On the Road with Katrelle Kindred

The television director is living the dream in hotel rooms.

by Desa Philadelphia

On their podcast PANTS, actors Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig recount behind-the-scenes stories from the making of their hit Showtime series The L-Word (2004-2009), about a tight-knit group of lesbians in Los Angeles, and the sequel The L-Word: Generation Q, which debuted on the cable network in 2019. In one episode, they got into one of Generation Q’s most complicated episodes, featuring a nightclub scene with several storylines happening all at once, including the show’s three leads (Hailey, Moennig and Jennifer Beals) performing a spirited karaoke rendition of the B-52’s Love Shack.

Hailey and Moennig talk about the frantic pace of the episode, expertly held together by a director who had prepared above and beyond and had an answer for every question about why certain shots or set pieces were necessary. “I’ve never been on set with a director who was so prepared!” says Moennig. “But what was her name again?” they pondered.  “Katrelle Kindred!”

In the last couple years, Kindred has been blazing a trail on some of the most talked about shows on television: Boomerang, The Chi, Good Trouble, A League of their Own, Single Drunk Female, Snowfall and Woke. She’s gotten used to plane-hopping and living out of suitcases. She’s on the television director’s grind and enjoying every minute of it. We got Kindred to slow down late one night (from a hotel room of course) to tell us about her path to success.

Following graduation from the School of Cinematic Arts’ Division of Film & Television Production in 2013, Kindred was doing the usual networking dance. “I was going around to all these meetings and no one would hire me,” she says. Then she got a general with Marja-Lewis Ryan, who would become the showrunner of Generation Q. “We met at this coffee shop and just clicked immediately,” says Kindred. “Flash forward about a year, I was a researcher for a documentary full time, when I got a call from my management.”

Showtime let Kindred shadow the entire first season of Ryan’s show, which was a dream opportunity, but one that required her to make some sacrifices, including capitalizing on being an L.A. native and moving back in with her parents. “Needless to say, I did have a pay cut and I did need to quit my job to go shadow The L Word,” she says.

“That felt like a different version of film school for me,” says Kindred. “They literally opened every door. I went to every meeting; they allowed me to create what I wanted to get the most out of it.” Kindred treated the shadowing gig like a full-time job. “I got there when the crew got there; I left when the crew left; I went to every meeting—just basically a fly on the wall, taking notes.” At the end of the season she had a long conversation with Ryan about the process, and got to contribute ideas about improving the show and discussed visuals for season two. “She said, ‘I’m going to get you an episode,’ and it happened.”

Little did Kindred know that Ryan would give her the most complicated episode of the season. While she was shadowing L Word, she had gotten directing jobs on two emerging shows, Boomerang (BET) and Good Trouble (FX). Her experiences on those shows showed her she had what it takes to take on Generation Q’s karaoke night. “I was able to prep with my DP—which is sometimes rare—and my AD. We spent days inside of that club space. We got an old-school whiteboard. We started figuring out where the camera would be. We also did a lot of talking about a floating camera. There are parts of the episode where you don’t cut, but float to the next. Because of the episode, we didn’t have to be very conventional with how we got coverage. It was really cool to play with those elements. It was all of these moments of connectivity that we were trying to find through the camerawork.”

Kindred has developed a reputation for being detail-oriented, and for being a thoughtful collaborator. “TV is extremely collaborative–we know that from film school. But finding economy within that collaboration is the sweet spot that directors have to find. Film school doesn’t teach you that part. By that, I mean learning how to pick and choose your battles, and knowing that as a television director specifically, you’re a guest into somebody else’s world,” she says. Kindred describes the creative process this way: “How do you respect that world (of the show) and still find your voice as an artist, and how do you collaborate with not just your DP but your showrunners; and with your writers and other executives? Finding a meeting place between everybody’s perspectives. That’s before you get to set. You have to then create that same kind of environment with your actors and performers. Just respect and trust the people that were hired for this job.”

Kindred’s prowess as a collaborator may have been honed long before she found her way to SCA—she is the youngest of seven siblings! She always knew she wanted to write, and got the bug to be in the movie business as a high school student, when she happened on Gina Prince-Bythewood’s set for Love & Basketball: “She’s a woman, she’s black, she’s young–all of these things I didn’t think existed in Hollywood in terms of what directors are and what they looked like. She was right there, in the flesh.” However, a USC degree wasn’t always a goal. “I grew up 20 minutes away from USC, and I just wanted to get out of LA.” She decided on Clark Atlanta University, where Spike Lee had taken his first film classes.

After college she returned to LA but couldn’t land a job in the industry. After a couple years of struggling to break in, she signed up for a teacher-training program, but couldn’t resist Hollywood’s pull. “While I was teaching, I just couldn’t stop thinking about film,” says Kindred. “I really felt like I just gave up. I got a couple of “no”s and just retreated. I knew to be the filmmaker I wanted to be I needed to go back to school. I started reapplying to film schools, and that’s what brought me to USC.” 

Kindred admits to going through SCA with an urgency to succeed. “It just meant something different at this point in time. I have given up something that I loved [teaching] to revisit this dream of being a filmmaker. Also, this was the first time I had to pay for my education myself. I definitely have to put everything into it,” she explains. “One thing I will say about USC—there were plenty of opportunities to do that. Every special project, everything that popped up, I tried for. I didn’t get everything, but the things that I did get progressed me so much as a filmmaker.”

Like many other alumni, she formed relationships with her peers that have endured. “They are family. We’ve worked on projects together. It’s been such an honor to see them come up in the industry at the same time. Those were the things I took from USC.”

Kindred wants to continue blazing a trail on television sets everywhere, even if it means coming home to hotel rooms (doing laundry is one hotel chore she dislikes). “My dream show is Snowfall, and I was able to shoot on Snowfall,” she says, adding that she was inspired and influenced by John Singleton, who gave her advice on her thesis project when she met him at SCA. “It was amazing, and I thought ‘I just achieved this thing that’s been on my list for a very, very long time—now what do I do?’”

What she also wants to do is get back to her writing. “I would love to get into creation of TV shows, and hopefully show-run myself.” And there’s also plans for other projects. “Film is definitely my first love–I can’t wait to venture over [to film directing].”

But for now, she’s just happy to be on the grind, and proud of the resume she is building. “Word of mouth about work ethic and reputation is more than half of what gets you hired. But the hustle never stops. I still interview, I still get rejected. It happens a lot, actually. It just never stops; you just have to continue grinding.”

The hotel room stays are worth it.