Inside Quantum Leap S2 E3 with Director Chris Grismer

Hey, everybody, I'm Alison with FlickDirect, and I am here with Chris Grismer to talk about Quantum Leap, season two, episode three, closure encounter. Right. I want to say close encounters. How are you today, sir? I'm good. I'm great. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. So you have directed a number of TV shows, including some episodes in season one.

Why did you choose this particular episode to that you wanted to direct? I wish that I got to choose episodes, but really it is our showrunner who has our showrunners who decide who who directs what. And I've been very lucky on this show because as when you're a visiting director on some shows, you'll get an episode and you'll be like, well, I guess I'm never working on this show again.

It's not a great episode. And but luckily on this show, I've been given like some really not that there's any bad episodes on the show, but I've been given some really great episodes to direct. And I'm you know, I'm one of the producers. And so I get some of the more difficult episodes because of I can start pre preproduction on them earlier and they don't have to pay me.

So because I'm there. So so I can do a little more work. I can travel. I can do all that stuff. And they don't have to dig into the well anymore. Got it. Yeah, I was going to say as a producer, don't you get to kind of pick and choose? I get to help hire the other directors and then I can, you know, I'll weigh in on certain things just about timing and schedule of the directors, but I definitely don't go.

I want that episode. Like I'm a big horror person and science fiction person. And so I've been lucky that I got the the sci fi episode. Not that all the episodes are sci fi episodes, but I got a really great UFO episode and I got a great horror episode last season. So you basically touched a little bit on something I want to ask you about. How much work, how much prep time post shooting goes into creating a TV episode?

Some episodes, a lot more than others. You know, generally a director will start, you know, they'll have eight days of prep and then eight plus one or so days of shooting. And. But there's a lot of prep that goes into it before. There's all sorts of meetings with locations and and set design and everything that happens sometimes months before the director arrives.

For instance, like we shot in Egypt and that planning took that took a lot of planning and it started a lot quite a bit before we actually got there to shoot. So. Yeah, I can imagine just getting the logistics of getting everyone to eat it. There you go. So quantumly, people love the show and then it was rebooted. Why do you think it works this time as well?

I think. We live in a time of. Some amount of isolation and division, especially in this country, and I think that this show is timely. The our show is timely because it's it offers you the chance to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. And I think that's an important thing to do. So that asks the question, if you could walk a mile in someone else's shoes, who would you want to walk in?

Oh, my God. Well, I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know. Probably someone from probably someone from history. Hmm. No, that's that seems like a trick question. I'm going to pass on that because I worry that I'm going to say someone who's going to get me canceled. You can't say that. Who knows? Who knows? No, I mean, I love finding that's the great thing about storytelling is that we get these characters and we get to go and explore what their lives are like and what how we can represent them.

So you do learn and you do get new perspectives on every television show that you help make. Yeah, and I love how they quantumly he does. I mean, he goes into a woman or this or, you know, so he really we're talking about Ben, who is played by Raymond Lee. That's his name, who does a fantastic job, by the way. You get to see different perspectives.

Have you ever when doing in the episode or looking at other episodes, say, maybe not play it quite that way, Raymond, or does he really just nail it? I have to spoon feed Ray every emotion, every line, he says I have to get it wrong. His choices are always just completely off. No, he is the guy is good at everything and he's a joy to work with. And he is probably one of the best number ones on a call sheet I've ever worked with because his heart is so big.

But yeah, the only times is, you know, he's he's a funny person. And so sometimes I'll be laughing at a scene and he'll done it in a way that's cracked me up. And then I'll be like, you know, we should probably look at this because we may not want to be laughing at this point. And so maybe we'll go back and find a more serious version. And who knows which one we use, but he's always open to to giving a different take.

You know, like if a character is in a coma or something, not the best time to be laughing. Yeah, I've had someone overact the coma before, so. Really? Yeah, he was he was going like that through the who's on another show. I was like, what's happening here? He goes, Well, I did some research and I was like, oh, no, no. He said, and people can hear when they're in comas.

I've I've read. And I was like, but they can't respond if that's true. Like they're not they wouldn't be in a coma. So please stop moving. Thank you. And. I. Thank you. you