Featuring an all-star cast of Julianne Moore, Meghann Fahy, Milly Alcock and Kevin Bacon, Sirens tells the story of two sisters in a darkly funny, twisty and sexy exploration of women, power and class. It kicks off with a great premise: older sister Devon (Fahy) travels to a lavish island estate where her impressionable younger sister Simone (Alcock) has taken a job with bird-obsessed socialite Michaela Kell (Moore), who’s married to billionaire Peter Kell (Bacon). Michaela’s cultish life of luxury is like a drug to Simone, and Devon decides it’s time for an intervention. However, she has no idea what a formidable opponent Michaela will be.
Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Nicole Kassell, whose credits include Watchman,
Westworld,
The Killing and
The Americans, directed the first two episodes of the mini-series, and also served as executive producer.
Photo (L-R): Showrunner Molly Smith Metzler and director Nicole Kassell
Here, in an exclusive interview with Post, Kassel talks about making the hit show and her love of post.
What was the appeal of this project?
“The appeal was definitely creator/writer Molly Smith Metzler and her screenplay. I knew her work, like “Maid,” so I was really excited to read the screenplay, and I just loved that it was female-forward. And while it was zany and wild, it was also tackling deep, emotional relationships between women. And as one of three sisters myself, this trio of women was very interesting to me. I felt it hit all these boxes that I look for: a personal connection, visual fireworks inspired by the words, and thought-provoking subject matter.”
What were the big technical challenges of pulling this together?
“First, making a house look like that billionaire’s compound, because that house that you see on-screen does not exist, and you’re on a budget, so you’re trying to make it look like a billion dollars. It was a big task between production design and visual effects. Then, the other one, and this is through the lens of post production, is Barnaby the hawk, and making that bird be as believable as possible.”
What was involved in prep?
“I worked very closely with Molly on everything, starting with all the location scouting, as the first thing was searching for the right house. We looked in the Boston area, Cape Cod, New York and Long Island to figure out how we could create this island and find this house. We finally found the right one in New York, and from that point forward I just started forensically going through the script with Molly, as my job is to try and download her brain into mine and to ask tonal questions, character questions, backstory. I try and stay extremely transparent in my process so that she, the producers and Netflix know exactly what they’re getting visually.”
Talk about setting the look with your go-to DP Greg Middleton.
“I've worked with him for over 13 years now. We met on The Killing, and then I brought him on to Watchmen, and he was my first choice when I signed on to this, and I just love how his brain works. His lighting is exquisite, but he also deeply cares about performance, and I just knew he would dig into it with me in the way that matters. In terms of setting the look, I knew from the beginning there was a word that was the touchstone to this world - ‘uncanny’ - and while we wanted it to be believable and real, we looked for any opportunities to unsettle the viewer, or lean into the mystery, and across all departments.
“Production design had a blast with that in terms of the oddness of some of the sculptural work, and for that moment when Devon first arrives on this pristine island looking like a hot mess, I wanted her to feel like an alien in that setting. And because it's also comedy, I wanted to make everything slightly heightened, so the palette is all super-pink or blue, and these pastels just vibrate. Then with each character, we were just pushing the envelope. For instance, with Michaela's character, she's like a goddess, and immediately I see in my mind's eye Julianne Moore walking in this gown to release a hawk, and it doesn't make any sense. It's the most impractical outfit to wear out in nature. But again, it's leaning into the theme of sirens and all the Greek mythology.
Photo (L-R): Showrunner Molly Smith Metzler and director Nicole Kassell
“One of my favorite sequences is the funeral parade for a bird, and I immediately thought of Fellini’s films, and I wanted these people in pastel dresses, parading through the woods, and making it slightly absurd.”
You must have integrated all the visual effects and a lot of the post very early on?
“Absolutely, and our first hires were the production designer, DP and VFX team. And the VFX team came into play almost immediately. But even before we had the VFX supervisor on-board, we were planning where we’d need VFX and what we would need to build to minimize VFX when we were shooting practically outside.”
How tough was the shoot?
“I had about 30 days for those first two episodes, so it was definitely tough as we had long days and we were moving around to a lot of different locations, but it was so much fun.”
