Steve Shill
Encyclopedia
Steve Shill is a British
television
and film director
, actor
, screenwriter
, and television producer
.
He studied Fine Art at Leeds University, was a member of Impact Theatre Co-operative
, and, after they disbanded, made theatre
work under his own name.
Shill began his career directing episodes of EastEnders
and Casualty
for the BBC
. Shill created the idea for Granada TV's Ted and Alice starring Dawn French.
He moved to the United States
and worked on many successful shows produced by premium cable network
HBO
, including The Sopranos
, The Wire
, Rome
, Carnivàle
, Deadwood
and Big Love
.
He directed the pilot episode of Showtime's The Tudors
and served as a regular director and executive producer throughout the first season. He has also directed episodes of Showtime's Brotherhood
and Dexter
. Shill directed all eight episodes of Spike TV
's The Kill Point
mini-series and also served as an executive producer. Shill directed and co-executive produced the 2008 Knight Rider
TV movie which served as a pilot for a remake
of the series.
Shill has also directed numerous episodes of memorable network programs, including all three programs of the Law & Order
series, Night Stalker
, Invasion
, Commander in Chief, Dragnet, ER
and The West Wing.
Shill joined the crew
of the HBO western drama Deadwood as a director for the first season in 2004. The series was created by David Milch
and focused on a growing town in the American West. Shill directed the episode "Jewel's Boot Is Made for Walking". He returned as a director for the second season in 2005 and also wrote an episode. Shill directed the episode "New Money" and wrote and directed the episode "Something Very Expensive". Shill and the writing staff were nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award
for Outstanding Drama Series at the February 2006 ceremony
for their work on the second season. He did not return for the series third and final season.
He directed the theatrical feature Obsessed
starring Beyonce Knowles
, which received negative reviews. The film nevertheless opened at number one in the United States of America in April 2009, taking almost $70m at the box office and becoming Screen Gems
' second biggest opening weekend in their history.
In 2010 he directed the first season episode "Painkiller" for the legal drama series The Good Wife.
Shill had acting roles in The Last Temptation of Christ
, The Missing Reel, Kinsey
and Being Human.
In 2010 Shill received an Emmy Award
at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards
for directing Dexter
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...
and film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, and television producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
.
Career
He attended Keswick Grammar School in Keswick,Cumbria,England in the 70's.He studied Fine Art at Leeds University, was a member of Impact Theatre Co-operative
Impact Theatre Co-operative
Impact Theatre Co-operative was an experimental theatre company founded in Leeds, England. It was active between 1979 and 1986.The company's work was a fusion of text, music, visual and performance art.The company's major productions were:*Ice...
, and, after they disbanded, made theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
work under his own name.
Shill began his career directing episodes of EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
and Casualty
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...
for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. Shill created the idea for Granada TV's Ted and Alice starring Dawn French.
He moved to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and worked on many successful shows produced by premium cable network
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
HBO
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
, including The Sopranos
The Sopranos
The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
, The Wire
The WIRE
the WIRE is the student-run College radio station at the University of Oklahoma, broadcasting in a freeform format. The WIRE serves the University of Oklahoma and surrounding communities, and is staffed by student DJs. The WIRE broadcasts at 1710 kHz AM in Norman, Oklahoma...
, Rome
Rome (TV series)
Rome is a British-American–Italian historical drama television series created by Bruno Heller, John Milius and William J. MacDonald. The show's two seasons premiered in 2005 and 2007, and were later released on DVD. Rome is set in the 1st century BC, during Ancient Rome's transition from Republic...
, Carnivàle
Carnivàle
Carnivàle is an American television series set in the United States during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. In tracing the lives of two disparate groups of people, its overarching story depicts the battle between good and evil and the struggle between free will and destiny; the storyline mixes...
, Deadwood
Deadwood (TV series)
Deadwood is an American Western drama television series created, produced and largely written by David Milch. The series aired on the premium cable network HBO from March 21, 2004, to August 27, 2006, spanning three 12-episode seasons. The show is set in the 1870s in Deadwood, South Dakota, before...
and Big Love
Big Love
Big Love is an American television drama that aired on HBO between March 2006 and March 2011. The show is about a fictional fundamentalist Mormon family in Utah that practices polygamy...
.
He directed the pilot episode of Showtime's The Tudors
The Tudors
The Tudors is a Canadian produced historical fiction television series filmed in Ireland, created by Michael Hirst and produced for the American premium cable television channel Showtime...
and served as a regular director and executive producer throughout the first season. He has also directed episodes of Showtime's Brotherhood
Brotherhood (Showtime TV series)
Brotherhood is an American television drama series created by Blake Masters about the intertwining lives of the Irish-American Caffee brothers from Providence, Rhode Island: Tommy is a local politician and Michael is a professional criminal involved with New England's Irish Mob...
and Dexter
Dexter (TV series)
Dexter is an American television drama series, which debuted on Showtime on October 1, 2006. The sixth season premiered on October 2, 2011. The series centers on Dexter Morgan , a bloodstain pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer...
