Interview: Andrew Chambliss talks Fear the Walking Dead 509

Undead Walking talked with Fear the Walking Dead showrunner Andrew Chambliss about the mid-season premiere, including the filming style and those trees.

Fear the Walking Dead is back for the second half of season 5 and the documentary style mid-season premiere episode yielded a lot of information about where the group has been since the mid-season finale. There were some tense moments as Morgan led a nailbiting rescue mission, but there were also moments of levity and some intriguing clues about what’s to come. We had a chance to talk with showrunner Andrew Chambliss about “Channel 4” and what’s to come in the rest of the season.

Sarabeth Pollock: A lot of people are going to be talking about the filming style used in this episode. It starts out as a documentary and turns into a Public Service Announcement. Can you talk about the decision to film the episode the way you did?

Andrew Chambliss: We went with a documentary style for a couple of reasons. It was something that we had really been wanting to do for a while. It’s organic to Al’s character. So much of what she talked about was telling other people’s stories and after her journey with Isabelle in episode 505, she was really starting to realize that she needs to look at herself and the connection she has to the people around her. So for the first time, Al was really kind of turning the camera on herself and around the people she’s starting to bond with. And that was one of the driving forces behind doing this. 

But the other thing was that the back half of the season is really going to carry on that theme through all the characters. It’s really going to be about these characters who in the first half of the season were trying to help other people in terms of seeking their own redemption.  Now all of the characters are starting to realize that they also need to look inward and start working on themselves and having the documentary format and having the talking head interviews really lends itself to being a kicking off point for telling that kind of story. And it’s a pretty big departure from the normal visual style of the show. We’re usually shooting with a Western style where we don’t move the camera very much and everything is very carefully framed, and we have these wide open vistas. Now we have more of a personal, voyeuristic style that really gives us a different glimpse of our characters. 

The first half of the season revolved around the quest for redemption, but now that things have slowed down it seems to be shifting into larger questions, including where they’re going to live.  

It’s very much setting up this question of how they’re going to live, and we kind of see that in many different ways through different characters. Some of them are thinking about it on a practical level, obviously June is one that directly addressed that in terms of having 30-40 people living in a convoy that’s always on the move. But then there are other characters who are looking at it on a more emotional level. Looking at Alicia, she’s definitely looking for a new way to live and a new way of looking at the world that is divorced from the violence she found herself embroiled in during the first half. 

We obviously see that with Morgan and his realization that he’s really going to have to, for the first time, deal in a healthy way with the grief that he’s still holding onto regarding the loss of his wife and child. And that journey will continue with all of the characters as we continue into the back half of season five.

The scene with everyone sitting around the campfire really served to capture a moment where everyone could take a deep breath and enjoy each other’s company. You see people smiling, like Dwight, and that’s a rare thing for this show. 

And that’s exactly what we were after. You know, all these characters are finally getting a moment to breathe and we really want to just create this sense of community. And they’re living at such a heightened threat level that we thought this was a really good opportunity to slow down. It’s one of those moments you don’t normally see in the show. So many of these moments are captured by the camera as it’s panning across the group while they’re enjoying a meal together. You mentioned Dwight, there are some other ones that I really love. John Dorie holding up his bowl to show that he ate all of his pad thai. These moments really show the texture of everyday life and give the sense that our characters are starting to think about the way things were before the apocalypse. 

Then there’s this connection we’re trying to make to the way we ended the first half of season 4 where for the first time they came together around the campfire and shared Cup of Noodles. This is the evolution of the group and it shows how they became a family.

More than ever it seems like community is really important for the group.

The thing that excites us about building that community is it’s really going to allow these characters to be comfortable enough with each other to confront some of the demons that they’re still holding onto. And that’s a lot of what we’re going to see as we continue on with this convoy and as we continue on with the rest of this season. 

There’s no way to talk about the mid-season premiere and not mention the trees and all of the callbacks to Madison. In fact, Madison has been mentioned in just about every episode of season 5. What can you tell us about the callbacks to Madison and her connection to Alicia and the trees?

Madison has done so much for all of these characters, and without her sacrifice they wouldn’t be together and they wouldn’t be in the position they’re in. And obviously some of these characters are feeling her loss much more than others. Alicia and Strand are the ones who are still dealing with her loss more than anyone else, and Alicia most of all. 

It was important to use that concept in Alicia’s attempts to move forward because she’s not forgetting everything that her mom gave her before she died. We see that in this episode with Alicia making the connection between the trees she’s seeing the things that we heard Madison saying she liked to do in season 4, namely that whenever she went out into the world she would look for a little bit of beauty. Alicia is finally getting to a place where I think she’s for the first time considering that there may still be beauty in a world that’s often so dark. 

Thank you very much to Andrew Chambliss for taking the time to talk with us. Be sure to tune into Fear the Walking Dead on Sundays at 9pm on AMC.