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This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.
How did you end up deciding to make this series?HBO sent me the manuscript of the book.
Robert Kolkers bookLost Girlswas, for me, one of those books.
Of course,In Cold Bloodis one of those books.
And then theres other books around the genre that Ive found fascinating, like Janet MalcolmsTheJournalist and the Murderer.
There are just certain books that bring something new.
Michelles book was one of those.
[The series] came to me entirely through reading the book and learning the story through her eyes.
How did all that come about?
And how would you describe the layers?Obviously this was a collaborative effort.
Today we are all storytellers.
it’s possible for you to relive her process.
Lets talk for a minute about those archives.
It was a massive amount of material.
We could not get into Dianes head.
That was the big mystery.
Her mind was impenetrable, and there was really no record that could give us access.
With Michelle, we had access to her head.
We could see those text messages.
So even though we had a moment-by-moment record, that mystery still enshrouds us.
Some are able to compartmentalize and some people are not.
And we lost him.
Michelle knew this about herself.
She did not want that to be part of her process.
They were only available to law enforcement.
She knew that this was unhealthy for her.
She knew these were things she needed to stay away from.
We had meetings with the producers asking, Should we bring in a therapist to talk to everybody?
People sort of felt like that solution wasnt so comfortable for them.
There were discussions about who was going to use the therapy, who wasnt going to use it.
We also decided to talk about people giving paid time off during the week to clear their heads.
Michelle was alone in a converted playroom at 2 in the morning.
Our sense of community is what saved us.
What was your own reaction to the material?Im more like Edie Falco.
I can look at that kind of material and still go home.
The first four episodes were the toughest nut to crack.
And I had an amazing team of editors as well.
The timeline was huge and sprawling.
But for us, her voice was integral.
Can you talk about the discussions you had about the crimes themselves?
That was a challenge with the visual approach, and the solution is something we feel very proud of.
Nothing physically violent is happening in them.
You never see killing or rape in those scenes.
We do show, by episode four, what shes seeing, which gives some sense of the devastation.
But in terms of the visuals we create, absolutely not.
But Errol Morris didnt have a guy with a knife in his hand.
What he did in that film was much more intellectually framed.
Right the milkshake hitting the pavement in slow-motion, things like that.
The other important thing is to not endow the perpetrator with a point of view.
Point of view is everything in filmmaking.
When you give it, youre giving power.
Specifically violence against people who cant fight back.Exactly.
Not knowing them is what gives them power.
Once you know them, theyre just Bob or Joe or some damaged loser.
We didnt want to give a previously unknown killer that power back through our cinematography.
Theyre unnatural.Right, theyre unnatural.
The goal of the shadow imagery was to subvert that.
And I pretty early on could tell from Patton that he almost wanted nothing to do with the process.
Not in an unkind way, but in an emotionally protective way, I think, for himself.
And in fact, when we cut down episode one, we did lose a lot of Patton stuff.
But they were really hands-off, and it was a healthy relationship.
