Quotes from Reed Morano

Out of 10 projects I get sent, seven or eight are female protagonists, and that's not the only thing I'm interested in.

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.

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.

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!'

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.

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.

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.

My dreams are like fuzzy Charlie Kaufman movies, so I love going to sleep.

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.

We moved around every winter. I don't know. Maybe my dad was, like, on the run from the law.

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.

Real people - everyone is not just one thing.

I learned a lot while I was ACing and gripping for other DPs as I was coming up.

As a cinematographer, I was always attracted to stories that have the potential to be told with as few words as possible.

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.'

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.

Don't think of your gender as a handicap.

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 have a playlist for every project that I do. I made one for 'Handmaid' before I got the job.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.