Mark
Sobel directed
the final two episodes of the 1991 Dark Shadows, facing
the challenges of a period production and a epic finale on a
television budget. We look back at his work on the show...
Tell
us a little about your early career...
Dark Shadows was one of my first projects. I'd done
several other shows, such as The Equalizer and Quantum
Leap. Dark Shadows was approached a little differently
to a typical one hour series. Each director was given two
consecutive episodes, but would shoot them as though it were
a single two-hour movie. That allowed for things to be scheduled
more efficiently, and also it was just more fun to approach
the project as a movie.
How
did you get the job on Dark Shadows?
Basically Dan Curtis was looking for directors with a strong
visual sense. Not the hand-held kind of visual - which is
also a lot of fun to do - but in the epic sense. He had one
of the executives at MGM Television screen the reels of literally
every director working in primetime television in Hollywood,
narrowing down the directors that seemed to meet that criteria.
And then, from that group Dan selected just four to come onto
the show.
Had
you ever watched the original show?
I had never seen the original show as a kid, because the local
ABC affiliate wouldn't carry it - seemed to scare too many
kids! Therefore I really had no preconception about how to
approach the show, other than watching the first several hours
that Dan had directed in order to try to keep a consistent
look.
Your
episodes took place in the past and present, with many dual
roles for the cast. Did this present problems, and how were
they solved?
The production problems of dealing with the past and present
were never really solved during my two hours. The crew and
I would frequently stand around having to wait for actors
to complete the complex make-up and wardrobe changes. Normally
on a show things would have been scheduled to shoot with one
group of actors while the others were in make-up, wardrobe
and hair - but by the last two hours the schedule was just
so complicated that there were many instances where this just
couldn't be compensated for. That put quite a lot of pressure
on trying to stay on schedule. Of course a television schedule
for this opus was never realistic to begin with!
The
end of the season was plagued with overruns behind the scenes...
The series indeed had overruns, and one of the difficulties
with directing the final two hours was that it was up to me
to try to absorb the difficulties of the past and still come
in on schedule. I would not be honest if I didn't say that
it occasionally created a certain amount of tension, because
there were no tomorrows. As the schedule would slip here and
there, and it became clear to me that there was simply nowhere
to try to pick up the lost time, I literally pleaded with
Dan to split the company up into three simultaneous units
for a few days! Dan
directed one unit - the courtroom scenes, which was a major
load to get off of my plate - and our producer Armand Mastroianni
took one of the other units. Armand is a terrific director.
Each
unit would borrow actors and crew members from the other as
needed. I seem to recall that we worked that way for about
three days. At first people were nervous about the idea -
that we'd be spreading ourselves too thin. But because all
three units were at the same location, it worked out quite
well. I wouldn't want to have to work that way too often -
it feels too much like grinding out sausage with a factory
like that - but it did the job.
What
were the cast like to work with?
By the time I came on board to direct the final two episodes,
the cast was quite exhausted. The show was very difficult
from a production point-of-view, and also required that sets
be filled with a mist most of the time which would make the
physical conditions very humid.
One
of the great thrills for me was getting to work with the legendary
actress Jean Simmons (Elizabeth), whose work in films I have
so admired. It was wonderful to talk with her about some of
her great films and hear anecdotes about her career. Just
getting to work with her was worth the price of admission
alone.
I
was also quite impressed to see Roy Thinnes (Roger) in such
a completely different role, as the Reverend Trask. He is
such a fine actor, and I don't think that he had been given
the opportunity to show the range of his talent in most of
the series he had previously done. Because most of my two
hours took place in the 1700s, it was hard for me at times
to even connect with the actors that I was working with in
real life, since their appearances were so completely transformed.
Roy
was also great because he was such a calming influence in
the midst of a lot of pressure and bedlam - as most filmmaking
is! I'll never forget when we had just finished shooting a
scene in which Roy, as Trask, was manacled to a brink wall,
while Barnabas and Ben brick him up into a living tomb - that
scene was enormously fun to shoot! After we finished and I
had set up a scene on the next set, I strolled back to where
we had bricked up Roy… just to get away from all the
noise and think about the next scene. The
set was dark now, and I slowly walked behind the front wall
- and saw Roy there, still hanging by his manacles! I didn't
really think twice about it. I said "Hi Roy," and
he said "Hi Mark." Then I started to stroll away,
when Roy gently called out, "Mark, can I come down yet?"
