Norberto (“Bert”) Barba has directed over fifty film and television projects since he made his debut in 1992 with the award-winning short film, Chavez Ravine. He says the key to his success is simply choosing the right actors for any project and and not giving too much directing. His recent Imagen Award for Best Director on Netflix’s Better Call Saul may be a testament to that.
Currently Barba resides in New York where he is has been working on NBC’s Law and Order: Special Victims Unit for two seasons. He chuckles when asked if his style of working with actors is low key. “There is a wonderful article the DGA wrote about me in their quarterly magazine. They kept following me around the set and the HBO people that were there told them, ‘Bert is both low key and high key at the same time.’
“For directing, casting is about 85 percent of the whole job,” he explains. “My directing style is: I don’t give much direction. I make short comments. [I let you] Do your work as an actor. Show me what you mean and then I’ll start sculpting. That is where I am thinking less and feeling more, directing the small moments within short succinct scenes.
However, some projects demand much more and Barba is always ready to deliver. “When it comes to staging big set pieces, I can get very highly involved. I was doing a show, that had a big hockey sequence and we had 300 extras as background. They were just not reacting in unison to the action. And I just drove it.”
A native of the Bronx, New York, Barba studied at Columbia University and graduated from USC School of Cinematic Arts. He then earned a postgraduate degree in film production at the American Film Institute. Barba also received film experience while serving with the U.S. Army Reserve. He commented, “It was all under Special Forces command. The base I reported to was in Los Alamitos. I was sent around to do documentaries for them.”
When asked how he made the jump into Hollywood, he says it was in 1992, when Universal Studios and the National Hispanic Media Coalition held a nationwide contest for Latino filmmakers. They had to submit a half-hour script. “The script I submitted was titled Chavez Ravine, the drama of this small lower class Latino community who fought L.A’s powers that be to keep from being evicted from their homes by Eminent Domain.”
A WINNING SHORT
The winning shorts were screened at the Universal lot to industry professionals; a producer saw his film and the next day, Barba was offered a feature film to direct.
“That doesn’t happen but I was lucky. I was in the right place at the right time,” Banda admits. The movie, an action revenge thriller Blue Tiger starred Virginia Madsen and Harry Dean Stanton. “It’s kind of a little cult film now,” he shared. “You can find it on Amazon Prime.”
The success of that film led to a studio movie called Solo, starring Mario Van Peeples. That led to TV movies. “I did a number of them and finally moved to episodic, which I wasn’t happy about at first because I really liked directing TV movies,” he recalled. “But as I got into it, I really loved it. I was there during the evolution of television to what it is now. I feel that I’ve made an impact.”
POPULAR T.V. SERIES
Barba has left his mark on almost 20 prime time series, including Grimm (which he executive produced and also directed from 2011 to 2016), FBI, Numb3rs, Resurrection Blvd., CSI Miami, Mayans MC and the Law & Order franchises.
“Right now, I’m in New York, into a new season of Law and Order: SVU,” he explained. It’s all happening in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic which has brought new challenges. “We’re in the thick of it,” he said. “We are seriously obeying all the Covid protocols. One of our [franchise] shows was shut down in Chicago for two weeks because one person got sick.”
Safety is a priority for the director, who has seemingly adapted to a new work routine.
“We are all definitely working within the Covid guidelines. So far, everything has been going well,” Barba says. “Basically, we use zones, Zone A and Zone B and within a zone, there are pods. Someone like me, I get to go everywhere. I can be with the actors and everyone else but I get tested every day.” He explains that anyone interacting with the actors gets tested every day and must follow other pandemic protocols. “Everyone has to wear a mask,” he says and adds, “I wear mine every day. When I am talking to the actors, I also have my face shield.”
MUCH AT STAKE IN PANDEMIC
Health is not Barba’s only preoccupation at work. “We are not only concerned with everyone’s health but also their livelihood,” he says. “If one principal goes down, we shut down, then a hundred people are put out of work who haven’t worked in months. There is a lot at stake.”
Barba readily admits, through all the current logistical problems, he is enjoying the process. “I like telling different stories,” he says. “I am making little movies. That’s what basically I do.” He concludes, “If you embrace the story, you embrace the world. And you use your sensibilities and your life experience to tell that story.”
Catch Norberto Barba on TheTRENDTalk Show on November 8, 2020 on METV: Nov. 9 TheTRENDTalk’s Facebook Watch and IGTV.