Executive Robert Bella Meet: The Rookie Season 5

Screen Tirade chats with maker Robert Bella approximately coordinating up and coming scenes, working on The Rookie's spin-off, and Chenford's common chemistry.

After taking many weeks off, The Rookie returns on Sunday, December 4th for its two-part winter finale. The arrangement takes after John Nolan (Nathan Fillion), a man in his forties who chooses to connect the police drive and reevaluate himself after halting a bank theft. The procedural is as of now in its fifth season, and the victory of its later spinoff arrangement The Rookie: Feds demonstrates it won't be abating down anytime before long. Presently that Nolan has gotten a brilliant ticket and passed his preparing officer exam, the understudy has gotten to be the instructor. In any case, preparing his to begin with rookie Celina (Lisseth Chavez) has demonstrated to be a greater challenge than anticipated.

In portion one of the up and coming winter finale, the team joins fan-favorite blending Tim Bradford (Eric Winter) and Lucy Chen (Melissa O’Neil) in a race against time to halt the source of an dangerous frenzy. Season 5, scene 8 is titled "The Collar" and coordinated by Robert Bella, who too serves as a essayist and co-executive maker for the arrangement. Bella is additionally coordinating the tenth episode of the season, which can discuss when The Rookie returns for the moment half of Season 5 in 2023.

Screen Tirade chats with Robert Bella around coordinating up and coming Season 5 scenes, working on the show's spin-off, and Chenford's common chemistry.

Director Robert Bella Talks The Rookie Season 5

Screen Rage: How included have you been with The Rookie: Feds?

Robert Bella: I'm just a gun for hire on that one. I was with The Rookie from the beginning as a writer-producer and then started directing last season. This season [I'm directing] on both The Rookie and Feds.

Are you energized that this universe is extending?

Robert Bella: It's really cool. We're all on the Paramount lot together, so that's really awesome to just be able to wander over and say hi. Sometimes it's like, "Oh, look! The Rookie cast is over there. Oh, look! The Feds cast is over here."

Is that portion of why you're able to bring characters from The Rookie over to Feds so regularly? And bad habit versa?

Robert Bella: Ultimately, it comes down to what best serves the story—if Alexi feels like, "Oh, it'd be really great if we could have this character over there," or if Terence is like, "Can we borrow that character?" There's a lot of back and forth and conversation between the two of them, but it makes it easy that they're all just on the lot.

You've composed scenes for the primary four seasons. Are you composing any for Season 5?

Robert Bella: I don't know if I will or not. I've been pretty busy directing. This will be the fourth episode that I'm about to direct. I start prep, actually tomorrow, for an episode of Feds. So my directing has been taking me out of the writers' room a lot more.

Do you favor coordinating over composing?

Robert Bella: I do. It's something that I did many years ago and then got away from, and now I've come back to, and I love it. I always consider myself a director who likes to write as opposed to a writer who likes to direct.

You're coordinating this Sunday's up and coming scene, right? Portion one of the winter finale? It looks like it's shot through body cams.

Robert Bella: I did episodes 508 and 510 on The Rookie. So part one of the winter finale is going to be 508. It's what we call our podcar episodes. Everything has to be footage that can exist within the world, either because of somebody's body cam, or a camera that's inside the shops, or a surveillance camera or cell phone. Something that lives in the reality of the world as opposed to objective reality, which is how you film most things—the camera is wherever you want it to be. In this case, we have to justify where every camera is.

How do you decide which scenes are aiming to be shot like this? Since there's been a number of.

Robert Bella: You know, Alexi likes to do at least one a year. There are a couple of thematic things that Alexi likes to do once a year. The True Crime episodes is one thing that we'll do one a year of and then the podcar episode we'll do one a year. Where it falls in the schedule is kind of a combination of where it will best fit in story-wise and scheduling wise—what directors are available and who might be best suited for it. 5.08 will be the first time that Bill Roe, who's our producer-director, didn't actually direct a podcars. I was very nervous being the first person to do a podcar that wasn't Bill Roe, but he was very generous with his time and his advice.

Is it more or less complicated to do podcar scenes as contradicted to how you as a rule film the arrangement?

