Despite conventional wisdom, University of Michigan grad (1994) and “Glee” supervising producer Brad Buecker is living proof that sometimes, changing horses in midstream is a terrific option.

For after earning a bachelor’s degree, and pursuing a career, in mechanical engineering, Buecker started dabbling in documentary filmmaking while living and working in Colorado, and later moved to Los Angeles to earn a master’s degree from the American Film Institute.

The contacts he made there led to a night-shift gig editing “The Bachelor,” but his later work as an editor (and eventually producer) on “Nip/Tuck” not only provided a gateway to the world of scripted TV dramas, but introduced Buecker to the show’s creator, Ryan Murphy. The two clicked; and when Murphy created his next show, “Glee,” Buecker was called on to be part of the team. (Buecker also edited the Julia Roberts film “Eat Pray Love,” for which Murphy adapted the screenplay and directed.)

Buecker recently answered questions from AnnArbor.com about what it’s like behind the scenes of one of television’s hottest shows — which is about to get even hotter, returning from a six-week hiatus with a special post-Super Bowl episode airing tonight, and an episode Buecker directed coming up Tuesday, February 15.

Q. Could you tell me about the process of song selection for the show? A. Ryan Murphy … selects all the music. Anyone who wants to get a song into the show tries to find a way to present it to him. … There are times when we want to use songs that we can't get, of course, but as the show has gained recognition, we've found more willingness from artists to allow us to use their songs.

Q. What surprises me at times is how quickly a pop song might show up on “Glee” — in that the song may still be a relatively new hit when it turns up on an episode. A. That’s part of (being on a) super-tight timeline. … The music producer, Adam Anders — he’s amazing. And Ryan will come up with an idea for a song, and they’ll figure out if they can clear it, and they’ll call Adam. And sometimes, they’re turning songs around in two or three days. … When you have the right people in place who are really tuned in to what they’re doing, and they know what they’re doing, and they’re very good at it — the show wouldn’t work without them.

Q. I’m guessing that the musical numbers are the most labor intensive to prepare for and shoot. Do you schedule them last in your eight-day cycle for each episode? A. The music numbers are certainly the most demanding, but they are filmed as they work in the schedule, just like any other scene. It's unbelievably demanding for the cast and the crew. The cast has to pre-record a song, then learn choreography, then shoot it. And they shoot two or three numbers a week. It's crazy and a testament to their talent.

Q. You directed your first episode, “Never Been Kissed,” earlier this season. Were you nervous about shooting the musical numbers, since this is something that seems to have its own distinct demands and conventions, and you had no previous experience with that? A. As an editor of the show, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't studied every single scene that anyone has ever shot on “Glee.” I'm sitting there looking at it anyway, so it's hard not to analyze it and collect ideas. For me, our music numbers work best when they have story points in them, and you are shooting them to make sure the story gets told. But I was part of the … generation who grew up with music videos. I think you see some of that in our numbers from time to time as well.

Q. You’re directing the episode that will air the week following the Super Bowl (8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 15) as well. What extra preparation do you need to do when you’re in that role? A. Finding the locations that are special for your episode is a big part of preparation. For example, in “Never Been Kissed,” the episode I directed, we needed to determine what location we would use for the Dalton Boys Academy. You also spend time with each department talking about wardrobes, production design, props, to discuss anything that might be special in your episode — such as the color of slushie that a glee club member will be hit with.

Q. The first episode you directed, “Never Been Kissed,” is near and dear to many in the area because it featured the auspicious debut of Blaine, played U-M grad Darren Criss (who sang Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream”). The number nabbed immediate attention, and the song sold like crazy on iTunes. Did you have the feeling, while shooting the number, that you’d captured lightning in a bottle? A. I knew I loved Darren from the minute he walked in, because he was also a Michigan grad. But he also had a charisma and a screen presence that we were all very excited about.

Q. I’d read that Criss was originally supposed to appear in only a couple of episodes, but after his first appearance, his role was expanded and extended. True? A. You go in with a general idea, but it’s always like, “Let’s see what happens.” Sometimes you bring in a guest star, and it doesn’t work out exactly the way you want, and so they don’t quite like it, and they’ll write away from it. But he was such — from the minute that we started to shoot it, we were all looking at each other, and we were like, “This is amazing. He’s amazing.”

