How ‘A Quiet Place Part II’ Cinematographer Polly Morgan Channeled Spielberg to Craft an Intimate Spectacle (2023)

Two things are very clear from watching A Quiet Place and the horror film’s recently released sequel A Quiet Place Part II: Writer/director John Krasinski is an admirer of filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s craft, and he is keenly able to take his inspiration from Spielberg’s blockbusters and apply that to his own filmmaking style. The combination of awe, fear, and emotion that charges films like Jaws and E.T. runs deeply through these Quiet Place films, while they’re also able to stand as their own, distinct, successful films.

But ideas are just ideas. Putting them into action requires great skill, and for A Quiet Place Part II Krasinski enlisted cinematographer Polly Morgan to lens a story that was grander in scope but no less emotional than its predecessor. While A Quiet Place Part II marks Morgan’s biggest project to date, she’s had a bevy of experience on projects as varied as the documentary Holy Hell, the addiction drama 6 Balloons, the visually ambitious FX series Legion, and Noah Hawley’s equally ambitious feature debut Lucy in the Sky. In short, Morgan is comfortable meeting a variety of challenges, and A Quiet Place 2 offered her biggest one yet.

The sequel expands the story set up in A Quiet Place to new locations both intimate and wide-reaching, as Emily Blunt’s Evelyn Abbott is forced to seek help from an old friend named Emmett (Cillian Murphy) while trying to survive this dangerous terrain with a newborn and two children. What sets A Quiet Place 2 apart visually and thematically is that it shifts the point of view to Evelyn’s kids, Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe), who are forced to take charge and find a way forward in this horrifying new world.

It’s here where the Spielberg influence comes in, as the legendary filmmaker had a knack for telling stories from the point of view of kids in a relatable and emotional way, and Krasinski and Morgan brilliantly keep A Quiet Place Part II’s focus on what Regan and Marcus are thinking and feeling even as terrifying monsters wreak havoc.

I recently had the chance to speak with Morgan by phone about her excellent, character-focused work on A Quiet Place Part II, and she spoke at length about how she and Krasinski derived influence from Spielberg for the film’s oners, as well as the film’s emotional intimacy as it relates to the kids’ POVs. She also broke down how they put together that phenomenal opening flashback sequence, and what it was like tackling a sequel that felt of a piece with cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen’s work on the first film but also forged new territory. She discussed what Krasinski is like as a director collaborator, how they tackled that finale sequence, and even revealed that they shot a post-credits scene that Krasinski ended up not including in the film. We also talked about what Morgan took away from this experience, and what kinds of projects she wants to tackle in the future – which includes an adaptation of the novel Where the Crawdads Sing, which is currently in production.

It’s an insightful and fascinating conversation with someone who’s sure to continue doing great and exciting work in this field for many, many years to come, about a sequel that succeeds in meeting expectations while also taking the story in unexpected – and unexpectedly emotional – directions.

How did this project come your way in the first place?

POLLY MORGAN: It was just as simple as my agent called me and they sent along the script. I was a big fan of the first movie and I wasn't initially sure about doing a sequel, especially a sequel of such a hit movie. It was kind of intimidating, but it was really beautifully written. John very much wrote it how he saw it and so, for a cinematographer, it was a very enticing script to read just the way that he described all the locations and just built the world out. Then also, it had so much heart to it with the journey of this family. So even though I wasn't immediately excited, as soon as I read it, I knew it was something that I wanted to do.

You mention it being a sequel and it feels of a part with the first film but it also feels distinct, and I was kind of curious what your early conversations with John were like about how the film should look, because I know you're following in Charlotte Bruus Christensen’s footsteps of her work on the first one.

MORGAN: Yeah. And obviously her work was so beautiful. My conversations with John, as far as the look of film, were just very much in line with the story, how he wanted to expand the world. The first film was obviously more intimate. It had taken place basically in and around their farmhouse and now he needed to go and explore new lands and take different characters for the journey that they all had.

So we talked a lot about how to move the camera. There's a lot more dynamic movement in this movie compared to the first one. So we just talked a lot about how we would approach that, how would we approach shooting an action movie, but at all times staying very much subjected to the characters and that he never wanted to lose its heart.

And I think that's maybe why the first movie was so special because there's obviously so many different genre movies out there and everyone loves horror, but this was different because it was so much about these characters. I think especially with Millicent’s character in the first one, with her being deaf and the way that Charlotte and John thought about that, you really felt like because of the closeness to the camera, to her, and because of the loss of sounds, you really felt like you were experiencing that world very clearly with her.

