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additional camera records the center of the scene. As soon as the assistant director yells out, "Action!" there is a frenzy of activity offstage as the cameras pivot and Stein snaps his fingers, pointing to indicate which camera he wants to capture the action for each specific part of the scene. (This makes it easier for the editor to assemble a working cut later.) During complicated scenes, such as that birth scene with the two fathers, Stein looks like an orchestra conductor: his arms are never still. He is constantly pointing at different cameras, crafting the scene in real time.
    How does Stein make these directorial decisions? After all, he doesn't have the luxury of filming twenty different takes from twenty different angles. "Given the schedule [of a daytime soap opera]," Stein says, "there isn't time to be fiddling around with all the stuff that directors normally fiddle around with. You need to make the right decision the first time around." If a soap director makes a mistake while shooting, the scene can't be re-shot another day. When you're creating daytime television, you have only one day.
    This relentless time pressure means that Stein can't afford to carefully think through all of his camera choices. He doesn't have time to be rational; he needs to react to the drama as it's unfolding. In that sense, he is like a quarterback in the pocket. "When you shoot as many scenes as I have," Stein says, "you just know how things should go. I can watch an actor say a single line and know immediately that we need to try it again. When we're filming a scene, it's all very instinctual. Even when we go in with a plan on how to shoot it, that plan will often change in the moment, depending on how it feels."
    The reliance on instinct and "feel" is also a crucial part of the casting process. Soaps are continually bringing on new actors, in part because the longer actors are on the show, the higher their salaries are. (That's why established characters on
Days of Our Lives
are constantly being killed off. As Stein quips, "This isn't show
art.
It's show
business.
") For a soap opera, there are few decisions as crucial as casting. The size of the audience oscillates with the appeal of the actors, and a particularly appealing actor can create a spike in the ratings. "You are always looking for that person that people want to look at," Stein says. "And I don't just mean attractiveness. They've got to have
it,
and by
it,
I mean everything that you can't really put into words."
    The question, of course, is how you identify
it.
When Stein first started directing television, he was overwhelmed by all the different variables involved in casting. First, he'd try to make sure that the person looked right for the part and could act in the soap style. Then Stein needed to consider how this actor would fit in with the rest of the cast. ("A lack of chemistry has ruined many a soap scene," he says.) Only after that was Stein able to think about whether or not the actor actually had talent. Would he deliver his lines with sincerity? Could he cry on demand? How many takes would he require before he got the scene right? "Given all of these factors," Stein says, "there can be a tendency to really outthink yourself, to talk yourself into choosing the wrong actor."
    After directing daytime television for decades, however, Stein has learned how to trust his instincts, even if he can't always explain them. "It only takes me three to five seconds before I know if the person is right," he says. "A few words, a single gesture. That's all I need. And I've learned to always listen to that." Recently, the show put out a casting call for a male lead. The character was going to be the new villain on the show. Stein was up in his office, blocking a script, watching the auditions out of the corner of his eye. After a few hours of seeing dozens of different actors recite the exact same lines, Stein was getting bored and discouraged. "But that's when this one guy