Reed Morano's 'Handmaid's Tale'; Zoe Lister Jones' 'Band Aid'

PALLY: I think that's a fair way to describe marriage. I've been married six years now and I feel like it is that, because you're growing and maturing and living a life that you're sharing with someone else. It is elastic. You know when The Flaming Lips go on tour and Wayne Coyne gets in that plastic bubble? That's like what marriage is. You can push out a little bit away, but if you're committed both to being in that bubble together, then you're going to roll over the crowd together.

LISTER-JONES: We've both been with our partners for a very long amount of time — for relatively young people. I've been with my husband for 13 years. I do think it is really interesting. I was interested in seeing the ways in which couples fight because I think that is also often a testament to the way that they love. So many of those fights are about fighting to stay together.

LISTER-JONES: I was raised by a feminist. So I think those values are a big part of who I am as a person. I think I was also raised looking at the world through a lens that was specifically targeted at misogyny. Being an actress and also being a filmmaker, [movie] sets are so predominantly male. And it's something that I've always been very aware of. I also am pretty aware of the dynamics between men on set and the few women who are represented there, and what it means to be a woman on a predominantly male crew. I wanted to see what it would be like if that dynamic was totally subverted. So from top to bottom, there was not one man on the crew. Adam was the only man on set many days.

We drew on Margaret's book for all the inspiration, but we did make little changes here and there to update the story and make it as believable as possible, so that when you're watching, it's hitting maybe a little too close to home. The interesting thing about "The Handmaid's Tale" is that everything that happens in it has happened or is happening somewhere in the world. There is an element in the style of the show where you feel this raw closeness to the characters that maybe, when you're watching it, you get lost enough in the story that you start to feel like it's maybe getting to you.

The story is told primarily through [Elisabeth Moss' character] Offred's point-of-view, and so it's her memories of these things. I always try to treat it that way. In terms of keeping it as real as possible, for example, in Gilead, women are not allowed to read. Letters and signage of any kind is forbidden. So when we return to the past, the flashback world, I was encouraging our costume designer to put clothes that had writing on them — things you would never see in Gilead. I would always bring in music — some kind of music that just spells out freedom, but you would never hear it in Gilead — all these kinds of things that we see on a daily basis here and don't bat an eyelash about.



But if we were to have all these rights stripped away from us, all these privileges and freedoms that we take for granted would suddenly become so foreign. So the idea of seeing these women buttoned up all the time in Gilead — it's really the contrast between the two worlds. I start the scene with an extreme close up with Elisabeth Moss' cleavage because she's wearing a jogging bra. She's sweating and wearing minimal clothing, and if you were in Gilead that would just be unbelievable. 

It was a little tricky because there is something about — in the description of Margaret's book — the look of the handmaids. We went closer toward what was written in the book. I didn't ever want the world to go too far into the past — the look of their costumes or the locations. And I never wanted it to go too far into the future. It was riding a fine line and we had many interesting conversations about it. So when we were coming up with the dress that the handmaids wore, it did have elements of the past.



Ane Crabtree, our costume designer, who's amazing, was wanting to put a zipper on the back of the dress. The dress is almost a bit modern in a weird way, and also you have this puritanical bonnet called "the wings" when they're outside, which is so graphic and amazing. Then with the wives, they have these dresses that [seem] like dresses of the '50s, yet they also have modern elements, like zippers and modern material, as well as these modern colors. We were always riding this very fine line with costume design between the past and the present.

Margaret set up this world that is very graphic and visual by nature, and so it was great because we were able to take her concept and play with that and use it toward the look of the show, making it very graphic and compelling to watch.

What it was going to come down to was personality. If we get along then we're going to be able to find a middle ground. What I liked about Colin was blending our two very specific styles — for the show to have a hybrid. I'm known for gritty realism and naturalistic kind of lighting and a very emotional camera, and he's know for his work as kind of glossy and grand. 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. I just wanted to treat him the way I wanted to be treated.

To be honest, it was very tricky. It was a crazy endeavor doing these three episodes. It was kind of like doing three features back to back ... By the time that I got to the end of [editing episode] three, I was ready to take a break from the world of Gilead, because it is a hard world to exist in and it's a lot of responsibility just doing that many episodes back-to-back. But I was bummed. Obviously it hurts to establish such a specific way of storytelling — such a specific narrative language — that really came from my pitch book when I pitched the show. So many of those concepts are the rules of our series. Then I [had] to just walk away. I was ready to take a break from the world because it is so oppressive, but at the same time I'm like, I wish I could have done all the episodes. 

I made specific references, from a visual standpoint, of Kubrick-ian compositions mixed with Impressionistic fairytales — almost like a romantic camera for the flashbacks. This idea of being wide and close and up in the actor's face. Also creating a visceral window into Offred's internal psyche. I also pitched how to use humor and the voice over and how to use music. I also talked very extensively about sound design and how the sound would be heightened and become a very surreal soundscape — the kind of thing you play around a lot with in narrative features but you don't see often in TV.