So that was something that we wanted to continue but also expand upon. We looked at a variety of different films as references early on. We looked at Children of Men for the action in the car sequence. We looked at War of the Worlds just for that beginning, Day 1 prologue. We also looked back to the references that he shared with Charlotte which is like Jaws. Obviously, Steven Spielberg is one of the reasons that John wanted to get into filmmaking. So it's just such a big inspiration for him. We looked at Jurassic Park and the movies that we all grew up watching. He wanted to keep that feeling of nostalgia, but he wanted to take it somewhere. He didn't want to make the same movie. He knew he was under a lot of pressure to make a good follow-up film and I think that we put our heads together and came up with a plan of how we could elevate the second one with the dynamic camera movement that matched the characters.

Also for me, I just wanted people to be able to watch these movies back to back and the lighting style, especially at the start of the film, I wanted it to be very much in line with Charlotte's work, because I didn't want people to be drawn out of the experience by any changes. Then, once we left the farmhouse, obviously I just had a little bit more creative freedom to just lean into how I would do things as they discovered new places.

When I was leaving the film, one of the first movies I thought about was Spielberg's War of the Worlds. So I'm glad to know I'm not crazy there.

MORGAN: No, no. Not at all.

In a great way because I mean that film is entirely subjective as well, told entirely through the point of view of the characters and I really loved that aspect of this film.

MORGAN: Actually, I think one of those things that Steven Spielberg is so good at is, like with E.T. or even War of the Worlds, when you look at those films, you're with the children. There's this magical world that he was able to create and you're down there and you're experiencing the world from their point of view. I think that, as a child and with John, we grew up watching those movies and I think he really wanted, especially when I think about the immersive quality of even the War of the Worlds, they also did a car sequence just like Cuaron did in Children of Men. And I think that, unlike Cuaron, Steven Spielberg did that one when they were trying to run away from the first attack in War of the Worlds, he did that green screen. And then, Alfonso Cuaron took it and did it practically and so we just took that one step further.

I did want to talk about the opening flashback sequence because I think it's a really stunning piece of filmmaking, but something I really love about this movie is the kind of prevalence of essentially a Spielberg oner or long takes that don't really draw too much attention to themselves because in Spielberg's filmography, you don't notice his oners a lot of the time because they're entirely motivated by character. They’re subtle. That's something that I found was really prevalent throughout this film, especially in that flashback sequence.

MORGAN: Yeah. I think, especially in Day 1, it's all about creating the right rhythm for the viewer and lulling them into a sense of security at the beginning. With many other filmmakers, as a cinematographer, we talk about shooting scenes in one shot and then often you get to set and it's like, okay, well, let's get a second angle just to be safe, just in case I need to make it quick when we edit or if there's some problem that we need to fix. But with John, we can see this idea of pace and rhythm at the beginning and how he would execute Day 1 and how we would kind of draw the viewer in and then you kind of draw them in and then you don't let them go.

That's the thing I felt on the first one, which he successfully did in the second one too, which is really, once the film starts, you're just on the edge of your seat until it ends. And I think with the prologue, when he leaves the store and he walks to the baseball field and it's all in one shot, and then when they return from the baseball field, we just can see these sort of long takes and it was very much based on not wanting to cut away from these characters' experiences because it would dilute the tension somehow.

We sort of can see things that, what was the source of the jeopardy, and the character in jeopardy in the same frame, so that there was no escape for the viewer. And we shot these long shots, and we never got any coverage. And obviously one of the most complicated oners was just being inside the Volvo with Evelyn and the kids, when she was driving home. And again, it was very much how John wrote it. As soon as I read it I was like, of course we have to be in the car with them. And then it was just really a puzzle in prep to just figure out how we were going to pull it off.

Yeah. I saw John say that I believe that Emily didn't prep for that, she got in the car and just reacted all live. That was her first take.

MORGAN: Yes, it was. Yeah. We ended up only doing two takes of that whole thing. But the first take was the one that was used.

That's amazing. And I'm sure very stressful for you, as a cinematographer trying to put that whole thing together.

MORGAN: Yeah. I mean, it was very complicated, but it's one of those things about filmmaking. I mean, this was my biggest movie to date, and there was a lot of things in it that I'd never done before, but it's such a collaboration. And I think even when I worked on the TV show Legion, there were so many things that in that show I hadn't done before, but you just get all these brilliant people together in a room and you try and figure it out, and it's a bit of a process. But you feel so wonderful when you actually see it happening in front of you on the day, and you just know that it was because everybody really worked hard to make it come together.

Yeah, well and Legion feels like a bit of a trial by fire, because that show is just visually stunning, but I'm sure it's very complicated.

