Alumni Spotlight: Hanelle M. Culpepper Meier '88

Meet Hanelle M. Culpepper Meier ’88, an award-winning executive producer and television director. After graduating from Indian Springs, Hanelle attended Lake Forest College, where she majored in economics and French, then received an M.A. in Communications Management from the University of Southern California and completed the Directing Workshop for Women at the American Film Institute.

 

We recently caught up with Hannelle about how she got her professional start, the impact Indian Springs has had on her life, and advice she has for current students.

I am currently an executive producer (EP) and television director. As the director, I’m responsible for choosing every aspect needed to bring the writer’s script to life visually. This starts by sharing my vision with the department heads during the concept meeting so that they can begin to find/design/create what’s needed to fit this vision.

Almost nothing you see on screen is accidental, and as the director, I weigh in on thousands of choices that shape the final episode—choices such as casting including background actors, costume, blocking, lens size, camera positions, production design elements, props, music. If there is a new set, I give feedback to the production designer on the set design. Sometimes this may entail asking him/her to add/remove/move windows, doors, or make a space smaller or larger. I provide direction to the art team on what a space should feel and/or look like—is it a homey space? Spare and modern? Cluttered?

I also temp the episode with score and/or music. Sometimes, the score or song makes it to the final version —which is what happened when I chose to use one of the songs by Mike Lantrip (who taught me algebra at Indian Springs) for my episode of “Counterpart.” It was a thrilling and wonderful full-circle moment to have someone from my Indian Springs years become an important part of a show I was directing decades later.

As an EP, I’m involved more broadly in shaping the series, working with the writer/showrunner/ creator and other producers on story, casting, production and the overall creative direction.

I’m in that process now with “The Undertaker,” a series I’m developing for ABC.

 

Have informational interviews with people in our industry to learn and get advice on what you need to do as you are building your career. And if you specifically want to be a director, go direct! Use your iPhone and make shorts for fun. Each time you direct, you learn something new and you discover more and more about your voice.

Surprisingly, some of the most useful skills aren’t technical—they’re about understanding how people think, what motivates them, and how they respond emotionally. Acting classes, psychology, negotiation, and truly listening are key skills. Directing is ultimately about understanding people—from the characters in the story to the hundreds of people helping you tell it.

 

This is a hard one for me because they all become my babies, and I am very proud of all of them—well, all except one that shall not be named! But I’ll specifically mention my work on “Paradise,” for which I have been nominated for an Emmy, and directing the pilots for “Star Trek: Picard” and "Kung Fu.”

This depends on whether I’m shooting or not. When shooting, I usually come to set an hour early to have a cup of coffee and look over the sets and my blocking plans for the day. Often the 1st AD and cinematographer will join me because the three of us being in sync means a more successful day of shooting. Then it’s six hours of shooting, one hour for lunch during which I try to check some emails, and then another five to six hours of shooting. When I get home, I try to finish checking the day’s emails, mostly to see if there is anything timely. Then I type up my shot list for the next day and send it to my team.

If I’m not shooting, my typical day can be any combination of reading outlines and/or scripts and giving notes, creating pitches and lookbooks, pitching projects, taking classes to improve my skills, watching movies and television shows, and having general meetings with studio and television executives, lunch meetings, coffee meetings, cocktail meetings—yes, a lot of meetings! But building relationships is an important part of building a career.

I also devote time to my work with the Directors Guild of America (DGA), where I serve on the National Board and Western Directors Council and work to advocate for directors, strengthen our profession, and help create opportunities for younger and emerging directors.

Finally, because I run my own business, there’s also all the accounting and paperwork that needs to be done.

Connecting with friends around the lake, doing plays in The Hut, D-Day, choir performances, algebra class, the time I got to live on campus for three days, and, most importantly, Charles Ellis's theater class where I discovered my love of directing.

 

Indian Springs changed the trajectory of my life in ways I couldn’t have understood at the time. Charles Ellis’s theater class introduced me to directing—literally, I wouldn’t be a director if I hadn’t taken that class. Also, coming from the public school system to Indian Springs was challenging academically. But that academic rigor taught me to work harder, think more deeply, and to keep stretching beyond what came easily. Not only did I improve my study skills, which helped me tremendously in college, but I also learned that I could rise to a challenge if I was willing to put in the work—a lesson that served me well when I faced obstacles building my career.

 

I played basketball and sang with the choir. I truly enjoyed our performances and our trips. One of my recent joys was watching the choir perform in Los Angeles and joining them on stage for our alma mater.