The Handmaid's Tale Director Breaks Down the Funeral Scene

Hi, my name's Kari Skogland

and I'm the director for Handmaid Tale

episode seven, called After.

(light piano music)

♪ My life don't count for nothing ♪

♪ I looked at-- ♪

So this opening shot was very important to me

to have a very bird's eye view.

So we send a drone up to scout where we were going

to find this little stand of trees.

We had set the entire scene on actually a golf course.

And the golf course you can see is further down there.

The reason for that was 'cause I wanted some scale and scope

to the level of hills which suggested in you know,

the classic military style graveyards.

You can see here in the framing,

it was very important to me that we had this juxtaposition

of the weapons, which were you know,

foreground and black with the passing red.

I like what I call heavy air,

which means the air is active.

And so whether it's wind or rain or snow,

it creates a certain mood.

So it was very important to me in this scene

that we also had snow.

In this case isn't wasn't blowing too much,

it was sad air, I called it.

Then you can see that was to introduce

this much more military presence

that was always pervasive in Gilead.

You know and the military vehicles,

which you get just wind of.

That for this whole episode it was very important

that we got the feel that they were absolutely locked down.

And that these women were now to be protected

because they were so precious.

♪ September, no one will come ♪

So we had lots of discussions about how to bring

the procession in.

I think I went through several ideas

of horses leading them in and the classic military funeral

but we ended up on the saddest thing,

was a single drummer.

I use a lot of drone to take them in

so that they are small people, big space.

And then we used steady cam and the show in general

uses quite a bit of steady cam.

I had four cameras this day.

And a 50 foot techno because we wanted to get

over, out and over.

This shot here would have been using

the techno actually moving across the foreground

of these crosses while in the background

you can see they're slightly soft.

So the notion was also using focal plains

to really decide where the eyeball wants to look

and what we want to get out of the imagery.

So you can see it's more impressionistic as a result.

As you can also see, we were wanting a very specific

feeling of where the color red is.

And where the military is.

I was trying to use as much negative space

or call it open space to give the sense of scope and scale.

Always little people in a big, vast universe.

♪ My life don't count for nothing ♪

Alright, so this drone shot was particularly important

to really get a sense of the setup,

the nature of the set.

We got there on the day and this center one

originally had been black.

And we got up to this view that you're looking at now,

and Lydia, who eventually gets up there,

was wearing a dark costume and so it was black against black

so we couldn't see her.

So we had a quick con fab

and decided we would cover it with red.

Which of course was quite a bit of a hustle

because we were in the middle of a golf course

and where were we gonna get red you know, covering?

And then when we got it of course it was a bit of a mess.

Because we couldn't, you know,

we were doing it in the moment.

You'll notice that on each coffin is a twig of pine.

And we put pine around here as well.

Pine is a very symbolic tree.

Meaning something different in all cultures.

In the native community it can mean longevity,

it can mean peace.

And so I felt the symbolism of sort of breaking up

the starkness with these twigs

gave it another layer of story to what this whole moment

of the funeral was going to be about.

(light serene music)

[Lydia] Oh Lord, when we are lost and sick at heart.

[Handmaids] We will remember them.

(light serene music)

[Lydia] When we are weary and in need of strength.

[Handmaids] We will remember them.

(light serene music)

[Lydia] So long as we live,

they too shall live.

Up til now, we have not seen a face.

All of these veils were very carefully designed

for the whole walk toward

that these women had been rendered faceless and anonymous.

And that's a major theme of not only the show,

but this particular episode.

And now you can see our little plan here

of the twigs which also become revealed.

And our ants over here.

So the whole idea was that everything

was very graphically lined up.

This particular angle is from the techno

and the techno was also always moving.

So it always felt like this world was shifting

and that we were discovering other parts to this scene.

Lydia is often portrayed, well is always portrayed

as this heinous character.

And I felt in this particular environment,

we needed to understand that for all of her tough love,

she actually loves her girls more than life itself.

And for her, this was a huge loss.

Girls.

(light serene music)

You can just barely see through those veils.

These hats are fantastic for all of the characters

who use them regularly to play with the camera

as to how much we can and can't see.

And you'll notice that throughout the series

and in particular Lizzie

will show pars of her face.

It's always feeling like the anonymity and the peekaboo

quality of these hats is either working against us

or working for us.

This was all about this moment here.

And revealing off writ that she was indeed alive

and had survived.

So, and again, you can see how she is using the frame

to reveal a very particular part of her face.

And this is very much Lizzie understanding the camera

and really working with it.

So I wanted this to have a dreamlike quality.

So it was snapshots of a much longer event.

And also to capture the longer story

of how she was, what she was going though in this moment.

So to capture this, we had the 50 foot techno,

because of course she was raised up,

quite deep in the back.

And it was moving around Lydia as she was turning

because she was talking to all the girls.

And at the same time we had a steady cam

down on the ground, which was looking at Lizzie.

Lizzie's shot now became all about these.

The show is very much about finding those moments.

Those intense moments.

And the wonderful thing about working with Lizzie,

with Anne, with all of the actors

is that it becomes a dance between the camera

and the emotional context and the mood

and everybody plays together like an incredible,

orchestrated dance.

(light serene music)

(echoed chanting)

The whole setup of this scene

was to capture that moment.

And it speaks volumes to what Gilead,

what the shared emotion of not only the scene,

but of Gilead itself is in this particular moment.

We went from the bombing.

It was how to get us to a place of such mournful sadness

and with such simplicity.

And of course who do we look to but Elizabeth Moss

who can do it like no other.