He preps TV pilots for takeoff

This is the time of year when nervous TV executives put their futures in the hands of people like David Nutter.

Next week, the broadcast networks will unveil their schedules for the new TV season, and studio executives are praying that their pilots -- each typically representing millions of dollars in development and production costs -- will get the nod and become new series.

They’ve found that having someone like Nutter onboard can improve the odds considerably. The 45-year-old director is one of the town’s most highly regarded pilot specialists. He’s pulled off the Hollywood equivalent of pitching a perfect game: In the last decade, all of the 10 drama pilots he’s directed have become series, including CBS’ hit crime drama “Without a Trace,” Fox’s “Dark Angel” and the WB’s “Smallville” and “Jack & Bobby.” His latest contender is “Supernatural,” a coming-of-age tale about two ghost-hunting brothers, which agents and industry observers say has already been picked up by the WB. (Officials for the network, which is partly owned by Tribune Co., which owns The Times, declined to comment.)

“I kind of look at these pilots very much like my little movies,” the soft-spoken Nutter said in an interview this month at Warner Bros., where he has a long-term development deal. He’s picky about his projects, often gravitating toward material that centers on strong family relationships. When he reads scripts, he said, “It’s almost like a doctor [working] on a body, trying to find the heartbeat.”

Among fellow TV directors -- many of whom are thrilled to have even one successful pilot on their resumes -- Nutter’s track record can elicit envious purrs. “None of us had to sign the same pact with the devil that David did,” joked director and “Jack & Bobby” executive producer Thomas Schlamme.

At this point, some of Nutter’s winning percentage is self-sustaining -- success breeds success, as they say -- but there are some serious industry dynamics behind his ascent.

Since its earliest days, TV has been known primarily as a writer’s medium, in stark contrast to feature films, where the director is king. But in hopes of winning over network executives and test audiences, studios are increasingly pushing writers to develop pilot scripts in collaboration with experienced TV directors, who can come at material from a fresh perspective and add crucial storytelling suggestions. A director with name recognition can also help attract top stars, many of whom are balky about committing to series TV to begin with and are courted aggressively by networks and studios year after year.

Given the pilot competition, “you have to distinguish yourself in every way possible,” said Warner Bros. Television President Peter Roth. Nutter worked closely with Hank Steinberg, the writer who created “Without a Trace,” and Eric Kripke, creator of “Supernatural.”

Typically, directors are hired on a per-episode basis for existing series; pilot specialists such as Nutter are rare. The short list of other directors who’ve seen particular success in pilots includes Schlamme (“The West Wing”), Michael Dinner (Fox’s “North Shore”), Clark Johnson (FX’s “The Shield” and HBO’s “The Wire”), and, in comedy, Andy Ackerman (CBS’ “Listen Up”) and the legendary Jimmy Burrows (“Will & Grace,” “Two and a Half Men”). (That list doesn’t include name-brand feature directors, such as Ridley Scott, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg, who have developed TV series as a sideline.)

Nobody can assure a pilot of getting picked up, of course. Chris Silbermann, an agent who represents many top TV writers, points out that the network selection process depends more on a show’s cast and reaction from test audiences than on who directed the pilot. Furthermore, even the most skilled directors can’t change the essential nature of episodic TV, Nutter admits. “It really is a writer’s medium, because when it comes to a series, the writers really have to get in there and create what the show’s going to be about,” he said. But “I can give [audiences] the appetizer, I can tease them, I can make them want to watch more.”

The push to make killer pilots has also, not surprisingly, helped drive up expenses. The average one-hour network pilot now costs $4 million to $5 million to produce, agents say; the pilot for NBC-Universal’s sea drama “Fathom” is said to have cost about $7 million. Walt Disney Co.’s Touchstone Television spent an estimated $12 million on the two-hour pilot of “Lost,” which became a major hit on ABC last fall. Still, getting a top director involved early can pay big dividends. Nutter spent months working with writers on “Roswell,” an alien-themed teen drama. When Fox declined to pick up the series, the studio shopped the show to other networks. After a screening for WB executives, Bob Daly, then the chief of Warner Bros., told associates it was the best-directed pilot he’d seen and insisted the network pick up the series; “Roswell” ended up running on the WB for three seasons.

Nutter took his time reaching the pinnacle of pilot-dom. A onetime aspiring pop star and songwriter, he got an early career break through a chance golf game with “21 Jump Street” executive producer Patrick Hasburgh, who hired him to direct an episode of the Johnny Depp series. By the late ‘90s he was directing episodes of Fox’s hit sci-fi drama “The X-Files.” Over time, though, he decided he preferred getting creatively involved in the pilot process rather than doing for-hire work on existing series. (Although that’s not a hard-and-fast rule; he’s recently spent time in New York directing an episode of HBO’s “The Sopranos.”)

“When you’re an episodic director, you have to come into a show that’s already a running machine,” he said. “If it’s a bad script, a lot of times [they’ll say], ‘Well, the director was poor.’ They don’t think sometimes the script wasn’t good.” But pilots bring their own headaches. Strong-willed directors frequently butt heads with writers, who are often protective of their original ideas. While developing “Without a Trace,” Nutter proposed dumping scenes that showed the FBI agents in their off hours, which he argued distracted viewers from the program’s central crime-solving element; Steinberg felt the family scenes were crucial to elevate the series beyond typical cop-show fare.

“We had differences of opinion on that, but I think we found the right balance,” Steinberg said. In fact, the scenes were cut from the pilot -- but as the series has continued, the writers have spent more time fleshing out the lead characters’ interlocking personal lives.

Steinberg acknowledges that Nutter’s instincts probably helped sell the pilot to network executives, who were primarily interested in whether the producers could bring off the procedural element.

For Nutter, the hardest part of the job isn’t getting the pilot on the fall schedule -- it’s watching what happens to the newly minted series afterward.

Network executives, anxious about the series’ prospects, often spend the summer churning out reams of notes suggesting cast changes, plot tuneups and re-shoots. “What I always try to tell writers, when they get off and do a series, [is], ‘Let’s hang on to that ... feeling of what made this project so special,’ ” he said. “ ‘Don’t let go of that, don’t let people water that down.’ ”

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The trail of success

David Nutter has become one of the most successful directors of drama pilots in TV history. Each of the 10 pilots he’s directed over the past decade has been made into a series; the 11th, “Supernatural,” is pending at the WB.

*--* Show Network Duration Space Above and Beyond (1995) Fox Ran for one season Millennium (1996) Fox Ran for three seasons Sleepwalkers (1997) NBC Aired seven episodes Roswell (1999) The WB Ran for three seasons Dark Angel (2000) Fox Ran for two seasons Smallville (2001) The WB Finishing fourth season Without a Trace (2002) CBS In its third season Tarzan (2003) The WB Ran for eight episodes Jack & Bobby (2004) The WB Finishing first season Dr. Vegas (2004) CBS Aired five episodes*

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*Nutter shared directing credit with John Herzfeld.

Source: Los Angeles Times