details a production lesson from a particular show. And each episode ends with a “tag” that summarizes the content of the various interviews and distills valuable lessons about film and television production.

As a supplement to the video content, the project’s website will serve as an interactive community for filmmakers to connect with Bobby and each other, and have access to additional materials from Bobby’s extensive archive: scripts, shot lists, breakdowns, storyboards, and a vast library of journal entries detailing the challenges of Bobby’s storied career in television and motion picture arts. These supplementary materials will be made available to anyone with access to the documentary itself, and will showcase in even greater detail the specific challenges of filmmaking and the strategies that were–or in some cases were not–successful in overcoming them.

Bobby Roth’s Master Class stands alone for university and popular audiences, dovetails excellently with existing film courses that wish to use it as a supplementary text, and offers a wonderful opportunity when screened in conjunction with teaching and speaking appearances by Bobby himself.