Features of the changing job of a television director

Based on his experience as a television director (since 1965), the author explores how this job changed as the Lithuanian television market developed. The author accentuates two key factors in the job of a television director. The first factor is technical equipment: the more sophisticated the equipment, the more opportunities television directors have to perform their tasks in an appealing and modern manner. In other words, the work of a television director is directly related to technological development. Although this is not considered to be a determining factor in theatre, a variety of motion, video and audio technologies that have been developed for television are increasingly being used in modern theatre as well. The second factor is more general: direction. Regardless of the medium, direction is based on the fact that the director is the manager who takes control of the production from beginning to end, thus determining the fate of the production and its participants. The author explains why present-day Lithuanian television companies often produce low-quality shows: they are targeting less-educated viewers, so producers can get away with minimal quality criteria, since ‘the audience will watch it anyway.’ The author claims that one television programming genre – the television play – ‘has passed away.’ He maintains that the efforts and skills of a television director to create a production must exceed the knowledge of the audience in terms of the content of the idea, novelty of the view, the use of technology, and quality