Jessica Lee Gagné’s unsettling cinematography does much of the storytelling in Severance. It gives us good reason to follow her into directing, though one episode is too little to settle what sort of director she will be.
Fi1m perspective
A change of surroundings in Severance (2022) can do the work of an explanation. Jessica Lee Gagné distinguishes the office from the outside world so firmly that the setting itself helps us follow the divided-memory premise. We were unsettled by how familiar the workplace seemed without belonging to a period we could confidently place. Jeremy Hindle’s retro-futurist production design supplies that uncertainty; Gagné’s photography ensures it matters to the story.
Gagné came through independent Canadian features and shorts, including Sarah Prefers to Run (2013). Her cinematography credits also include Sweet Virginia (2017), before Escape at Dannemora (2018) took her into larger-scale television with Ben Stiller. She continued with Stiller on Severance, serving as primary director of photography across its first two seasons. The anamorphic lenses, robotic camera movements and practical transitions in that programme give its images the feeling of surveillance, a useful match for an office that makes us uneasy.
It would be a mistake to give the cinematography sole credit for that effect. In the first season, Stiller and Aoife McArdle direct with patience for discomfort, while Theodore Shapiro’s music keeps the unease from smothering the humour. Gagné’s work fits theirs because the separation between office and outside remains clear enough to carry some of the story. The first season does take too long to gather pace, and fine images cannot make that delay disappear. The workplace satire earns the wait once it gets going.
Her directing debut came with the second-season episode Chikhai Bardo (2025), with its emphasis on emotional intimacy and character backstory. Its extended tracking shots draw on practical camerawork she knows well. Knowing how to shoot this programme leaves her attention free for the actors. That is a promising basis for directing, though we would want to see her working beyond an established visual style before making larger claims. Start with Severance, and allow it the slow opening stretch.
Biography
Jessica Lee Gagné is a Canadian cinematographer and director. A native of Quebec City, she began working as a cinematographer shortly after college, supported by public funding for short films and features in Canada.
She gained recognition for her work on the films Sweet Virginia (2017), Despite the Night (2015) and Daddy (2017). Her collaboration with director Ben Stiller began on the miniseries Escape at Dannemora (2018) and continued on the series Severance (2022), where she served as director of photography on most episodes, received a producer credit in season two, and made her directing debut on the episode "Chikhai Bardo". In 2025 she became the first woman to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (One Hour) for her work on Severance.
