breaking
The New York Dolls might of ten on those student movies, the
call it a personality crisis, only person who was seeing what they
BACKSTORY: A visionary cinematographer for sure-sighted indies like The Skeleton Twins
and the first season of HBO’s Looking
FROM: Born in Nebraska, but raised and based in New York
YOU MIGHT KNOW HER FROM: Her directorial debut Meadowland, which earned her a
nomination for Best Cinematography at the 2016 Spirit Awards
NOW: Back behind the lens for the first season of Vinyl, Martin Scorsese and
Mick Jagger’s NYC rock and roll series, and developing her next directorial project,
Lioness, starring Ellen Page
but for Reed Morano, acting as both
were shooting was the [director of
the director and cinematographer of a
photography]—and I thought, ‘Welp, I
feature film was nothing but instinctual.
want that job.’” Fast-forward through
That’s how she made Meadowland—a
a jam-packed post-grad résumé of
transformative drama dealing with the
elite cinematography projects (Frozen
repercussions of loss, and a project
River, LCD Soundsystem’s Shut Up and
that functioned as her directorial debut,
Play the Hits documentary, and Kill Your
turning quite a few heads in the process.
Darlings, to cherry-pick a few), and
One of those impressed was Martin
that brings us back to Meadowland,
Scorsese, who hired Morano as the lead
and back to directing—an interest
cinematographer on the first season
that was long-simmering for Morano,
of Vinyl, his 1970s-set music industry
eventually manifesting itself as less
drama series developed for HBO with
of a turning point and more of a fully
the help of none other than Mick Jagger.
realized version of her career.
How’s that for too much too soon?
REED
MORANO
“It feels very natural [to be the
Morano was game for the challenge,
director and cinematographer],” she
of course, and a perfect fit, anyway, for
explains, “because they go hand in
a show about rock stars—particularly
hand. Where the camera is placed,
since she’s something of one herself.
how the light affects the mood, and
Out of its three-hundred-plus members,
how personal the journey you decide
she’s one of only fourteen women in the
to take with your subject are all hugely
American Society of Cinematographers,
important details that inform how the
and, at 38, one of the two youngest
audience will take what you are giving
members in the whole organization. We