Sometimes you come up with an idea when you're going out for a job, and then when you actually get into dissecting the world, you end up changing your approach, just because that's the way art goes sometimes.
— Reed Morano
I like movies as a viewer that challenge me to actually think rather than spoon feed everything to me.
Ultimately, the idea of being able to escape and lose myself in a new world every time I go to 'work' was too appealing to ignore.
It's a very tricky job we have as DPs, where you are expected to make something that really is an emotional art but also needs to be technically spot on. You're often given a very small window of time to achieve it. People sometimes expect it to be even quicker and forget that there's a schedule for a reason.
There are many legendary DPs that I admire, some of whom have a very strong signature, but I'm not sure I want to be the DP where you see my work and say 'Oh, Reed shot that.'
I actually carried a Panavision Platinum and a G2 when I was seven months pregnant for a film called 'Little Birds,' and the whole movie was handheld. And we were shooting in the desert. That's a 35-millimeter camera. It's huge, probably at least 50, 55 pounds, and I did all my own operating.
Huge studio movies are handed over to a man with less experience before they're handed over to a woman with less experience. That's a fact. But I think it's not just about men not hiring women: it's about women not hiring women, too.
We have this attitude in America of, 'Someone else is going to fix the problem.' That's what the majority of Americans have. Or, 'I'm just going to go online and sign this petition, and that will take care of it.' That's doesn't do it.
I don't want to come in and do something that's been done before. You know, for me, it's not that I wouldn't come in and do a sequel to something, but it's only if I can bring something new to the table and I'm not following an extremely strict path.
There was a movie that was made about 'The Handmaid's Tale.' And I never watched it on purpose because I didn't want to... I just didn't want to know.
In my 20s, I was too shy to reach out to successful DPs and directors for an internship or to shadow them. I see young people nowadays doing that all the time. I think that experience would have been cool.
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.
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.
A lot of cinematography is intuition. It's an art, not a formula.
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.
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.
As a cinematographer or director, I'm always looking for projects that are able to say a lot with the actor's expressions.
'The Handmaid's Tale' is a very special story.
I do think it's unfair for women who get pegged with creating fare for other women.
The way I'm used to telling a story is by looking through the viewfinder and being really close to the actors.
When 'Frozen River' started to get really big, I was four months pregnant. So when these agents and directors wanted to meet me, I was coming in pregnant, and people didn't really take me seriously. They thought, 'This woman is not going to shoot another movie again. She's going to become a mom, and that's what happens.' But that was not the case.
Funny enough, the most discrimination I've ever gotten as a woman in this industry has been from other women.
I have a playlist for every project that I do. I made one for 'Handmaid' before I got the job.
When I got on my first set, I watched what the cinematographer was doing, and at that level in film school, the cinematographer has the most control. They're the one looking through the viewfinder, carrying the camera, framing the shots.
There are a lot of women who direct in a way that is even more masculine sometimes than men - and that's not a bad thing, either.
Normally, if I would read in a script that there's mostly flashbacks and mostly voiceover, I would run as far away as possible.
My biggest wish is that I would have more time with my husband and my boys.
I started a business with my cousins in Fire Island called 'Wagoneers.' Since there are no cars on the island, we would hustle people at the ferry docks to bring their luggage to their houses in our wagons for a large fee.
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 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.'
I learned a lot while I was ACing and gripping for other DPs as I was coming up.
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.
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.
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 people who are in charge in Hollywood are women, so they have the power. Now, I've met a lot of these amazing women who are offering opportunities to other women, and they're awesome. But for the women who maybe haven't done that yet, it's like, why?
Out of 10 projects I get sent, seven or eight are female protagonists, and that's not the only thing I'm interested in.
'Meadowland' was the reason I got 'The Handmaid's Tale,' and probably my experience in cinematography helped. Everything was like a stepping stone to the next thing.
I have a lot of brothers and male cousins. I grew up in an informal, jokey environment.
There are obviously issues in our industry. That starts at the top with studio execs who - not just men - don't believe a woman could handle a huge franchise or big action movie.
I love strong women like Uma Thurman, Meryl Streep, and Charlize Theron.
We're too complacent. We let things happen to us. And you don't have to let things happen to you. You can affect change.
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.
One of the color combos that I really love is the tones of technicolor, which older movies would have, these tones of blue and red in them.
My dreams are like fuzzy Charlie Kaufman movies, so I love going to sleep.
Real people - everyone is not just one thing.
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 try to shoot film wherever possible. There's nothing like it.
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.
Color correction is one of my things.
A lot of TV and film commits to one tone.