MORGAN: Yeah. I mean, again, it's exciting, I think for cinematographers to read scripts where there's such complicated set pieces or sequences that happen, that you really initially have no idea how you're going to do it, and then your imagination has to take over and you have to think of creative ways — especially on a TV show — that it can be done quite quickly, and you have to have the resources available to help you do it. But I think it's wonderful to be able to work on things where, in A Quiet Place, some of my favorite scenes were just the intimate scenes between Emily and Noah. Or with Emily and the baby, the real, small, quieter moments. But I think also as a cinematographer to balance out shooting wonderful performance with really complicated sequences, is a lot of fun.

Well and that's one of the things I think makes these two films so successful and special is that John, he nails the emotion so tremendously. And that was one of the things I was curious about is, you have these complicated set pieces, but you also have these wonderfully emotional intimate scenes, which are really the foundation of the story. Just from a production standpoint, and working with John as a filmmaker, did you guys have a ton of time to nail those emotional scenes, as well as the big effects driven stuff? Or was the schedule a bit tighter?

MORGAN: Yeah. I mean, I think unfortunately we didn't really have much time for either, because we shot it in 50 days and we had so much night exteriors, and we were in upstate New York. So we didn't have a lot of night hours. And we also had two minors as our principal, so time was always tight. But I think that John did always make sure that he did give enough time to the performance, and I think it's really just creating that environment. We shot it on film and I think that there was never any worry for him about, oh my gosh, we've only got this much stock, I'm only going to do this many takes or whatever. I think when one of the actors asked for another take, or when he just wanted to make sure he got it, he really gave everything to the really heavy performance scenes. And especially in the underground room, in the steel mill, there were a lot of really heavy emotional scenes in there. And we spent a lot of time and he did focus a lot of his energy on that stuff.

What is he like just as a collaborator, from your perspective as a cinematographer? Is he very specific about shot composition, and is he shot listing?

MORGAN: Well it's so interesting because every director I work with, they just all have a different approach that works for them. And John is not someone that likes to shot list, or to storyboard. We were lucky that we locked our locations pretty early on, when we did our first directors scout with production designer, Jess Gonchor, he had just nailed the location. It was difficult because he showed us so many amazing locations that it was hard to choose. But as soon as he'd made that decision, that's where the three of us spent a lot of our prep time. So, we would talk a lot about the characters’ blocking, and how we would move the camera, and he really just trusts me, and lets me sort of like figure out the tools that I needed, and how I would execute it.

And then we got Matt Moriarty, who's a fabulous A camera operator to come and work with us. And he had worked with John before, so that relationship was really important. And I think that John is very specific when he works with the camera, because I think, like I said, he'd obviously really visualized this movie when he was writing it. He had a really clear idea of how he saw it in his mind. So we worked with the camera with him, and then as far as the lighting, we talked about the tones, and the sources, and I had these conversations with him in prep. And then I just got on with that work, and then we mainly shot single camera, and then every now and again, we put another camera on it, especially in the marina sequence. But yeah, he's a very prepped director, but it's all very much in his mind's eye.

Well, and I think that's abundantly clear in the sequences that use cross-cutting to kind of amp up that tension, which I think works really well. But I was curious what that was like from your perspective. Were those sequences kind of designed in camera? Was the cross cutting really specifically in mind as it was being shot?

MORGAN: Yeah, I mean, it's hard for me to remember exactly now. I do remember clearly that if that is exactly how it was scripted, obviously I know the wonders that go on in the editing room. And I think that Michael Shaver did amazing work, but like I said, it was very clear when we were shooting that that was the conceit and that the whole sort of structure of the film was going to be that, rather than the parents protecting the kids, this was a film where they grew up and they had to go out on their own, and they had to handle things separately from their parents. And so each character had their own journey to go on. And then we would intercut between them, and I think screen direction, and sort of talking about the end sequence with Marcus and Milli, and how we would intercut between those moments that, she basically figures out how to forecast the signal.

And then he obviously turns up the radio, and how John was very specifically building up those beats, to build up the emotion, and just really just take the viewer at the end, so that when Milli does go there at the end, and kind of lops off the creature's head that, it's just like in the classic film Rocky, when he runs up the stairs, you've been built up emotionally to just really feel with this character, and just to be really emotionally involved. And I think that was a very clear design point.

I really loved that finale. I also really loved the color you got to bring in one once you guys were in that radio station.

MORGAN: Yeah. I mean, it was just a lot of fun because obviously we really motivated all of our sources from the natural world, because we talked a lot about electricity, and what would have happened, and is it still going, or has it died out? And obviously you wanted to say that no one had turned off the electricity, but most of the bulbs had burned out, but the radio station was something that this community on the island had kind of preserved, and it just was able to really amplify that moment with her, just to be able to bring in some color.

Like the first movie, this ends on a shot where you don't exhale until the credits come up, holding all that tension. And I was curious for you, was it very specifically, this is the final shot of the film, as you're pushing in on Milli or was that just another shot on another day that John just chose as the finale or the ending?

