AUGUST 13, 2006
REVELATIONS

"Revelations" was directed by John L. Adams. For John -- as with fellow cast member Chris Bruno and script supervisor Alexandra LaRoche this season -- this episode was the first episode of The Dead Zone that he's directed and, in fact, his first episode of directing television ever. And I would say that John Adams got one of the top five biggest episodes of the year. In terms of its location and story, this actually really felt like a little movie.

John had done a lot of shadowing over the past couple of years, hanging out with me, watching different cuts being edited, just observing. He really started off with the least experience of all the actors in the show, but he took it so seriously for so long in terms of his character work and understanding the filmmaking process. He would hang out with the director of photography and the script supervisor, he'd come to production meetings and go out on location scouts ... from Rob Lieberman in the beginning all the way through, John was always trying to absorb as much as he could.

When it came down to him directing his episode, it was a bit harder for him because he was actually in the show! Chris Bruno got lucky in that he wasn't in the episode he directed. John Adams had the double duty of having to direct and act, so he sort of got a bum deal and, yet, in the end, he gained the most experience as a result.

He really had to be prepared, because he had to have his homework done, hand it to me and then go into a scene. It's almost like he got to direct everyone else and I helped him with him. But in terms of the shots and the shot lists and his plan and his diagrams, he had that all done beforehand. I'd helped him -- as I'd helped all the first-time directors, really -- diagram his shots and figure out the timetable on how many hours they have to shoot it, what are his scenes, what are his set-ups, how long, how much page count, etc. So John was very prepared.

One thing John Adams is really great at (and really loved doing) is going to casting sessions. He'd love to sit in the sessions and see what I and the director and the casting agent liked in actors, to see how we picked them based on their look, their age, their ability. It's really a mix and match process and it's more difficult when you're casting three different people that exist in two different time periods, as John had to do for "Revelations." I think John going to the sessions helped him be a better actor, better at auditioning and a better reader in terms of how to break down scripts, but it certainly helped him cast his own episode.

That's something that John Adams got to do in this episode that Chris Bruno didn't have to deal with in "Independence Day": having the two time periods and different actors playing the same character in different eras. This was really a more ambitious episode in terms of going back in time to the early 60's and seeing Young Purdy preaching at this tent revival.

Just that carnival set alone was hugely expensive and took a long time to shoot with huge crane shots and steadicam shots and 150 extras and everyone in period outfits. That was a really expensive day and, for a TV show, it's not the kind of thing that we normally do. The carnival was set in a cornfield, so the present day version of this cornfield had to have corn growing in it and be a cornfield, but, by the following weekend, we to cut down the cornfield, move in the equipment, get the actors dressed in period costume, and then set it up. John and his team had to then figure out how to shoot it, not only do transitions that cut between 20 years ago and present day, but have fixtures -- like the water tower -- there and design visual effects shots with A sides and B sides to them that would seamlessly transition between the two eras that would be shot on different days with Johnny being in both worlds.

John Adams also had one of the biggest, nicest, fun sets: the barn set. Lance King and his team built this wonderful barn set to be the interior of the grain silo. And, yes, we took creative license with the grain silo; I think if you shoot a shotgun in a grain silo, it would explode! But writers Shin and Jim, and the showrunner, Tommy, decided to take creative license with the shotgun in the silo. The story wouldn't have worked as well without it. It was such a cool thing. If you remember the movie "Witness," the whole sequence with Harrison Ford running around trying to get the gun in the grain silo was a sequence we all just loved and had reverence for, so, when we had the opportunity to come up with this story set in this world of farm country, it was just a great end action sequence we couldn't resist.

But the reason John Adams really liked directing this episode is because he got to tell more of the backstory of one of our beloved supporting characters, Reverend Eugene Purdy. John Adams and David Ogden Stiers are really close. We're all pretty close on The Dead Zone, but those guys in particular are tight. They constantly talk about music and movies and they spent a lot of time hanging out together. So, it was a lot of fun to watch -- it's always fun to watch an actor direct another actor -- and to see how they communicated with each other.

I thought John did a great job, not only handling the huge production issues and locations and tight schedule and visual effects, but he did a great job working with the actors, just blocking scenes and taking a little extra time to let the actors explore the world. And, in this episode, there was a lot of world to explore!

Until next week,

Shawn Piller
Executive Producer

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AUGUST 13, 2006REVELATIONS

AUGUST 13, 2006
REVELATIONS