. Shill directed all eight episodes of Spike TV
Spike TV
Spike is an American cable television channel. It launched on March 7, 1983 as The Nashville Network , a joint venture of WSM, Inc...
's The Kill Point
The Kill Point
The Kill Point is a television series that follows a group of U.S. Marines recently returned from serving in Iraq as they come together to pull off a major bank heist of a Three Rivers Bank branch in Pittsburgh. The series, produced by Mandeville Films and Lionsgate Television, is the first drama...
mini-series and also served as an executive producer. Shill directed and co-executive produced the 2008 Knight Rider
Knight Rider (2008 film)
Knight Rider is a 2008 television movie which was created to serve as a backdoor pilot for the new Knight Rider television series, a revival of the series of the same name which aired during the 1980s...
TV movie which served as a pilot for a remake
Knight Rider (2008 TV series)
Knight Rider was a 2008 series that follows the 1982 TV series of the same title and the 2008 television movie. The series stars Justin Bruening as Mike Traceur, the estranged son of Michael Knight. The series also stars Deanna Russo as Sarah Graiman, Traceur's former girlfriend and love interest....
of the series.
Shill has also directed numerous episodes of memorable network programs, including all three programs of the Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
series, Night Stalker
Night Stalker (TV series)
Night Stalker is a television series that ran for six weeks in the Fall of 2005 on ABC. The series starred Stuart Townsend as Carl Kolchak, an investigative reporter whose wife was murdered. Kolchak spends his time investigating other strange murders, believing they are linked in some way to his...
, Invasion
Invasion (TV series)
Invasion is an American science fiction television series that aired on ABC for only one season beginning in September 2005. Somewhat similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the show told the story of the aftermath of a hurricane in which water-based creatures infiltrate a small Florida town and...
, Commander in Chief, Dragnet, ER
ER (TV series)
ER is an American medical drama television series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 19, 1994 to April 2, 2009. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
and The West Wing.
Shill joined the crew
Crew of Deadwood
Deadwood is an American western drama that aired on the HBO network from 2004 to 2006. The crew received awards recognition and critical acclaim.-Producers:...
of the HBO western drama Deadwood as a director for the first season in 2004. The series was created by David Milch
David Milch
David S. Milch is an American writer and producer of television series. He has created several television shows, including NYPD Blue and Deadwood.-Biography:...
and focused on a growing town in the American West. Shill directed the episode "Jewel's Boot Is Made for Walking". He returned as a director for the second season in 2005 and also wrote an episode. Shill directed the episode "New Money" and wrote and directed the episode "Something Very Expensive". Shill and the writing staff were nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award
Writers Guild of America Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...
for Outstanding Drama Series at the February 2006 ceremony
Writers Guild of America Awards 2005
The 58th Writers Guild of America Awards, given on 4 February 2006, honored the best film and television writers of 2005.-Adapted Screenplay: Brokeback Mountain - Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana*Capote - Dan Futterman...
for their work on the second season. He did not return for the series third and final season.
He directed the theatrical feature Obsessed
Obsessed (2009 film)
Obsessed is a 2009 American thriller film directed by Steve Shill. The Screen Gems production stars Idris Elba, Beyoncé Knowles and Ali Larter...
starring Beyonce Knowles
Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
, which received negative reviews. The film nevertheless opened at number one in the United States of America in April 2009, taking almost $70m at the box office and becoming Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
' second biggest opening weekend in their history.
In 2010 he directed the first season episode "Painkiller" for the legal drama series The Good Wife.
Shill had acting roles in The Last Temptation of Christ
The Last Temptation of Christ
The Last Temptation of Christ is a novel written by Nikos Kazantzakis, first published in 1953. It was first published in English in 1960. It follows the life of Jesus Christ from his perspective...
, The Missing Reel, Kinsey
Kinsey (film)
Kinsey is a 2004 biographical film written and directed by Bill Condon. It describes the life of Alfred Kinsey , a pioneer in the area of sexology. His 1948 publication, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male was one of the first recorded works that tried to scientifically address and investigate...
and Being Human.
In 2010 Shill received an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards
62nd Primetime Emmy Awards
The 62nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, took place on August 29, 2010, at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, California beginning at 5:00 p.m. PDT...
for directing Dexter
Dexter (TV series)
Dexter is an American television drama series, which debuted on Showtime on October 1, 2006. The sixth season premiered on October 2, 2011. The series centers on Dexter Morgan , a bloodstain pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer...
.