I've been reading the Allen Barron memoir Blast of Silence. I knew he'd directed many episodes of TV shows from the '60s-'80s, and decided to look some of them up to see which of his episodes I could find online. I saw that Roku was offering three seasons of "Charlie's Angels", which included at least a couple directed by Barron.
I watched one last night called "Angels at Sea", from 1977. The plot found the Angels on a cruise ship being menaced by a madman. The climax finds them having to diffuse a series of bombs that have been planted around the ship. It was fun seeing an example of Barron's Hollywood directing work. It made me think about the career trajectory of filmmakers who direct an independent movie and then go on to work in the Hollywood film industry making commercial, mainstream films or TV shows.
For someone who loves directing and the process of making movies, it seems like it would be a great way to spend your career, because of the sheer amount of experience you could get with a steady stream of work. Some filmmakers take the approach that they only want to direct projects over which they have complete creative control, that they've developed from scratch, etc. But it seems to me that commercial work in directing film and television would provide a lifetime of learning about the medium, similar to the working methods of studio contract directors of Hollywood's golden age. I remember in Martin Scorsese's Personal Journey through American Movies, he mentions that Michael Curtiz directed something like 60 films in the 1930s alone, and points out what an incredible opportunity this must have been for him to perfect his craft.
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