Ask a Former Assistant: Gabriel Strick (Director of Development, 6th & Idaho)

Gabriel Strick

Director of Development, 6th & Idaho

- Interview by Gabriela Rosati, Executive Assistant, R+D Placement -

Hi Gabriel! Thanks for joining us. To start us off, can you tell us a little about your day-to-day as a Director of Development at Matt Reeves's production company, 6th & Idaho? What does your team structure look like?

First and foremost, it’s a ton of reading. Getting acquainted with writers, directors, & actors both through their work and in general meetings, evaluating books, IP, pitches, and scripts on a constant basis. Workshopping our pitches, drafting project notes for scripts, episode cuts, and so on. You’re basically keeping the train on the tracks for all your projects at every stage of development, while also getting back to incoming submissions in as timely a manner as possible. It’s a relatively small company, so everyone does a bit of everything, but I cover our entire television slate. It’s a curious thing to do for a living, and I think I still struggle to explain it clearly.

I think you explained it wonderfully! What about your own personal journey within the film industry? How did you find yourself where you are now?

I was 17 when I landed my first production company internship, so I was lucky to be able to start wrapping my head around the script format at an early age. In film school, I fell in love with cinematography and thought I’d perhaps be a DP [Director of Photography], but my first production assistant gig working on a series after college made me realize both how impermanent jobs in that sphere could be, as well as how difficult it was to feel like you had any control of your lifestyle while in production (even on something as regimented as a multi-cam). That realization led me to pivot to the mailroom at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), where I became an assistant before making a lateral move to one production company for a year and a half, and then beginning my work with 6th & Idaho literally on the day LA went into quarantine in March of 2020.

Having been an assistant before, how does it feel now that you’re in a leadership position? Are there ways in which you believe being an assistant has helped your direction at this level?

It makes me worry my brain will atrophy every time I ask an assistant for help! Thank goodness I can still tie my own shoes. Being an assistant provided me with an essential education every step of the way. You get to be a fly on the wall of some highly privileged conversations that you never could have imagined, and it gives you an incredible opportunity to learn through osmosis and take those lessons with you not just in terms of things like deal-making or creative process, but in terms of how you treat people. I was very blessed to learn from bosses who treated their collaborators with kindness, humor, and grace. It taught me a great deal about the kind of professional I wanted to be.

What advice would you give to those assistants who are entering the world of television development or are aspiring to?

Watch everything you can. Read everything you can. Learn everything you can. I got my first development assistant job because my boss and I clicked on a personal level, and when he asked me to describe my favorite book, he thought, “Wow, I would never read that.” We had similar enough taste to get into the weeds on the creative, but were also different enough that there could be unique value in adding my point of view to the department he was building.

During this "Golden Age of Television," I have often heard it can be overwhelming having to navigate the number of shows that are seemingly created daily. As a Director of Development, how do you personally stay focused and inspired as you sift through the enormous volume of scripts that are out there?

When I was in film school, I remember the cinematography student I respected the most telling me he didn’t like Arrested Development. Obviously I was appalled, but he shrugged his shoulders and said, "There’s no such thing as perfect content.” That was one of the most important lessons on creative I ever learned.

Art is never going to be human-proof. There’s always going to be someone who feels exactly the opposite about a movie or show to how you feel. It’s definitely not every day, or even every week, that I read a script that I genuinely like. You start asking yourself, “Am I the problem?” right up until you open a script that slaps you in the face and demands your attention. Ultimately, I think that inspiration is something that you’re struck by. If you’re on page 5, 10, or 20 and already forcing yourself to pay attention, know that it’s not your job to love every piece of material that's submitted to you. You need to have genuine passion for your projects, because you’re going to have to convince a LOT of people that something is special if it’s ever going to get made and be successful.   

Having worked on parts of The Batman franchise with 6th & Idaho, what are some of the creative challenges that come with reimagining already beloved characters? And, only if you’re able to indulge, which Batman character has been your favorite to revisit?

These characters are totems. Worlds of story unto themselves, spanning decades of history, and that has to be respected. You need to understand the shorthand of what these characters represent to audiences, and within that context find a way to show us not just something fresh, but something definitive. I’m less excited about any given totem in the abstract than I am about what we can feel because of it. Connecting with those emotions is how you know you’re onto something. The work that our incredible showrunner, Lauren, has done bringing the Penguin to life has made him feel not just fresh, but inevitable. I’m excited for audiences to see more.

And finally, what advice would you give to your younger assistant self?

There is no straight path to success in this business. If you’re excited about an opportunity, trust that instinct.