WOMEN IN FILM: REED MORANO

Reed Morano is an extraordinary figure in the world of film and television. In 2017 she was recognized with an Emmy for directing the pilot episode of The Handmaid’s Tale but Morano was a heavyweight cinematographer and a reputable director long before that particular award.

Morano was born in Omaha, Nebraska, but due to a combination of divorce, remarriage, and her restaurateur stepdad’s nomadic leanings, she grew up between Minnesota, Wyoming, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Long Island, and finally graduated from high school in Vermont. Morano had an early love for writing “I spent my childhood writing stories—so much that my family was convinced I would become a writer.” She also got involved in theatre, doing some acting. Even over the course of all their moving around, her stepfather Casey recognized these interests as something valuable and gave her an old school JVC, suggesting she become the family documentarian.

She took to it, recording birthday parties but also taking her own video. “That became my new obsession. There’s just like hours and hours and hours of footage of nature outside my house.” She also made parody commercials and music videos with her family. When she was getting ready to apply to college, she considered studying journalism but decided after a conversation with her stepdad that film school might be a better combination of her interests. “He really wanted me to make movies because he wanted to make movies with me.”

She applied and got into NYU’s undergraduate film program. During her first year at NYU, two significant things happened to Morano. First, her stepdad died unexpectedly at 46. And second, Morano discovered she wanted to be a DP. Even with an eye on the DP role, Morano took detours into other interests. “My secret fantasy job was to be a singer.” Morano even sang in a band with some other film students that had a standing Saturday night gig in the East Village. “Luckily for everyone that didn’t last.”

After completing her BFA in 2000, Morano moved to LA to embark on her career in film. She spent the year working at The Cheesecake Factory. She returned to New York and started working on indie sets, interning as a grip and electric intern while also waitressing and temping at a hedge fund. She worked her way up through key grip roles and assistant camera positions and eventually began establishing herself as a director of photography with films like Frozen River and The Magic of Belle Isle. Frozen River, particularly, established Morano as a force to be reckoned with, winning the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and also racking up seven Indie Spirit nominations and a nomination for an Academy Award.

Morano’s work on the 2013 Allen Ginsberg biopic Kill Your Darlings increased her profile and the same year she was asked to join the American Society of Cinematographers. As of her joining the guild, Morano was the youngest member and one of only 14 female members (out of a membership of 345).

In 2015, after having fought off cancer the previous year, Morano made her directorial debut with the heartbreaking and critically-acclaimed drama Meadowland which premiered at Tribeca to high praise. She also entered into a high profile collaboration with Beyoncé, being brought on to handle the cinematography for “Sandcastles” for the 2016 visual album Lemonade.

With 2017 came yet another remarkable achievement in Reed Morano’s already star-studded career. She’d been brought on work on the cinematography for Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale but became interested in directing after seeing a copy of the pilot script. She was told, “Don’t get too excited about it,” as there was already a “very big male director” who was probably going to be signed on. Morano didn’t let this news dissuade her and she reached out to her friend and producer on the show Elisabeth Moss. A week and a half later she got the call to come in and pitch her vision. She only had three days' notice, but she assembled a pitch deck that wowed the producers and she was brought on to direct and executive producer the first three episodes of the series.

Morano’s work on a show she initially wasn’t even supposed to direct earned her an Emmy as well as a Director’s Guild Award, making her the first woman to win an Emmy for directing a drama series in 22 years (Mimi Leder was the last woman, honored for directing an episode of ER in 1995) and the first woman to be recognized for her work with both awards. Since then Morano has been on a roll. Most recently, Morano has been fending off rumors after a meeting with Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy that she’s in talks to direct a film in the Star Wars franchise.

Regardless of whether that rumor has some truth to it, Morano has already signed on to another major project. EON Productions, the same production company that’s behind the James Bond movies, has brought Morano on to direct the $50 million dollar assassin movie, The Rhythm Section, about a female intelligence agent named Stephanie Patrick who learns that the plane crash that killed her family was not actually an accident. Potentially a franchise, it would be the company’s only one besides Bond. Recognizing that she is a female director working with a female lead in a male-dominated genre, Morano is looking forward to doing something different with the series. “Whenever a woman wields a gun in a film, it ends up looking like they're trying to be sexy rather than they actually know what they're doing. It’s very cartoony. It never feels real and raw and gritty, and so this movie is what would happen if you put a real woman in those scenarios.”