"I steer every person who's looking, to the workshops of Joan Scheckel. This is what she insisted we needed to direct-- a sense of being present in the moment, an understanding of playable action as a tool to channel emotion, a stamina that would allow us to withstand the physical challenges of a feature set. As a writer, I had tools about character and dialogue, but as a director, I had a lot to learn about what we're actually doing with the camera. A few weeks in, something kicked in and I actually began to transform into a director. It's odd to me that even after ten years experience on the set of TV shows, I was completely lacking in a foundational language. I learned that language at Joan's lab. I employed things I learned from Joan about the intangibles of energy and relationships, producers and alliances and how the shape of the emotional nugget can inform the larger shape of the process. She handed me a map with clear markings that made sense."