Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546033
and its sequel The Testaments are written through first-person perspective. While The Handmaid's Tale describes a world through the eyes of the enslaved Handmaid June, The Testaments shifts between the perspective of three characters. We decided to use character perspective to define the series and shape a new visual language. The design task for The Testaments was to re- envision Gilead from the eyes of the girls growing up there who knew nothing of the world before. To Gilead's children, the world felt normal, safe, abundant and free. To these children, Gilead was beautiful. The Handmaid's Tale told through the eyes of June reflected her enslaved reality. The Waterford house was a dark, Victorian prison with beautiful streams of light from an outside beyond the viewer's eye. Windows cut shapes of light that backlit June and heightened the feeling of wanting to escape. The sense of imprisonment these sets created reflected June's position. Agnes' perspective portrays Gilead as an ideal world for her character. The girls in our story are nurtured and privileged—the daughters of powerful and wealthy commanders. They grow up pampered and provided for, protected by God and country from evils that might harm them. Or so they believe. One of the first things I discussed with director Mike Barker and cinematographer Greta Zozula was how to use color and light to distinguish the new, young perspective. Greta came to the show with a brilliant vision of frames saturated in color and dappled in pockets of golden light. Mike brought ideas about blocking and views from inside to out, creating a sense of expansive freedom. I offered specific reference ideas that steered the school our characters attend away from gray Gothic-inspired, moody spaces in the vein of Harry Potter or Wednesday. Color in the series is heavily dictated by Atwood and central to the story. Each class of character in Gilead is defined by a monochromatic uniform of a particular A. LYDIA ACADEMY LOBBY. PRODUCTION STILL. B. LYDIA ACADEMY EXTERIOR. PRODUCITON STILL. B A