Nobody puts the UPM on the poster, but without them there’s no schedule, no budget, and no show. This week we’re going below the line with Franklyn Gottbetter (producer and unit production manager — Lucifer, The Kominsky Method, 9-1-1: Lone Star, Scrubs, You’re the Worst) and Nash Rahman (assistant UPM and production supervisor — Black Rabbit, Relay, Fleishman Is in Trouble, Life & Beth, The Last O.G.) for a conversation about what it actually takes to keep a production’s money and its calendar pointed in the same direction. We open with a round of Would You Rather, dig into the real handoff between a UPM and an assistant UPM, talk through the budget meeting where the number just doesn’t work, and Franklyn makes the case for why anyone who thinks television is easier than film has never turned in a budget every three days. Plus: what the newly expanded California film and TV tax credit program actually means for the people building the schedule.

You walk onto a set that’s been running for five seasons, with a crew and cast who already have their own rhythm — and you have maybe a day to earn their trust. That’s the job of an episodic TV director, and this week Jackie and Alysha sit down with Paula Hunziker, who’s directed episodes of Station 19, 9-1-1, 9-1-1: Lone Star, Walker, and Pretty Little Liars, to talk about leading as a guest in someone else’s house. Paula breaks down why episodic directing is less like a fresh vision and more like cooking Thanksgiving dinner in someone else’s kitchen — you bring one tool, and you use it to elevate the dishes they’ve already made — plus how deep character backstory research turns into real moments on set, the hardest day she’s ever worked through, and the mistake early in her career she’ll never make again. Stick around for a round of “guess the show” built from Paula’s own directing credits, and a rapid-fire close to wrap things up.

Two people whose entire job is leadership under pressure join this week's episode: DGA 1st Assistant Directors Mark Hansson (Dark Matter, Candy, Kingdom Business, Hunt, Hunters) and Laura Sylvester (Pretty Little Liars, The Sex Lives of College Girls, Truth Be Told, Bookie, the upcoming Presumed Innocent) sit down with Jackie Krichevsky to talk about who actually runs a set day to day — including the time Laura had to tell a director mid-take that it wasn't safe to roll.

After news on the DGA's new four-year contract (which raises health fringe rates for ADs and UPMs), the Brand New Day box office streak, and China's first AI-produced theatrical film, a round of Would You Rather gets Mark and Laura giving opposite answers on the same question. From there they break down what a 1st AD actually owns on set and where that authority stops, how the job shifts across genres, what the DGA trainee program puts candidates through, how to keep a crew's morale up on a day that's falling apart, how streaming and alternating DPs have changed the job over the last decade, the hardest shows either of them ever worked, and the advice they'd give anyone starting out today.