When you put smoke and atmos into the set
and then use the mole beam you'll get
these lovely lines we're discussing
whether we were going to tidy this up.
Inside I'm going are you sure you sure?! I
wanted it to feel really warm.
What is going on Indy Mogul? My name is Ted and
today we were talking about the
cinematography of The Handmaid's Tale
which if you haven't seen it already is
one of the best shows on Hulu and it was
shot by Colin Watkinson who we're
talking to today to not only talk about
the actual visual style of the show but
break into a little bit about the camera
the lighting and the lenses and the
challenges that went into shooting
crafting the look of the overall show.
So let's do this.
Just to kick this thing's off what was
the process like working on this show
and developing this style? It started with
a phone call with Reed Morano first
phone call she talked about color very
clearly, very defined, conversation about
color. The production designer would
you know gave Reed bunches of swatches
of red on the Scouts we'd go around with
different swatches and eventually it
came down to one piece you know you take
this piece out and photograph it in
locations and you really get to get a
feel for what a color would do in
various locations and it's intense it's
it's depth. There's a saturation to that
red that really works in a lot of
circumstances you put that into a space
and it dominates the space. I had
to go, "its The Handmaid's Tale" you
know the whole idea of my style of the
very formal style done on "The Fall" or
other stuff and her very classic
verite style put those two together and it
was gonna create this sort of new world
of gilead and this this real world that
we know and that was going to create the
tension and make people feel you know
scared that this thing could really
happen. So you're saying that basically from a
camera language place there was a
difference between the two worlds? The
real world was verite, handheld, real, and
then there's this world that this is a
very controlling world where women
women's bodies are out of their own
control and we talked about Vermeer
volumetric lighting and where that leads
to painterly you know it's like no a
painting you can stand there and stare
at a painting for four hours nothing's
happening
but it's no it's got these layers to it
that sort of just you know if
everything's done right the story will
be there in light and composition and
whatever is in the painting. What was the
camera lenses package that you guys
chose and was the reason for it? It was
an ARRI Alexa the mini is a great choice
of camera because it's small and
versatile. The lenses we chose were a
Canon K35, there's a there's a
creaminess to the Canons that that's you
know that comes out straightaway in
doing that with the Alexa made
beautiful so it's like okay that's great.
Well lighting is one of the things that
I really like to nerd out about
especially in this show so there's a lot
of exciting things I want to talk about
are you ready to jump into the first
scene? Let's go for it.
This is the first time you see off-red in the Waterford
house in Gilead. We get lots of
information about Gilead right now in
these first in this first two minutes.
She's sitting in their prison in her
room you know this is her world and she
can't escape and this is our first
introduction cinematography wise into
Gilead with these very beautifully
composed shots very slow moves
everything's very considered. How's this created? Not only you have the sunlight
coming through you got your ambient
coming through and then you've got your
background to light as well just for
that just for the window bit you've got
there's three things to light. This, this
is a 10k Mole beam is basically what comes
through the window you know we took a
long time to get the right flavor in
beams you know we would net some of them
we would chop down the the amount of
light coming onto the blind there so it
was just the right amount of light and
the blind didn't burn too much then
there's the the amount of bounce back
we've got another window on the right we
had light coming in for that window to
create the amount of ambient in the room
even though you don't even see that
window that's where the ambience coming
from and then the right amount of
atmosphere to get that feeling. You know wider lenses the the atmosphere they're
delightful they'll cause these beams but
if you've got a longer lens because you
try to see through a lot of atmosphere
becomes very muddy so it becomes a very
different thing so you got to take the
atmosphere down when you go on longer
lenses. You can't get an LED that big
that does that so we have to know I knew
you know at some point you have to go
with you know older lighting we're one
light
just for that white flat and then there
be another of 12k bouncing in into a
white flat as well on the on the
left-hand side. So this is deceptive,
deceptively more fixtures than I thought
it'd be. So there's there's there's three
lights really in that one window? Yeah, well,
four... There's a fourth? [Laughing] Why did you ask the question? Hold on let me rewind this for a second.