Robert Bella: Logistically, it's much more complicated. When you're making a film or TV show, the camera's just wherever you need it to be. I mean, you think about where you want it to be because of what you're trying to accomplish emotionally or what story you're trying to tell visually, but you don't have to think beyond that. Whereas in 5.08, every camera has to be justified in the world. If we're having this conversation, and it's a normal-filmed episode, the camera's wherever we want it to be. I see you, the camera sees you, the camera sees me, and we cut it together. In a podcar episode, if I'm a police officer who has a body cam? Great, now I can see you. But how does the world see me? Well, if you're a police officer, and you have a body cam, great. But if you're not a police officer, then what camera is filming my coverage? And so we have to sit down and figure that out. It has to feel realistic and believable, not forced. They have their iPhone out filming because I'm a police offer, and you don't trust me is one way to handle it. Or maybe there's a surveillance camera or security camera in somebody's house, or, depending on if we're in one of the vehicles, then there are cameras in the vehicles. Logistically, it took a lot of time to sit down and really map out exactly what cameras capture who and why. What cameras do we need? When we film our scenes in the shops—in the police vehicles—we have anywhere from five to nine different camera angles that we'll use in those vehicles. That becomes a logistical challenge as well. How can we mount that many cameras? And where can we place them? The logistics of all of that are time-consuming.

I'm a enormous fan of found film frightfulness, so I cherish that The Rookie does something along those lines.

Robert Bella: Very much like a found footage episode. Exactly. There are TV shows—and you see it on the news, or you see it online—these clips that you'll see off of police officers' body cams that are really compelling. What we try to do is to capture that realness and that "you're in the moment and you're in the world with them" feeling. I can't spoil anything, but in this episode, there's one scene where we actually had 21 cameras filming at one time. So that was pretty intense.

That's a parcel of cameras!

Robert Bella: A lot of cameras. Most of them are GoPros, so they have a very wide field of view, almost 180 degrees that they will see. So the crew literally has to disappear—we have to go hide—and the camera operators are the actors. And so you're like, "Okay, let's do a rehearsal, put your camera on, we'll do the whole thing." And then the director will watch the footage back and go, "Okay, when you're talking to so-and-so can you angle your body a little bit more this way? So we can get a better shot? [Laughs] You're really tall and you're really short. Maybe we can get you up on a sidewalk and that'll make the coverage go better. But then you work out all those logistics, and as a director and the crew, we all go hide. You just have to disappear because otherwise we'll be in the scene, and we're not supposed to be. You walk away, and you're like, "I hope that went well."

This scene you're coordinating is additionally the primary time that Tim and Lucy are riding together since they went covert. Is there anything that Chenford fans can see forward to? Ought to they fair be arranged?

Robert Bella: There is definitely movement forward in their storyline. Beyond that, I don't want to spoil anything other than to say, to all our fans, that I don't think you're gonna want to miss this episode.

Did Tim and Lucy's relationship fair advance actually as you were composing the appear?

Robert Bella: I think it was a combination of the natural chemistry between the two of them as actors, and then as a writer on a TV show, and certainly Alexi as a showrunner, you hope that things evolve in a way that's compelling, but you never know. You have to see how it goes and how it plays out. They finally had that kiss when they went undercover. I remember in season one in the writers room, we'd be like, "and then Tim and Lucy kiss!" and Alexi was like, "No, it's too soon." And so season two we'd go, "and then Tim and Lucy kiss!" He's like "No, no. Maybe season five, maybe season five." And then you cut two years later, and finally we do an undercover episode, and he's like, "Okay, yeah. Tim and Lucy are going to kiss." Alexi is really smart about that [holding off]. He's always said it's about the longing. In TV shows in past history, once they connect, the chemistry and the drama kind of dissipates a little bit because it's already done. They got everything they wanted, so there's not that longing anymore.

What else are you looking forward to? Will you be coordinating any scenes after 5.10 or doing any more work on Feds?

Robert Bella: Tomorrow I start prep on episode 1.17 for Feds. I'll be directing that one, and it's going to be another exciting one. I'm looking forward to that a lot. I get the script tomorrow, and I'm going to spend all day studying it.

About The Rookie

John Nolan, the most seasoned rookie within the LAPD, has utilized his life involvement, assurance, and sense of humor to keep up with new kids on the block 20 a long time his junior. Nearing the conclusion of his preparing, Nolan presently faces his greatest challenge as a police officer however when he must come to terms with the choices he has made in interest of the truth.

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