The short film that allowed Doug to direct Buffy
I made a short film at the end of Season Four called Big Time. It’s a twenty minute romantic comedy with a lot of science fiction in it, and I got a star named Eric Szmanda who now is on the television show CSI. Jessica Capshaw was in it too, and they were both wonderful in the movie.
I lucked out [as] I didn’t know who would shoot the movie or who my crew would be. I started making phone calls and asking people within the office if they knew anybody. And one thing led to another.
Ray Stellar is a director of photography who was sometimes our substitute director of photography when Michael Gershman would be directing or prepping an episode. He has shot second unit on some of the biggest movies of all time, Braveheart, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List… He’s an incredible director of photography, I called him cold and said, "Would you like to shoot this movie," and he said "Sure" and that was that.
Ray brought over a lot of the Buffy crew as well, so I was very, very lucky and very exploititive in terms of taking advantage of my job, using the crew during a hiatus, paying them a fraction of what they’re used to being paid and sticking them in the desert where it was 110 degrees and saying "Let’s make a movie."
They didn’t bury me up to my neck in the sand, they actually went ahead and we shot a picture and spent almost a year in post production - which is what happens when you have very little money - and showed it on a big movie screen.
It was one of the best days of my life. A lot of friends and family showed up, a lot of people from Buffy showed up and a lot of the cast and crew showed up. It was just a great, great day. Seeing my sister talking with Spike about my short film was just something I’ll never forget. James Masters, he’s a doll and he was really supportive about the whole thing. Among the people watching it was Joss Whedon of course.
There was one shot in particular that he really liked and he said, "That’s funny, you can be funny with a camera. Why don’t you be funny with a camera on our show?". I played hard to get for a while. I said, "No …" Of course not, I said, "Yes, yes, please," and much to my delight he began by announcing that I would be directing episode four of Season Six of Buffy.
Today is August 21st 2001 and tomorrow will be my first day of directing an episode of Buffy. I couldn’t possibly be more excited or happier.
