After the eventful episodes five and six of Upload last week, we caught up with director, executive producer, and editor Dave Rogers (The Office; Parks and Recreation) to talk about his outstanding work on Prime Video's #1 rated comedy series and what exactly goes into the making of Greg Daniels' most ambitious series yet.
He also walks me through some of the technical intricacies of episode five, which he helmed, and reveals the tricks that went into shooting Robbie Amell as both Upload Nathan and Download Nathan, as well as how long it actually takes to get an episode of the show ready to stream. Plus, he also talks about the incredible versatility of the cast and a whole lot more!
Watch and/or read on for our full interview with director Dave Rogers below, and please remember to SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel for more exclusive content!
ROHAN: When you’re getting your script for episode five, which is in the middle of the season, how do you break it down? What’s your relationship with the writer?
DAVE: My relationship is a little bit different, I think, than a lot of freelance directors that come on board, because I'm also a producer and editor on the show, so I start from editing as soon as we get dailies on the first episode, I'm working. When Episode Five came, I get the script, they just give me the script, and they say, hey, you're going to be doing this one. I loved the script right from the start. It's a great one, I mean, there's so much comedy, and there's so much visual effects in this episode. We did some really, really great stuff with, you know, this is the first time Nathan and the backup meet face to face.
So, getting the script, the first thing I do is, I take a lot of notes, and I write down a lot of questions, and, some of them are story points, some of them are just logic questions, and then, a lot of them are production questions: how are we going to do this, you know, here's my suggestions, and then, waiting to get feedback from Greg Daniels, and the writer and even just going off to production heads as well, like the cinematographer, the effects, the production designer, that's really what I do. I just started prepping and figuring out how are we going to shoot this?
I feel like, in a lot of ways, Episode Five was the most complicated episode of the season, just because of the nature of having a lot of scenes with doubles, with Nathan and the Nathan backup together, but it was also a blast. I mean, it really was a lot of fun, and, for me, I love superhero movies and sci-fi movies, so anytime I get to work with visual effects, I'm really excited. So, for me, this was okay, great, I get to play in, some scenes, a complete green screen environment, where anything is possible, and these are the kinds of things I get to see when I'm watching behind the scenes of an Avengers movie, so it was really enjoyable to learn okay, this is how that works, and, you know, really, I mean, pushing the envelope for VFX in our series.
ROHAN: While Upload is a borderline workplace comedy on some level, similar to The Office and Parks & Rec, it also utilizes a ton of visual effects to make its world feel as real as possible. From start-to-finish, what’s sort of the rough timeline it takes to complete an episode from prep all the way through post-production?
DAVE: Oh, my God. I mean, you start prepping well before you start shooting, at least, I mean, just even as a just asking the questions like, you know, it's kind of an unofficial prep of like, hey, here's the script, just take a look at it, so when your prep does start, you can hit the ground running. So, you prep unofficially for maybe a couple of weeks, then you get there and you have your official prep, you're in the field, you're going to locations, you're scouting, you're looking at VFX things constantly. We had discussed, we have a scene with people walking, a walk and talk with doubles, and it was like, well, do we shoot on a big stage and have them walking or is this motion control or is this on a treadmill and we can just kind of lock down the camera and add some moves later, do a few specials and then, you shoot and you're shooting 7-8 days, you know, some scenes straggle just because of the heavy schedule with other episodes, so you'll overlap and okay, we're going to have this location for this episode and this location for this episode, so why don't we push it and do them both on the same day, things like that.
So, you're trying to be efficient, and I mean, these are just behind the scenes things. I don't know how exciting they are, but for me, a lot of it is getting the footage back and then going into editing and it is incorporating the visual effects, and that takes a long time, because, on all of these episodes, you do an editor's assembly, you're doing a director's cut, where you're okay, now I can start to tweak and lose some things and sharpen some moments, and you're starting to get in, you know, visual effects is like, ‘What can we see? What can we see? We want to start creating stuff for you.,’ And, then, by the time, I mean, honestly, you finish editing, by the time, you know, Greg comes in, and you're working on your producer’s cut going to Amazon, going back and forth, and still tweaking these visual effects, it's almost 6-7-8 months later. Then, you're into the sound mix, and you're still tweaking visual effects, even after that, and, it takes a long time.
Upload is a show that takes a long time. For The Office, we could shoot that, and it'd be on the air. We could shoot scenes and be on the air two days later, if we had to, like, okay, I mean, and I feel like that's happened on episodes, where we were waiting for one actor, or a guest actor or something, and we'd have the whole episode built, and then just this actor, and we’d, edit it, mix, and get it delivered to NBC.
