Guardians of the Handmaid's Tale

Something almost magical happens when the right artists and creatives find each other. The Handmaid's Tale is evidence of that magic. This year’s explosive fourth season was nominated for a staggering 21 Emmy Awards. Listen in to hear how the team collaborated to make it, plus the emotional and intuitive impulses that informed the creative process. In this episode, we're joined by Handmaid's creator and EP Bruce Miller, lead actor and Director Elisabeth Moss, and DGC Ontario Picture Editors Wendy Hallam-Martin and Christopher Donaldson.

Show Notes

The first episode of WIDER LENS centres around Hulu’s wildly successful series The Handmaid’s Tale. Guests Bruce Miller (Creator & Executive Producer), Elisabeth Moss (Director/EP/Actor), DGC Ontario Picture Editors Wendy Hallam Martin and Christopher Donaldson, and host Annie Bradley deep-dive into how this team collaborated to create the show’s most explosive season yet, nominated for a staggering 21 Emmy Awards.

“The world is changing, and so much is uncertain...except for our thirst for storytelling,” says host Annie Bradley. “Production is trending upwards in meteoric fashion across the globe, and it’s our mission to champion the brilliant creative voices we represent. What better way to do that than to have deep, insightful conversations about their life’s work delivered straight to your headphones?”

To catch up with every episode of The Handmaid’s Tale, Seasons 1-4 are available now to watch on Hulu and Crave:

https://www.hulu.com/series/the-handmaids-tale-565d8976-9d26-4e63-866c-40f8a137ce5f

https://www.crave.ca/en/tv-shows/the-handmaids-tale

Also discussed in this episode is Elisabeth Moss’ directorial debut on The Handmaid’s Tale. The three episodes of Season 4 directed by Elisabeth Moss are "The Crossing", edited by Wendy Hallam Martin (who was nominated for a 2021 Editing Award for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing For A Drama Series and previously won in this same category in 2018), "Testimony", edited by Wendy Hallam Martin, and "Progress", edited by Christopher Donaldson. Elisabeth previously spoke about stepping into the director’s chair for Season 4 in this New York Times interview: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/arts/television/elisabeth-moss-the-handmaids-tale.html

Our interview today takes an in-depth look at the intuition and collaboration that goes into editing a typical episode of The Handmaid’s Tale. The quote Annie refers to when speaking to Wendy about her editing style can be found in this 2018 Shoot Online interview: https://www.shootonline.com/news/wendy-hallam-martin-embraces-different-editing-approach-handmaids-tale

"This show cuts like no other show I've ever done before...You cut for the emotion. You really have to know where June or Offred's head is a hundred percent of the time... You hang on shots a lot more than you normally would. You don't always cut to reactions. It's hard to put into words. You have to feel it. You have to have a gut reaction as to how it should be cut. You can end up hanging on a closeup most of the time. Or you cut wide. You don't do overlapping dialogue. You throw out what you've learned over the years to show emotion, to help evoke empathy."

Wendy and Chris previously spoke about their work editing The Handmaid’s Tale in this 2018 Art of the Cut interview: https://www.provideocoalition.com/aotc-handmaid/

The Handmaid's Tale has been nominated for a total of 75 Emmy Awards, including 21 Emmy Award nominations in 2021. Along with Wendy's nomination, DGC Ontario Production Designer Elisabeth Williams, DGC Ontario Art Director Martha Sparrow, and DGC Ontario Art Director Larry Spittle were also nominated for Outstanding Production Design For A Narrative Contemporary Program (One Hour Or More). Wendy Hallam Martin previously won the award for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing For A Drama Series in 2018, and Elisabeth Williams and Martha Sparrow previously won the award for Outstanding Production Design For A Narrative Contemporary Program (One Hour Or More) in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Visit https://www.emmys.com/shows/handmaids-tale to see the many Emmy accolades awarded to The Handmaid’s Tale.

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