Reed Morano
A lot of cinematography is intuition. It's an art, not a formula.Collection: Art
I want to make the movies that move people in a way they've never been moved before.Collection: Movies
As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.
In everything I do, the aesthetics are driven by the emotion. However I can do that with a camera, whether it's a long lens or a wide lens, I'll do.
The instant feeling I had after I gave birth was you couldn't get that baby in my hands fast enough.
Directing is not about gender. Directing is individual to the actual individual. From woman to woman, directing is completely different. It's about giving more than half the population a chance to express themselves, you know what I mean? It doesn't always mean it's going to be more sensitive.
As a cinematographer or director, I'm always looking for projects that are able to say a lot with the actor's expressions.
The interesting thing about 'The Handmaid's Tale' is that everything that happens in it has happened or is happening somewhere in the world.
I always like to do sound design, and in movies, you have more leeway with that, but I don't really notice that sound design is being used in TV other than just location sound.
A lot of male cinematographers stick a pillow to their stomachs so they have somewhere to rest their elbows while shooting.
We moved around every winter. I don't know. Maybe my dad was, like, on the run from the law.
Whenever a woman wields a gun in a film, it ends up looking like they're trying to be sexy rather than they actually know what they're doing.
No, I'm not doing 'Star Wars.'
I don't want to step on the DP's toes. That's the first lesson I learned when I started directing with other cinematographers.
I know how a cinematographer wants to be treated by their director, and so I already have a leg up in that department, and I know what would be insulting to say to a DP because I've been one for so long.
My family lives on Long Island.
When it was time to go to college, I was going to apply to Boston University for journalism, and dad said, 'Why not apply to NYU film school, because you love telling stories and taking pictures?' And I thought, 'Oh, I can do that for a job? Cool!'
I think I subconsciously knew you needed life experience to direct, and the best films are directed by people who have really lived, with exceptions like Orson Welles, who just burst out of the gate. There are prodigies like that, but for me, personally, I thought I needed life experience.
I've DP'd so many films for first-time directors, and I know the trauma, the heartbreak, the vulnerability, how much you have to believe in the story.
Women have to compensate more in the personality department in order to get the things that men get. And they don't have as much leeway for being divas or jerks.
I have been lucky in getting a lot of the projects I've wanted, maybe because I'm really, really driven. But there is a stigma that women can't direct big studio films. Not that I want to do that, but it is a topic that comes up a lot.
In America, we tend to be very sheltered, and I'm speaking from personal experience because I feel sheltered.
I feel like directing is more about who the individual is rather than if they're a man or a woman. It's kind of hard to generalize and group all of us female filmmakers into one group, like we're all going provide you with the same thing, because we're not. We're all individuals.
I think it's a common misconception that because you're a woman, you can't command a set and have people respect you, and for some reason, Hollywood is really far behind every other industry. It's getting better; it's just slow.
I don't want to just make the safe, easy commercial films.
My father passed away when I was 18. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it is not like that all the time. Not every moment is dark.
Don't think of your gender as a handicap.
It can be insulting to an actor when the director comes out, and they have no notes on the performance, and all they care about is that the camera has to do this one technical thing.
A sad truth I learned as a DP starting out was that it doesn't matter how beautiful I make it if the story and performance are not there. That should be number one.
When I read 'Meadowland,' I could see the potential for a very internal, quiet story that could be powerful and emotional but also disturbing and dark.
I really hate having to put 'female' in front of any title, because it puts us in some kind of weird category for handicapped people or something.
Most of the people I know in the film business here in New York, the moms and the dads, just take different turns working. So everybody's a working parent, and nobody bats an eyelash at it.
What's the hardest thing about making a show like 'Vinyl' or 'Handmaid's Tale' is they are expecting movie-level cinematic quality in every way - from the performances to the visuals and the shots - especially on a show where you are doing Scorsese style.
In TV, you are much more likely to see the episode closer to the script as written - in terms of the order of the scenes - than you would in a movie, and here's why: you don't have as many days to edit. You have 10 to 12 weeks or more to edit a feature, and you have four days to edit TV. That's a huge difference.
There is something to be said for one vision and following one vision through. I do think it's something TV will catch up to at some point and realize, 'Wow, we're in the Golden Age of Television right now; we've taken television to another level, but now let's take it to an even higher level where it is one vision throughout a whole season.'
I read it in college as an assignment. I didn't think about it at the time. But when I heard there was a 'The Handmaid's Tale' pilot, I freaked out.
A lot of TV and film commits to one tone.
When you work as a cinematographer, the actors look to you for reassurance. When you're lighting them, they can never think you're making an adjustment because of the way they look. If they are nervous, it impacts their performance, which impacts the story.
Being a cinematographer taught me a lot. I got to expedite the visions of many directors and learned how to navigate many styles and worlds.
Color correction is one of my things.
When I was an undergraduate in Film & TV at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, most of the projects I shot had male directors, and only a few had female directors.
After graduating, I was shooting as well as working as a key grip, and I often found myself the only female out of the whole crew, except for producers and the occasional AC.
I would rather be hired solely for my talent, not just to fill a quota. I also don't want to shoot just any studio movie just to say I'm shooting studio movies - for me, quality of the material comes first, and if eventually that leads to a really great studio project, then that's a bonus.
I learned a lot while I was ACing and gripping for other DPs as I was coming up.
I try to shoot film wherever possible. There's nothing like it.
I was in film school as an undergrad with a focus on directing. Once I started working on shoots, I realized, 'Oh, I really like this cinematography thing.'
The first director who ever allowed me to shoot a film for him was a male. He was a gay male. My first feature also came from him. I worked for a lot of dudes at NYU.
Eventually, when I got the 'Meadowland' script, I saw something in it that made me think I could make something special out of it, something that could work with my style. Emotionally, I connected to it. I thought, 'If I feel this way just imagining it, maybe we can make that happen on screen and make people feel something when they watch it.'
I think it took me seven years before I got the script for 'Frozen River.' That's the movie I had been looking for my whole career. When I read that, I knew I had to shoot that movie - that it'd be a game-changer. It was one of those scripts where I read it, and I was like, 'This movie could get into Sundance.'
I'm trying to make people understand: yes, women are oppressed in 'The Handmaid's Tale.' But the men are also oppressed, too. It's just a very scary world for anyone.