I
did a double take. I swear that I am not making up a word
of this! We had literally forgotten him after that last brick
was put in place and I said "cut". We just all moved
to the next set, and Roy, always the gentleman, and unsure
of what was going on out front, waited until he was officially
released from the set. In fact, the Trask scenes were always
my favorite to shoot, because they were already so outside
of our everyday reality that you could do anything creative
and get away with it. And Roy was a prince to work with.
Budgetary
restrictions forced the crew to shoot almost entirely at the
Greystone mansion (Collinwood) - how did the production team
make it work?
The
transformation of Greystone mansion in Beverly Hills was accomplished
by our incredible production designer Bryan Ryman. Bryan was
just amazing at what he could do on a tight budget. Overnight
one area of the mansion would turn into something else - you'd
never know it was the same place just to look at it. Brian
also built this incredible crypt set in the parking lot. Because
I wanted one wall available to be pulled out so that I could
get the camera in places that it otherwise would not fit,
we'd shoot in that set only at night. It was great to have
such grandiose sets to play with. Bryan deserved an Emmy.
The
set-piece of Josette's suicide must have been quite a challenge...
The
scene in which Josette meets Barnabas to be wed, but then
ends up racing away and jumping to her doom, was one of the
most creative sequences in the show to direct. All that mist
pouring down the staircase and the candlelights - it was very
surreal. I tried to shoot it with lots of little camera moves
and interesting angles. Plus some pretty wide shots to get
a feeling for just how cool the whole set looked. It was actually
shot very early on in my schedule. I was very happy with the
way that whole sequence went together. I tried to make it
feel like something out of an old Hammer horror movie.
What
did you think of the finished show?
I thought that the last two hours of Dark Shadows looked
like a theatrical movie - as did the whole mini-series. In
fact, you probably could have released it as a feature and
done great box office. There was something epic about it -
perhaps because by the last two hours it was practically entirely
set in the 1700s with all of that production value. And of
course, a great deal of credit for that goes to our director
of photography for an incredible lighting job, and the entire
art department. It is so rare to have a chance in television
to shoot with epic style, especially today - it costs too
much. Dark Shadows was a very big production on par
with a feature, and to have experienced this early on in my
career was quite a thrill.
What
have you been doing since Dark Shadows ended?
Soon after Dark Shadows, I moved into television pilots.
I had one show run for five seasons - The Commish starring
Michael Chiklis - and then I moved into network and cable
movies. Right
now I am completing an independent feature called The Commission,
which takes the formerly top secret transcripts from the investigation
into the assassination of President Kennedy. It recreates
what was really said and done behind closed doors within the
government, that no one was supposed to learn about for 75
years, until 2039. It
is a very personal project, and I think an important one.
I wrote, directed and edited.
I
hope that it finds a way into the theatrical system in 2005
- tough for an independent feature, although it stars some
wonderful actors such as Martin Landau, Sam Waterston, Martin
Sheen etc. The genre of American Political Docu-Narrative
seems to have become commercially viable very recently, so
I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Most Americans have no idea
of what happened, because the quietly declassified transcripts
haven't been published. If the truth of that investigation
had become known decades ago, the knowledge might have prevented
many political scandals and cover-ups in the decades to follow.
A
new Dark Shadows pilot was produced earlier this year.
Do you have any thoughts on what a modern version of the show
should reflect?
I wouldn't want to second guess Dan on what a new Dark
Shadows should be. It has been his baby since it began.
I was glad that he gave me a chance to be a part of something
so much fun, and so completely creative. Television can feel
so much like it is being rubber-stamped out at times - especially
these days as cheap programming replaces the more expensive
one-hour drama format. It was great to have a chance to work
on something so expensive, epic and lavish. As Orson Welles
once said, "A movie studio is the best toy a little boy
ever had." I've really been blessed.
To
read about Mark's latest film, The Commission, click
here.
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