Where did you do all the post and tell us about the editing process?
“It was all based in LA at A Frame Post, and we had a staff of three editors - Kate Haight, Laura Zempel and Isaac Hagy - who split up all the episodes. I worked with Kate and Laura on Episodes 1 and 2, and they were working at the same time while I was filming, and we were sending dailies. We’d talk a bit, but when I shoot, I have a really hard time also being in post. So, before I went into production, I had a call with them to discuss certain transitions I was already thinking about and tools I wanted to use, like dissolves. And when I sent dailies, sometimes I would send a note with the scene, saying, ‘This is how I am picturing the transition in and out.’ And it was thrilling to plant that seed because it grew organically from there. There's an example in Episode 1 when we cut from Simone to Devon in the car, and the editor did it through a dissolve. And that was one spot where I hadn't intended one, but it worked so well, and I just loved it as it showed that just by planting that seed and inviting the editors to try out ideas, they always do discover things you don't anticipate.”
What were the main editing challenges?
“Finding the right tone was the big one, for sure. The show could have gone really weird or really broad. Is there really a cult? Is it horror? So, finding that line and the right tone was the conversation from day one. How do you handle the tone? And you're always walking that razor's edge, and it influenced everything all the way through post, even down to the color timing and the score. The slightest hair this way or that way could throw it off.”
What was the most difficult scene to cut, and why?
“I don't know that it was the most difficult, but probably one of the most essential scenes was the first time the sisters come together and they clash out front of the house, as it's so vital to setting up the dynamic and information that we have about them. There was a version where it took out the sister tattoo moment and then we realized that taking that away also took away a sense of their history. It took a lot of shading because it sets up so much for the rest of the series, and it took many versions to land on the right one.”
What do you love most about post?
“It's the final rewrite, and that's why the editors and writers are deeply involved there as well, because it is writing. Then, I love crafting performance and finding exhilarating transitions, and I love designing those through pre-production and then post. I also think sound design and score are such a massive layer in the experience, and it's the most painful part of the script phase to me where you can't telegraph to people what you're hearing in your head. I wanted to literally give our women a melody, a theme to hum that is their siren call. So, we hired composer Michael Abels early, and he sent a test piece that just nailed it.
“Using sound to me is essential and a big part of how I choreograph scene designs. I just love being involved in sound. And again, that question of creating that sense of the ‘uncanny,’ of how much to push certain feelings in a scene - sound is just essential to how it plays. And it’s hard filming those scenes without having the sound, so being in the post production room to be part of bringing that all together is so thrilling to me.
“We did the sound mix on the lot at Warner Bros., and we had a great team, including Onnalee Blank, the supervising sound editor, and Ben Cook and Shaughnessy Hare, our supervising sound designers and mixers. I didn't direct every episode, but I stayed involved in post production as an executive producer across all five episodes, so I was seeing every cut and weighing in on all the VFX and the DI.”
Tell us about the visual effects.
“Crafty Apes did all of them. Leslie Chung was our VFX supervisor and to me she's as essential as any key department head. As soon as I have my DP and my AD, I need that visual effects supervisor with me. Just like the production designer and prop master, she becomes a part of the inner core that is out location scouting and troubleshooting everything from the beginning.
“The very first thing we talked about was tackling the house, and taking the production design and deciding how to enhance it. The interior of that house was built entirely on-stage, so finding our transitions from inside to outside and what VFX were needed was a constant conversation. Then we used VFX to build out the bird perch and we did a lot with the live hawk. And we did a lot of sky replacements to make the clouds more beautiful or the sky bluer. We also used VFX to make the main house look more isolated, as in reality there were other farms nearby that you could still see. We also did some day for night work, like when Michaela's standing on the edge of the cliff at the end.”
Where did you do the DI?
“At Harbor Picture Company in LA with colorist Andrea Chlebak, whom Greg's worked with repeatedly. Greg was meticulous and set a LUT that was very beautiful, so when we were working with dailies it was already gorgeous, and we had some incredible sunrises and sunsets. Then they really massaged all those shots and did a lot of fine tuning on the colors, and I’m so happy with the way it turned out.”