EAWLC Zoom Learning for Curious People Lecture 5: To Be a Successful Director

GRAEME LYNCH’s dream job  has been being a director since he was a teenager.  The passion led him through family pressure, initial confusions, and self-questioning in his early years.  He came to realize his dream at the age of 26.  Ever since then, Graeme has helmed over 200 episodes of television, covering both the scripted and the unscripted – drama, comedy, science fiction, documentary, and reality work.  Over his career, Graeme has received nine best-director nominations from the Canadian Academy and won the Canadian Screen Award twice.

Some of his scripted credits include multiple episodes of “Pure Pwnage”, “Degrassi: The Next Generation’, “Beverly Hills, 90210”, “The Best Years”, “Twice In A Lifetime”,  “Relic Hunter”, “Radio Free Roscoe”, and the BBC/TMN mini-series “Magician’s House”.  His documentaries include a four-part forensic series for National Geographic shot in Israel, and three seasons series directing the award-winning “Employable Me”.  He also wrote and directed the reality show, “Tori & Dean: Cabin Fever”, starring Tori Spelling.  Other highlights include directing the pilot episodes of the hit shows “The Property Brothers”, and the Ty Pennington series, “Inside The Box”.

More recently, Graeme directed the 11 part, winter sports competition series “All Around Champion 2”  and also traveled across North America series directing “50 Ways to Kill Your Mum” starring Eric Roberts, Jennie Garth, Jaleel White, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Annie Murphy, Coco Rocha, and Monica Potter. Prior to that, Graeme created, produced and series-directed the docudrama reality series “Cheer Squad” for Disney/ABC Spark and currently airs on Netflix.

Before this, Graeme traveled around the world, series directing the “Bachelor Canada” and spent two years directing “Undercover Boss Canada”, for which he won two consecutive Canadian Screen Awards for Best Reality Direction.

He has also written and directed three short films, the most notable being “Past Present” which was shot in the California desert, and went on to win several awards, including Best International Short, Best Sci-Fi short, and two Best Actor awards at the NYC Film Festival.  His first two short films, “Lost Innocence” and “Circle Of Fear” also won several awards at festivals in New York, Chicago, and Columbus and aired on the CBC network.

We are thrilled that Graeme is coming to the East and West Learning Club, and share his career and life stories with us!  Below are some of the questions we would like to take the advantage to ask him– and you are welcome to bring your own:

* How did you start your career?  Are there any people or incidents that have shaped the turning points of your career path?

* How does a typical working day of yours look like?

* What key factors and/or characteristics do you think are important to the success of a director?

* Do you have any resources or tips to recommend for young people who dream the same dream when you were a teenager?

* What are some of the moments that you can hardly forget about?  What are some of the most interesting experience you’ve had at work?

* What are some of the challenges, and how have you dealt with them?

* Having been to different countries, what is your observation of cultural differences and commonalities?  Any stories out of cultural shocks or misunderstanding?

Grown-ups or kids, professionals or home-makers, everybody is welcome to join us, and have a dialogue with our talented television director!

Time: Friday June 19, 2020 8:00-9:30 P.M. Eastern Time

Language: English

Free online Zoom meeting.  Maximum capacity 100 participants. Meetings will be open 15 minutes prior to the lecture time.  Please click below link to enter:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87134664583

Meeting ID: 871 3466 4583

For inquiries, please contact: ericliujt@gmail.com.

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