Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
'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'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.
My advice for other female directors: don't think of your gender as a handicap. Don't think about it at all. Just tell the best story you can, and don't stop until you do.
It's really the best time to be a woman. And instead it can be an advantage. Think about what you can bring to the table that what you have to offer that makes you unique.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Definitely the biggest misconception is that it is overly burdensome to be a woman and pursue this line of work. But being a woman gives me a unique perspective and style, which is probably why I get the work that I do.
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'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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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?
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 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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.'
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.'
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.'
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.