Colin, you said, "How do you think this was lit? It's very simple"
So every single window had a sky panel on
top here as well. Why?! Every window had a sky
panel so we could like we could make
skylight for a shot like this tea so
that you did sweeten it up a little bit
too as far as the light for the
close-ups yes it'll be a book light so
for you a great with a white and then
it'll be in L 10 into the white which
then comes in through the gray and The
Handmaid's Tale I used gray silks I
didn't use white what's the reason for
that I because I knew I wanted to take
it keep it down and I just found that
when I use a lot of white diffusion
there was a lot of blooming and I so did
a lot of work in trying to control that
the amount of like white spill that goes
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to the episode
so this is the start of episode 1 season
2 and she gets taken to fadeaway park
with a bunch of other maids and with a
fake execution because of their that
they defied and Lydia in the end of
season 1 they faked her hanging and then
they get taken back to the red centre
and get divvied out more torture what's
makes me different about this scene is
that the the visual style becomes almost
like explicitly horrifying and scary
when it comes to crafting a scene like
this will work the biggest challenges
this particular scene I think the
biggest challenge was knowing out to be
Fenway Park so we went to Fenway and we
saw the enormous scale that places that
and then working out how to shoot it
right away I just thought well if that
was what they were gonna do they would
probably put the lights on the state
that the stadium lights but not all of
it because there were a little bit green
but they would have no they wouldn't
have brought in other lights I thought
that they will use what they had I
wouldn't beautify the light so it's
really quite raw hard it's roared you
know it's it's nasty which I thought was
the right thing to do for the scene so
we had to find a ballpark that was
basically the top of a hill and with a
location guys did and it was amazing you
know and very little around it we
thought okay that'll work and then we
brought in two extra cranes with lights
on to our exes and added to the lights
that we had in the stadium we decided
these two back lights then we're going
to be that the winners into the most
powerful of the lights and then we had
to do we have to build a black fence all
the way around
basically we gave the effects guys our
cast against a black background they put
in the Fenway and that black background
we said will provide them with new thing
we're using from that Park was the
ground even though Fenway would let us
shoot there to make the ground look like
it's being aged and like to go to ruin
for the last year three years the yard
apart went in there and literally put
all those Tufts of grass and everything
all in there
we built a tunnel on the and the same
stage that we shot that when they come
out the vans because no I wanted those
beams coming in I think it was like five
or six twelve KZ side
the thing that kind of over are call
them is there needs to be the feeling of
this hard stadium light from very far
away no matter where we yes I wanted
that a really bright end so you didn't
know you come out and you sort of like
almost blinded there's a lot of talking
production design and with the right is
the show others about how things would
be built in gilead what would be used
you know Bruce was always very useful
with that about how they would know if
they were gonna do this what would they
make it out of so it was always a very
practical sense to like if I was going
to put lights in you'd say there was a
way where they get the lights from this
throw they go for down to Home Depot and
get some emergency light so that's what
we put in I remember shooting that going
god I've got a hard light from the front
there that's like that's terrible isn't
it but it's like it's messy and gritty
and it fits the same this had to be ugly
did you notice it was one shot to be
honest when I was watching it in the
show I wasn't I didn't really think
about it I liked that there the fact
that you didn't even notice it you know
you shouldn't notice it you should only
be along with the ride you know the
story was that she's in the basement
with a you know terrorists the Guardians
are there and you've got to see use
light we could use their flashlights to
tell the story they're moving around the
house moving around the room circle in
the room you know we just try and really
amp up this whole fear and then you know
it's again it's incredibly tense if you
don't break away you're only ever with
our main character when your friend
something like this you talked about the
composition of it and not wanting it to
be the same the entire way through
what's the reason for that yeah we
storytelling when someone tells you a
story this it's got different arcs to it
how its told you how they know what's
described and you know that's that's
what storytelling is and I think it's
the composition should be the same it's
the move is the first thing well it well
the move with the action what does our
character need to do and then it's a
physicality process or I can physically
get here again then you know with the
gaffer going alright we've seen the path
what do we know how do we do I think we
have one here we have one here this goes
off when I get here so we mapped all
that out you know what's right me and
Jonathan talked about that then he would
rig that map it in on his iPad and again
it was lots of lighting cues we use
those tighten tubes on this one think
there's about 13 separate lighting cues
so they're in the ceiling and there are
all different places and they would go
on and off and down up and down as we
went throughout the scene so one thing
so they didn't create shadows and we
could see people at the right time when
you're talking about the interactive
lights is there like a general
philosophy of how the lights interact is
there something that you're trying to
avoid yeah I'm trying to I'm trying to
get the shape lighting shape and no not
over light you know you has to go
seamlessly from one to the other and
it's so fully doing that you know a
minute like a minute three you go oh my
good we're so far in nobody go nobody
make a mistake how do you approach
lighting in the dark and reeking it's
towfield ominous well visible yeah I
mean it's pretty this shot here
does that there's a eaters have an eye
alight in this I remember this memory
grading because I put one there's one
just the right of Elizabeth's head there
was a stereo tube again it's like when
do you need to see in the eyes and when
don't you you know or when can you get
away we're not doing it tricky on a
one-shot like this that's the important
bit right that's that you know if you
don't have that and everything else is a
waste of time so what is lights off so
you know your eyes can see stuff right
when you're in the dark so it's like
okay it's like come from that windows
not a lot and you kind of falsely bounce
it around the room you know look at it
for real it's like when it carries for
aspiring it looks like two seconds and
then I need another light here to carry
it more and carrying the same feeling of
light but I'm faking it and there's very
few times that we don't need to see the
character's eyes but what are there to
shoot the performance yeah it's how we
see that performance is the
cinematographers G job and in the same
way in a scene like this we're daring to
tell something that's very very dark
that you know it's risking possibly not
being able to see performances and
things like that I think this is a scary
thing for a lot of filmmakers coming in
is being afraid of breaking the rules
too much or being afraid of taking too
much of a gamble on the visuals what
advice do you have for DPS out there
that are trying to be a little bit more
bold with what they do here yes
experiment I think is you know with
digital we
have the opportunity to see it straight
away something as simple as assistant
seem to put your hand on the iris turn
it all the way one way until it all the
way the other start seeing what you see
and you know it is like if you like
something down there you go why do I
like it what what do I need to do to get
there to get that feeling to get that
mood you just just play with you know
think of it in layers and then play with
it in layers as well thanks so much for
coming on I think that's I think that's
it thank you so much
all righty guys there you have it
there's your episode of Indy mogul with
Cohn Watkinson and the cinematography of
The Handmaid's Tale now if you want to
find more information about this we'll
leave the link in the description down
below and morph Kant's work as well as
the podcast link that we did with Conroy
I should talk about not only how he
became a cinematographer
what do you learned throughout the
process and also talking a little bit
about his first experiences on this show
again thank you to Squarespace for
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squarespace.com slash Indy mogul for 10%
off your purchase on a web site or
domain but Andy mogul that is it for me
thank you so much for watching
I'm Ted of course we'll catch you guys
next time okay that's just one window
and his two windows the second window
somewhere else