Q. The group backing Criss on “Teenage Dream” is from Tufts (The Beelzebubs). How did they land what would seem to be a dream gig for a capella groups? A. Knowing that we wanted an a capella group, … (the "Glee" creative team was) watching a capella performances of the Harvard group, and the Yale group. And it just comes down to timing and contacts and people being interested and available and responsive. And (The Beelzebubs) were into it. We almost flew them out to be in it, but (the performers you see in the episode) aren’t the kids who did actually record the song.

Q. “Never Been Kissed” was a pivotal episode, too, for its focus on Kurt being bullied in school, which has been a major storyline this season. Was this in part a response to the flurry of gay suicides that had been in the news? A. It was something that was already kind of in the works. And then I think, as a country, we were all so moved by that when it happened, and it was just like, “Oh, my God, this is more important than ever to get it out there.” … I don’t think it’s our place to tell people how to feel about it. It’s just to say, “Hey, be aware of this.” If you’re raising awareness, I think that’s the best you can do.

Q. "Glee" seemed, from the start, so unlikely to be the huge hit that it’s become. A. I’m not even sure we knew whether it would work, or whether people would get it. … Even after we’d shot (the pilot), we ended up restructuring it a little bit. In the original cut of the pilot, you weren’t meeting the kids until around 12 minutes in. So you go to these testing screenings, where people are holding knobs, and you see their interest level. And their interest level was just falling off, and falling off, and falling off, so their interest level was down to 0 at 10 minutes. And then the minute they met the kids, their interest level would come up. … We’d sit in this room, and we were just like, “Oh, my God, people want to see the kids. That’s what they want.” …

And to Fox’s credit, Fox saw (the show), and Fox believed in it from the get-go. And they had a marketing plan that was incredible. That whole idea of running the first episode in May, and then just running one episode, and then waiting until September to start the series. And it was available online. It got people talking about it. Because it’s not an obvious show to wrap your head around. When you say, oh, it’s a musical, or it’s about a glee club, it’s like — I know if I didn’t work on the show, I wouldn’t have been inclined to watch a show about a glee club. And even some of my friends still are like, it’s about a glee club?

Q. Jobs on hit shows don’t seem like “40 hours a week” affairs, and you have a 2-year-old son. How do you balance work with home? A. It’s hard. It requires you to be very flexible. … As long as I’m not directing, I get my mornings with my son. … I drop him off at preschool at 9, and most of the time, I don’t get to see him in the evenings.

Q. From what you’ve told me, there’s an ebb and flow in terms of intensity, in that near the end of shooting a batch of shows, you’re cutting it closer and closer in terms of shooting an episode and getting it to air. A. Every now and then, as the timelines get shorter — we never shoot on the weekends, but sometimes, we’ll be editing over the weekends. This last Christmas episode, we finished shooting it a week before it went to air. It was like, all the footage came in, and … we were here 24/7, just cutting it together, and does it work, and do we need music, and how will we get it to time. … And now, we’re off the air for six weeks. So now, … things go back to normal. But then, it’s like, as we approach the spring, as we approach the season finale, it’ll get bad again. … In six years in television, I’ve never seen anything this close (as the Christmas episode). Even the studio executives were like, “I don’t think we’ve ever turned an episode around that fast.” But it’s fun to find out what you can do.

Q. In your current career, do you ever draw from what you learned in your previous career? A. My undergraduate degree in engineering taught me problem-solving skills — how to look at a problem, and how to analyze problem - and I think that’s something that I use all the time. And I think those core skills, just how to think about things — I think that’s a lot of what undergraduate (school) is.

Q. Coming from Piqua, Ohio, how did you end up at U-M? A. My dad was an Indiana graduate, my mom went to Wisconsin, all my friends were Ohio State fans, and as a kid, it was kind of like, pick your favorite Big Ten school. And so, I was in love with Michigan from the time I was 9. I was obsessed with Bo, and I always wanted to go to Michigan. … We went on college tours, and when we got to Ann Arbor, (my mom said) I walked a little taller, and I was three steps in front of them the whole time. There’s just something about Ann Arbor. To this day, it’s one of my favorite places in the whole world.

Jenn McKee is the entertainment digital journalist for AnnArbor.com. Reach her at jennmckee@annarbor.com or 734-623-2546, and follow her on Twitter @jennmckee.