ROHAN: Since this is the episode where the two Nathans finally meet, what were the conversations like when you’re coming up with that scene? Were there discussions about whether it should be face-to-face or via video chat?
DAVE: To me, the first time we see them talking together, it's kind of a shock to everybody. It’s a shock to real Nathan to suddenly see that the backup sees him, and that he's on the call. Then, it's a shock to Luke, in this situation as well, and they're all kind of tangled together, and even it's a shock to backup Nathan.
I don't know how much I can give away here, but backup Nathan doesn't even know he's a backup, which just adds to the comedy and his motivation and how he's feeling, because he thinks real Nathan is the backup, but, for me, the real time is when they meet face to face in person. I mean, that was just kind of almost a tease seeing them, you know, FaceTiming together, and then, when they meet face to face, how are they going to be? Are they competitive? Are they going to get along? What's it like? And, I think that's a really fun, you know, the first time they meet is a really interesting and fun scene, and it certainly was fun to shoot, and then, you just kind of see how their relationship goes after that, and what it's like to - I mean, imagine suddenly, you have almost like a duplicate of yourself in the world. How does that feel?
ROHAN: Can you break down shooting the two Nathans together and what goes behind how you present them separately in different frames before bringing them into the same frame?
DAVE: There are a couple different ways to do stuff, but we really wanted to push it in a lot of ways to have them in the same frame, and sometimes, I mean, look, the easiest way to do it, is to have a locked frame and here's one guy and then split screen and then the other guy comes in. But, it's more fun when the camera’s moving, because it's more of a trick. It’s like, oh, how are they doing this? They're really in the same space. I watched a lot of things, I watched, you know, just to get some samples and examples of doubles and blocking and we shot with a body double so Robbie could react with someone and just run the lines and the pacing and then, we did a bunch of different things.
So, sometimes, yeah, we would do a lock off shot, sometimes we would just kind of move the camera around, and just kind of, okay, here's Nathan here, the camera switches and then, here's the other Nathan, we'd go back and forth. Then, the fun stuff was really doing motion control or doing little motion things like, hey, we can get away with this, we can put a little here and move on. So, even though there's one character here, and the other one's going to be there, that's really where you sell that it's two individual people. What's funny is like watching it, you know, after it's edited, or even in the process of being edited and being like, oh, they have really good chemistry with each other, like the two Nathans.
There's a lot of times where you forget that it's the same person. I might add, in the script, I feel like they forgot that also, because, it’s just a page of two people talking, and it's like, no, we have to shoot it double the amount of time, and it's a clothes change, you know what I mean? I feel like nobody took that into account when we first got the script. I'm like, we need more time for these things, anytime there's a scene with the two of them, every setup is like, okay, you got to run it twice, twice the amount of times because you're shooting really two different people.
ROHAN: Your episode has some really great moments for both AI Guy and Ingrid, what’s it like working with actors like Owen Daniels and Allegra Edwards - and the entire cast really - that seems so down to do whatever the script demands?
DAVE: Yeah, working with Owen Daniels was great. It's the first time I feel like in the series, where he's obviously out in the world, but also kind of solo. A lot of times, he has scenes with other actors, the lead cast, but this time, we really got to showcase him having kind of his own storyline and interacting with completely different people. He's hysterical. He has great comedic instincts. There are times where he comes up with things, and you just sit there and you're cracking up. He’s just very, very funny.
I mean, I can't say enough about the entire cast. I mean, everybody just delivers, they're all pros. They're fantastic to work with, I mean, Greg Daniels really took his time with assembling this cast, and we didn't shoot the pilot until he felt we were ready, that we had the cast, and it's a process, I mean, you know, anyway, sorry, going back to your question. I mean, like I said, it's a pleasure working with everybody and everybody has their strengths, and they're, like I said, working with Owen, he comes up with things, and he'll run take after take after take. Allegra, we can get to her, but I mean, she's just fantastic, and she comes up with so many things.
I'm always amazed, you know, with what actors can do. Good actors, with just how they can think on their feet, a lot of them can improvise. I mean, our entire cast can, which is great, but even just how they can even make subtle tweaks to a scene, like run it once, run it twice, and then, just the little things that they come up with, and you can always ask them, gey, can you try something like this? Or, can you come up with something and they can do it, like the skill set is incredible. I'm always impressed.
The first six episodes of Upload season three are now streaming on Prime Video!