KangaRoddy A $3M PBS Series with an Editor's Eye

KangaRoddy came to me as a pilot someone else had already shot. I cut it, the cut worked, and the show got funded for a full season — with me directing and running editorial.

The challenge

Thirteen episodes of network-quality children’s television — puppetry, song-and-dance numbers, and an Academy Award–nominated lead in Pat Morita — on a $3M budget with a 20-person crew and a schedule that had no room for rehearsals. Every episode had to hold up on broadcast next to shows made with several times the resources.

The craft

I directed seven of the season’s thirteen episodes and senior-edited all of them — cutting episodes myself and shepherding the editing team, including assistant editors I trained up until they were cutting episodes in their own right.

The schedule set the method. When there was no time to rehearse, one take was the rehearsal. For the musical numbers, we’d run each one four times with the two cameras assigned different angles on every pass — so in the cutting room it played like eight-camera coverage from a small-crew setup. And in the middle of standard coverage, I always went after the one special shot, because I already knew the cut it was for.

Editors get brought on to direct because they know the pacing — and the hero shot that’s going to sell the rest of the scene.

Morita made it a joy: call action and he’d hand you a different flavor every take, each one usable, each one a different way to cut the scene. A professional choreographer ran the dance numbers and a team of composers covered classic soul standards — a full traditional set, just leaner.

The outcome

Season 1 landed well enough that PBS renewed the show for two more seasons — a series built to broadcast standard on a budget several times smaller than its neighbors on the schedule.