MORGAN: I mean, again, it was all very much in the script, which is pretty amazing, but all of that was very clear in his writing. There was, I don't know if he's mentioned this before, but there was another little teaser, a scene that may have played at the end of the credits, which never got put in the final movie. But that was going to be like a little scene that was going to follow on from that, just the kind of maybe tease the viewer to a sequel or just to help kind of show that there was more life out there, but they decided to leave that out of the cut.

I saw that Jeff Nichols' movie got a release date. I love the idea of kind of expanding that universe with another filmmaker now.

MORGAN: Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting because I'm sure you read this too, but it was difficult for John to come on and do the sequel, and I don't think he initially wanted to. And then of course he got so involved in it that he couldn't step away, but I think that this first sequel, it might not be a direct continuation, but I think that Jeff Nichols is a wonderful filmmaker.

You said this is the biggest film you've been on. What did you kind of take away from this experience? It's been a few years now, I know everything kind of paused. But what did you take from this experience, good or bad, that kind of maybe has refined your approach or what you're looking to do in your career next?

MORGAN: Yeah, I mean, I think it gave me a lot of confidence. I think that the bigger the movie is, sort of the more that as a cinematographer, your work just kind of has to get spread out from dealing with rigors and prep, and then the people in production, but you're kind of always going to be a leader, a manager of people, but when the numbers get bigger and bigger, it's kind of like directing traffic a little bit. And,I think that even coming on from a TV show like Legion, and then Lucy in the Sky, going through those projects really built my confidence in all the different tools that are available nowadays to move the camera, and being able to always read the script, and think of the story, and be able to have an arsenal of experience now to really think about what's the best tool that I can use to tell this story. And I think that that's really exciting.

I mean, I think when I finished A Quiet Place, it was my intention to go and do a much smaller movie. I didn't want to necessarily go straight on and do another bigger budget. I wanted to sort of just return to something smaller and switch it up like DPs like Matty Libatique or Seamus McGarvey, I've always kind of admired them for balancing out between studio films and lower budget movies. And I think that's what really interests me. I think even for me to get back behind the camera, myself and operate, I think when I've worked with fantastic operators like Matt Moriarty, or Mitch Dubin that I'm working with at the moment, they execute shots that I never could do myself. Or if I did, it would take me a long time to be able to nail it. And I can tell them an idea and they will execute it brilliantly in a really timely manner.

So that's very exciting for me as a filmmaker, but I also miss looking at a scene through a lens. And so I never got to do the movie that I said I wanted to do because COVID hit. And then when it did get rescheduled, I was about to have a baby. So it didn't happen. And then now I'm on another kind of higher budget studio film, but I do think moving forward that for me, I want to be able to move between budget ranges, and do smaller stuff. And then also, really, I suppose it's just kind of the stories that speak to me, and luckily now that this move has been successful, hopefully I'll be able to have freedom to choose a little bit.

Oh, I'm definitely confident that that's the case. You did a really wonderful job on this film. And you couldn't do much better than the diversity of the careers of a Libatique or a McGarvey. Those are two really wonderfully diverse filmographies right there.

MORGAN: Yeah. I mean, it's so hard, isn't it? Because I think I'm conscious of the choices that I make or that anyone makes because I really want to have a long career, and I want to be creatively fulfilled. I think when you go on set and you start a project, it's hard work, it's long hours, that's a big time commitment. And so you really want to really be passionate about the story that you're telling. So I think that the choices that you make as a DP are really important, not only to make you happy at that given point, but also to just think about the future of working for another 40 years.

And the reality is that's a huge chunk of your life that you're spending to choose on this project, spend long hours with these people, so.

MORGAN: Precisely, yeah.

How is Where the Crawdads Sing going?

MORGAN: It's going great. I mean, I don't know if you can hear, but I'm surrounded by lightning and rain. So we have unfortunately been a little bit cursed with some bad weather. So we were going to go and shoot the film where the book was set, in the Carolinas, but due to tax incentives and all that, we ended up coming to a Louisiana, which is absolutely stunning, but the weather here unfortunately has not been kind to us. So scheduling is tricky, but it's going really well. It's got four weeks left now. So yeah, I mean, I read the book during COVID and I actually ended up writing the director a letter when I found out they were making the movie, and really fought hard to get this job, because I really just passionately loved the story so much.

And I think lots of people working this film also felt the same about the book. And it's an interesting experience, doing a film where most people have read the book and now they're coming on to the film and, there's that thing about, do films ever live up to book? Especially when people love the book so much, so it's great, because everyone knows the story so well, and everyone's very passionate about it. So yeah, hopefully we don't get too delayed.

A Quiet Place Part II is now playing only in theaters.