Loren Yaconelli directed the first two episodes of The Walking Dead: Dead City. In this Q&A with amc.com, she talks about creating the look of post-apocalyptic Manhattan, the electricity of seeing Maggie and Negan on screen again, and her favorite scenes from the pilot.

Q: You've directed several episodes in TWDU already, but what was it like to get the chance to direct the very first episode of this new series?
A: I felt so completely fortunate to be able to direct that first episode, especially based around two characters that are so compelling and have such an interesting history. The story was so rich and the world was so fun to get into creating, so I felt really lucky to be able to do it… It's such a fascinating world and The Walking Dead has been such a part of my television watching for so long. So given the chance to be part of it, I really jumped at it.
Q: You didn't have to build the world of Manhattan, but you had to build the world of post-apocalyptic Manhattan. We got to see landmarks like the Empire State Building and Delmonico's in a deteriorated state. Can you talk about that process of creating this look for this show in this setting?
A: Well, it was really a group effort. We all talked about it with the showrunner, Eli Jorné, and discussed the desire to make Dead City still be true to The Walking Dead but we really wanted it to look different. We wanted it to have a more cinematic feel and feel like its own show. We were referencing movies like Escape from New York and The Warriors and those sorts of dystopian New York-type films that I grew up watching. When you set it in some place like New York, you have a chance to open it up in a vertical way and show something that you hadn't shown before. When you're trying to create something that doesn't exist, it's challenging. You try things and definitely play around with low camera angles but also playing with what's there and then seeing if we can build upon it. it becomes very dependent on the visual effects team. It was fun to be able to have those conversations about what was possible.
Q: How did you visually want to convey Maggie and Negan's relationship in this new iteration?
A: I just really tried to be true to whose story I was telling in each particular scene. So sometimes it's Maggie's scene and sometimes it's Negan's scene, so you just find ways to shift perspective from one to the other. Whether it's just playing it more from their point of view or composing it in a way that directs your attention so that you put them in the middle of the frame and of the world as you discover it.
Q: To follow up on that, in the scene where Maggie and Negan meet up outside that motel and Negan has Ginny tending to his wound — with so many players, how do you decide whose scene it is?
A: For me, that's Negan's scene. We're with him and we have that low angle shooting across Maggie's body and we just play it a little bit tighter on him because we haven't seen him in a long time, and we're rediscovering who he is.  To me, the most fascinating thing about The Walking Dead is they're such human stories. At this point, in the way the story has progressed over all The Walking Dead, there are no more heroes and villains really. They're all survivors. So you see Maggie and Negan and they're both damaged in different ways and yet they're still here. They’ve come to this uneasy truce and I find the two of them just so incredibly watchable and all the scenes where they're together have an electricity to them.
Q: What was the key to reintroducing Maggie to viewers?
A: There was a lot of discussion about how to mark the passage of time with Maggie. The last time we saw her at the end of the flagship show she was in a very different space than she is when we find her in Dead City. So there were a lot of conversations about how to achieve just showing what she's been through in a visual way. Some of it was done with how she looks and how she was dressing, and just the hardness that her character had taken on. She's definitely become so much more frayed around the edges. And sharper.
Q: That was a stunning introduction of Esther, when Negan lights the match and she appears suddenly on screen. What was the thinking behind that shot?
A: We had so much fun designing that shot and that came directly from what Eli had written. We came up with the match gag and created the lighting for it. The camera operator did such a terrific job of moving off of Negan, and then we're directly in his point of view until that last moment when Esther appears and blows out the match. We had to do it a few times but the last one worked perfectly. We were all pretty thrilled when that happened!
Q: Did you have another favorite scene from this first episode?
A: For me, the introduction of Armstrong [Gaius Charles] when he comes into the bar and terrorizes everyone — that was just such a fun day to do and the actors were so good — the performances were so fun to watch. It just ended up being one of my favorite scenes in the whole show. You could feel the tension of the scene and it worked really well. We choreographed it with the camera movement. That scene told you so much about Armstrong and created this painful amount of tension moving forward, which was just really effective.

Full episodes of The Walking Dead: Dead City will be available to stream on amc.com (with a cable provider login), the AMC apps for mobile and devices, while AMC+ subscribers get early access to episodes on Thursdays. AMC+ is available at amcplus.com or through the new AMC+ app available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Fire TV, Apple TV, and Roku. AMC+ can also be accessed through a variety of providers, including AppleTV, Prime Video Channels, DirectTV, Dish, Roku Channel, Sling, and Xfinity. Sign up for AMC+ now.