Outlander Season 6 has crossed the halfway point in this shortened season. Den Of Geek was unable to visit Jamie and Claire’s living room, but we did have a long chat with Christiana Ebohon-Green to go behind the scenes on episodes 4 and 5, discover more about her directing style, and also what it means to be a Black professional in a predominately white UK media industry.
When were you first offered the opportunity to direct on Outlander Season 6?
CHRISTIANA EBOHON-GREEN: Well, it was over a year ago. I met the guys just in 2019 to start, and I think then had to pause because of COVID and the lockdown. It just went very quiet for a while. And then it was about 18 months ago now that they were meeting again. We had another chat and it was quite soon after that that I was offered the block.
Did you watch previous Outlander episodes or read the books to prep for your directing?
I’d seen a couple of seasons before the meeting, so I knew kind of what the story was about and what was involved. I didn’t read all of the books as that would’ve taken some while. I think whatever you’re stepping into, you want to know what the world is about and what’s at risk, and what the foundation of it is. How the people got to be where they are now.. How did it start? There’s some research involved in that. And then when you have meetings, then, of course, the creative team wants to know what you think about the show. You need to know whether it’s a show you actually like and want to be involved in.
What were the challenges in filming Episode 4?
Some of the actors were saying ‘this is the story; this is the story of our forefathers’ fathers. This is the direct story of our grandparents and great-grandparents.’ There was a responsibility to tell the story properly and be quite sensitive about what it was we were doing. If we couldn’t do things properly, then we just didn’t do those. So they were then taken out of the script. So there was a lot of sensitivity about what we were doing. Then while we were filming, if certain props and certain things didn’t work in reality for the culture, we changed them.
There was [the cold open] scene of Young Ian having his hair plucked. Initially in the script, the hair was falling away and that’s what we were doing. I had the actors around him, and we were doing the plucking, and they were holding onto the hair. And I said, “Oh, could we just let that fall?’ And they let me know that “no, hair is a very sacred thing. In our culture, often we will save our hair, and maybe once a month there’ll be a ceremony or we’ll do something.” It’s regarded very highly. While we were filming them, we were able to just put the hair aside and the idea that then they would keep it, and something else was going to happen with that hair. We tried to be quite sensitive to those things to get it right.
When they’d done the Mohawk First Nations stories before in the fourth season, they were able to have more supporting artists to portray the way that village life really was. But because of COVID, we had about fifty-something people in total fly over. We doubled people for the Cherokee and the Mohawk villages. The actors that we didn’t feature heavily in the Cherokee scenes, we then saw more of in the Mohawk scenes. We made sure that there were differences between those two tribes that showed.
In terms of some of the things that could have gone wrong, like the weather, the weather was really on our side. So for most of it, we had balmy weather in Scotland, and they were all kind of like, “Oh my God, what’s going on? You’ve bought the weather.’ I think it was the baptism scene where it was a bit miserable and damp. We used that to add atmosphere.
What were the challenges in filming Episode 5?
It was just great that these two episodes were so different. It was difficult to schedule because there were so many bits and pieces all over the place. I think one of the scenes that was most difficult was the riot by the print shop. That was one of the most challenging days with the number of people that you needed and picking out the various bits of action that are important and go on to shape the story. There was the tar flying and the gunshots and the person being shot. there were lots of little things to get right within that. Then we had the ball as well. So again, a lot of people and lots of bits of the story. There was the band and all of the supporting artists to really make it look like a happening event. We really tried to keep it alive and give it a lot of atmosphere. The numbers were a bit reduced to what I think a normal Outlander ball would look like because of COVID. We passed the camera and came back again as the actors worked.
