My first pilot gig; in fact my first job in television; was Voll daneben, voll im Leben (1999), and the experience of directing that pilot was probably the single most formative of my directing life. The lessons I learned from those people (Judd Apatow, Paul Feig, the incredible cast) and the approach to comedy that we derived together to make that 48-minute "mini-movie" have, in one way or another, infused almost all of my directing work since.
