The flight of film and television production out of the United States is usually framed in terms of jobs and dollars. And no wonder: entire careers are evaporating at a nauseating rate, with US film and television production down 40 percent in 2024 from its 2022 peak. What gets less attention is a quieter loss: the erosion of an intergenerational workforce.

In 2021, I directed an episode of The CW’s Nancy Drew. Like many productions of its scale, it shot in Vancouver. It was an ambitious show — narratively dense with five lead characters, technically demanding with supernatural elements, all within the constraints of a modest broadcast budget. It was also a blast to make. As with most episodic directing jobs, I parachuted in as a short-term transplant, folding into the well-established ecosystem of a multiseason show.

While on Nancy Drew, I met Hannah, a script supervisor who stood all of four feet eleven with a voice to match. We spent long days side by side at the monitors, as directors and script supervisors do. Close in age and aligned on which jokes were absolutely hilarious, we became fast friends.