Spike Lee, James Mangold, Frank Darabont, and Barry Sonnenfeld were all furiously shooting or in postproduction last weekend to get cuts of their latest projects finished and into the studios on time.

But the studios in question were not the film studios they usually work for but rather television studios, and the projects they were completing were not movies but pilots.

This year, feature directors turned out in big numbers to shoot pilots. In addition to the aforementioned, the list includes F. Gary Gray, Adam Shankman, Tim Story, Callie Khouri, Jon Avnet, Joe Carnahan, Peter Berg, Jon Turteltaub, Bruce Beresford, Andy Tennant, and Simon West.

In recent years, prominent feature directors increasingly have taken to directing pilots--famously, Charlie's Angels director McG got behind the cameras for Fastlane, Doug Liman (Mr. & Mrs. Smith) did The O.C., and Bryan Singer (X-Men) helmed House, all for Fox. But this year, their numbers have reached new highs.

"I feel bad for all the veteran TV directors because the jobs are going more and more to feature directors," one director's agent said.

There are several contributing factors, beginning with the relative creative freedom of today's television environment.

"It's an opportunity to direct some really well-written stuff that is more character-driven than a lot of feature films these days," said Rosalie Swedlin, who manages Khouri and Richard Shepard, the director of The Matador who also is shooting the ABC pilot Ugly Betty.

HBO made premium cable TV hip with such shows The Sopranos and Sex and the City, but the past several years have seen TV's sexiness quotient grow with such basic cable shows as FX's The Shield and Nip/Tuck. And now, with such network shows as ABC's Lost and Grey's Anatomy, TV's cachet is at an all-time high among the feature film set.

"The perception that TV was a sitcom world and that features provided a more intellectual medium--that distinction is not necessarily the case anymore," said attorney Gregg Gellman, whose crossover clients have included directors like Gavin O'Connor (Miracle).

With more and more scripts tackling concepts that challenge traditional formats and genres, feature directors are interested in getting on board, and the TV studios are eager to have them.

"We're shooting a lot of pilots that are big ideas that are conceptually challenging but are grounded in really strong character-based drama, and they are all attracted to that," said Maria Crenna, executive vice president at CBS Paramount Network TV, whose roster of pilot directors this year includes Beresford and Turteltaub. "The advantage for us in having feature film directors is that it will give you a bigger, more cinematic look, which as a sales tool is really appealing."

Although movies can take at least a couple of years to create, shooting a pilot is a chance for directors to go from script to screen in as little as six weeks. It also is a job they can take on while waiting for a feature film to get to the next stage of development.

Also, producers and production companies like the feature directors' attitude toward television.

"There's a lot of brilliant TV directors, but sometimes the mentality of, 'Well, it's good enough,' can creep in with TV guys," said Sean Bailey, who is executive-producing Enemies, a pilot that Gray (The Italian Job) directed for Disney's Touchstone TV and ABC. "The really strong feature directors don't accept that. They approach the job saying, 'No, I'm here to make this spectacular and blow people's minds.'"

Executives see a pilot as a blueprint for the show--both in its look and its storytelling technique--and by hiring directors who bring with them film cinematographers and other department heads, studios hope to set a series apart from the pilot pack.

"Setting up a template for a series is a complicated thing," 20th Century Fox TV president Gary Newman said. "There are certain elements that get set in the pilot that when you hire your series episodic directors, you want them to try to emulate the pace, the tone, even the structure of the pilot."

Newman, whose studio has Lee, Carnahan, and Dominic Sena doing pilot duty, said that Stephen Hopkins, while working on the pilot for 24 along with show creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, came up with the multiscreen format that since has gone on to become one of the show's signature features.

One of the biggest reasons for the film director influx is financial. While actual numbers depend on a show's budget, a director's leverage, and the individual deal made, sources said pilot directors make anywhere from about $100,000 for first-timers to $250,000 for the veterans. Some A-listers might even receive upward of $300,000. Agents surveyed said that the range between the two groups is rather narrow, and some might even complain about the pay. But all agree: The financial upside is massive.

If a pilot goes to series, it can be much more than a one-time payout. If a pilot gets a series order, the director will see a royalty of somewhere between $1,000-$5,000 an episode even if he doesn't go behind the camera again for any of the episodes.

If a pilot goes to series, a director usually will receive a series sale bonus in the neighborhood of $25,000.

Additionally, a director can get a consulting producer credit or even an executive producer credit that can see a helmer get anywhere from $15,000-$30,000 an episode. Mangold, Berg, and Khouri, for example, developed their pilots, so they also are executive producers.

Then there's the backend. In rare cases where a show develops into a long-running hit such as ER or CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, a director-producer potentially can reap massive rewards from syndication and ancillary sales.

"What they're all really doing is chasing [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer," one agent said. "He's the one who really started [the feature-film players going into television], and he made so much off of CSI that they're all saying, 'I want that, I want that!'"

One note of caution, though. A big-time director is no guarantee of success even when his pilot does go to series. Liman directed NBC's Heist between the features Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Jumper, which he is about to direct. But Heist was snatched off the air after only five episodes.