DCTV Interview: Tina Cesa Ward

DCTV Creative Director Daryn Strauss chats with writer/director/producer Tina Cesa Ward, winner of the first Writers Guild of America Award for Original New Media for Anyone But Me (with co-writer and co-executive producer Susan Miller). She also directed the hit all-woman online dramedy series Bestsellers. Ward’s new dramatic online series Good People in Love premieres this week on BlipTV.

Daryn Strauss and Tina Cesa Ward

TINA CESA WARD: It’s set on the night New York passes the Equal Marriage Bill, and it’s about an engagement dinner party which takes a turn for the worse when the story’s narrators, Scott and Sarah, make a bet to prove their distinct points of view on love and marriage, using the party’s two couples as unwitting examples.

DARYN: Was this an idea you already had in your head, or was it motivated by the bill?

TINA CESA WARD: I was writing a version of Good People in Love back in 2007 and thought maybe of doing it as a series for the web then, but I decided the timing was right to put my efforts into working on Anyone But Me first. So when I revisited the script over the summer I wanted to adjust it and use the day the Equal Marriage Bill passed as a backdrop, which also works as a great catalyst for the conflicts that happen through the course of the night.

DARYN: Web series fans will see some familiar faces like Rachael Hip-Flores and Renee Olbert. Can you tease what they will be playing?

TINA CESA WARD: Rachael plays Sarah who’s in love with the idea of love and sets out to prove that it does indeed conquer all. She is the one person not invited to the party but her presence makes a large impact. Renee’s character is forced to face the reality that even though she may soon have the option to marry, she may not want to, which then forces her and her longtime girlfriend to look at some harsh realities in their relationship.

DARYN: You often edit your own projects. Knowing that, do you shoot a lot of takes or very few?

TINA CESA WARD: Because I work on low budgets, I try to be reasonable. I can move set pieces and the camera around all day to get the best composition if given the option, but the number of takes often has to do with how quickly actors get to where they need to be. With some actors, they burn out after the first two takes. With others, it takes three to get close. I work to stay in tune with that rather than say, “ok we’re only doing two takes and moving on.” But also since I’m directing with an editor’s brain, I work from a tight shot list and know exactly what I want and need, which I hope helps to provide the time needed for the actors to do their best work and for the camera operator to do the best they can on a limited budget.

DARYN: You are so good at making a dialogue-driven scene seem filmic as opposed to feeling like a theater scene. Let’s talk about how you get through a scene with six characters at a dinner table. How long did that take to shoot? How many cameras did you use?

TINA CESA WARD: It was the first time that I ever used two cameras. I usually shy away from it because I don’t want to have to light everything flat. But the plan with this project was that every scene would always be lit from one source. So with that, I felt I could take on two cameras. The additional camera saved us time and allowed me to run through the whole scene with each camera set-up to help the actors. I wanted each character to have clean singles, since they all come to the table with their own separate issues. If we had just used one camera we would have been there for a mighty long time. Instead we shot the whole episode in one day as well as scenes from later episodes. I believe we shot 14 pages that day, which is kind of crazy for me.

DARYN: Your projects always have a strong female sensibility but also have a strong ensemble of female and male characters. Are you driven to ensemble films/shows? What are some of your favorites?

TINA CESA WARD: I don’t think I favor ensemble films/shows specifically. For me, when I’m writing the stories, I always start with one character and then the others just come into the fold. I suppose with episodic there is a need to have more of an ensemble to open you up for more stories to tell. Good People in Love is really, for me, the first true ensemble that I have written because every character is so important to the whole. And to answer your question, when it comes to television I’m a huge Buffy fan as everyone knows, because for me it dealt with human emotions better than any show I’ve scene. I’m also a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica for the same reasons I know so many other people love it.

DARYN: You have a very specific dramatic style. Who are some of your influences as a filmmaker?

TINA CESA WARD: I try not to be influenced by others, but I suppose that’s probably impossible to avoid. So with that, Ingmar Bergman is my biggest influence and also Stanley Kubrick, as strange as that combo may seem. There’s little I don’t know about their work as my bookcase will tell you.

DARYN: Lastly, what are your thoughts on the future of online drama?

TINA CESA WARD: One, I believe there is a future. I also think that people need to go out and work on the shows they feel strongly about no matter what genre it falls into. Don’t be afraid that it won’t work on the web. If you have a great story, you have a chance. No one knows exactly what will or won’t work on the web. How could they? It hasn’t been around that long. So the more people that feel strongly about working in drama go out and work in drama the better chance it has of getting a foothold in the medium.

Good People In Love premieres on BlipTV Tuesday, November 15th.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.