How to Train Your Dragon 2‘s Writer/Director Dean DeBlois
When Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders film How to Train Your Dragon was released in 2010, it was a critical darling but had something of a sleepy opening. Adapted from Cressida Cowell’s book, How to Train Your Dragon contained everything that you expect from a stellar animated film—a great script, no small amount of wit, dramatic depth and fantastic effects. At its core it had a relationship that was hard to beat,
Building Edge of Tomorrow’s Armored ExoSuits
How might a soldier be able to fight giant, sophisticated, and fantastically violent aliens with sundry razor-sharp tentacles and a taste for carnage? Simple: just create an articulated armored suit capable of protecting a soldier’s body while delivering a massive amount of firepower from weapons mounted to the carapace. This was the challenge the filmmakers behind Edge of Tomorrow created for themselves, and instead of relying on CGI to create these fantastic and fearsome combat “jackets,”
Disney’s Maleficent Creators on Giving Timeless Tale a Twist
A young princess. A fairy with a taste for revenge. A curse only broken by true love’s kiss. Based in part on the Charles Perrault medieval fairy tale “La Belle au bois dormant” (“The Beauty Asleep in the Wood”) and the story by the Brothers Grimm, 1959’s Sleeping Beauty was Walt Disney’s 16th animated feature release.
Such a lush, romantic story warranted equally lush,
John Lloyd Young is Frankie Valli in Clint Eastwood’s Jersey Boys
For a Broadway debut, it doesn’t get any better than winning the coveted quartet of stage awards. Such was the case for John Lloyd Young, who took home the 2006 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World Awards for lead actor in a musical following his stellar, if not life-altering, turn as Four Seasons frontman Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys. Young left the show in 2007, but reprised his role for short engagements both on the Great White Way and most recently London’s West End.
Made in Georgia: Film Production Ripe in the Peach State
The excellent X-Men: First Class (a sort of prequel to the current, also excellent, X-Men: Days of Future Past) was filmed in Georgia. The Blind Side, also Georgia. Classics like Forrest Gump and My Cousin Vinny, Georgia. The beloved Zombieland was filmed there, too. Sweet Home Alabama? A little bit in Alabama, but really mostly Georiga. And then there's a little show called
Film, Fashion & Passion: Cinemoi is a New Kind of Television Experience
A new kind of television channel has come to the United States. Cinemoi recently launched on Verizon FiOS and will soon be rolling out onto more platforms. An intersection of curated films, high fashion and television, the channel is the inspiration of Daphna Ziman, who introduces a one-of-a-kind television experience to what she hopes is an engaged American audience. Cinemoi features curated films, behind-the-scenes access to film festivals and fashion weeks, documentaries, interviews with filmmakers,
Godzilla Sound Designers Erik Aadahl & Ethan Van der Ryn on Creature Language
“Whenever I heard his roar, it’s a long roar, a screaming, and to me it almost feels like Godzilla is scolding us for humanity’s foolishness. It’s like Godzilla exists as a symbol of human consciousness. It’s a scream involved with sadness.”
So said Ken Watanabe, one of the stars of the latest incarnation of Godzilla, describing the iconic roar of the original Godzilla in the 1954 film that started it all.
The Grand Seduction: A Look at Canada Behind the Camera
During preproduction of the Canadian film The Grand Seduction, the crew realized a major set piece had yet to be built— Joe’s Place, a local bar and restaurant that was vital to the film. Joe's Place was, in short order, built from scratch in Newfoundland’s fishing community Trinity Bright, where much of the film was shot. Emblematic of the relationship between Canadian and U.S. filmmakers, once production left town, the producers left Joe’s Place standing,
Angus MacLachlan on the Art of Writing for and Directing Actors
Paul Schneider won Best Actor at the Tribeca Film Festival last week for his role as Otto Wall in Angus MacLachlan’s Goodbye to All That. The character was a tricky one—Schneider was playing someone affable and intelligent, but also unfocused and obliviously selfish. He spends most of the film in a state of confusion about why his life seems to be falling apart. His wife has left him, his daughter doesn’t feel safe in his new house,
Making The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the Largest Production in New York History
Spider-Man’s home has always been New York City, but The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the first of the comic book adaptations to be filmed exclusively in New York State. It’s also the largest, with locations that included not only Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, but Long Island and upstate New York.
Shepherding the production were producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach. The industry veterans work together so closely, they finish each other’s’
One Mama Bear, Two Cubs, and Three Filmmakers: Disneynature’s Bears
The world of wildlife filmmaking has changed dramatically in recent years. BBC’s Planet Earth set a new standard. High-definition cameras, stunning aerial shots, and time-lapse photography gave viewers incredible access to animal behavior never before caught on film. Disneynature’s Bears, which includes veterans of those productions, takes a different tack. Yes, it’s filmed in HD, and the gyro-stabilized shots from helicopters are spectacular, but the family-geared film has a different goal.
A Silicon God: Transcendence Screenwriter Jack Paglen’s Machine Dream
What is every budding screenwriter’s dream? How about having your screenplay land on the coveted Black List in 2012 (a selection of the best un-produced scripts in Hollywood) and, a scant two years later, premiere on the big screen with Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall and Paul Bettany as your stars, and serve as the directorial debut for one of the most gifted cinematographer’s of his generation, Wally Pfister. This is the reality for Jack Paglen,
Award Winning Documentarian Rachel Beth Anderson on Filming in Conflict Zones
Rachel Beth Anderson is a cinematographer-turned-director who has spent her career working almost exclusively in conflict zones. She was recently awarded the cinematography award for a U.S. documentary at Sundance, along with Ross Kaufman, for her work on E-Team, which followed a group of four Human Rights Watch workers documenting war crimes around the world.
Along with filming in Syria, Anderson has worked in Libya,
From The Dark Knight Rises to Divergent: Composer Junkie XL
Composer Tom Holkenborg goes by the name Junkie XL. He is a musician, producer, engineer and composer with a tinkerer's compulsion to experiment. His collaboration with the legendary Hans Zimmer on The Dark Knight Rises led Zimmer to recommend him for the recently released blockbuster Divergent. Holkenborg began his music career at the ripe old age of four, when he started playing piano at the behest of his mother,
Cleveland’s Flexibility Gives Captain America its Punch
In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) spend some time at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, the massive flying aircraft carrier where this crucial agency at the heart of the Marvel Comics Universe deals with the paranormal and superhuman threats to America. This time they're dealing with a foe potentially more powerful than the Captain—the eponymous Winter Soldier.
When directors Anthony and Joe Russo were scouting for a location that could serve as the grand lobby of this flying strategic command center,
Missing 87-Year old John Ford Film Upstream Found, Screened With Live Score
This past Monday, composer Michael Mortilla and Nicole Garcia brought a slew of instruments (a piano, violin, kazoo, handbell, even a bag filled with aluminum cans) and performed a live score accompanying a screening of the 1927 John Ford film Upstream. “My basic role is to provide a soundtrack for a film that never had a soundtrack,” Mortilla says. He and Garcia performed their Upstream score in front of a live audience in the screening room at the Motion Picture of Association’s headquarters on Eye Street in Washington D.C.
The Sports Coordinators on Upcoming Draft Day & Million Dollar Arm
Spittin’ and cussin’ and scratchin’ like a Major Leaguer doesn’t take a whole lot of skill for an actor. But hitting a home run when the director calls “action!” and making it look easy? That’s a whole other story. Enter the sports coordinator. These former top jocks train onscreen talent how to swing for the fences, catch a touchdown pass, or sink a game-winning jumper at the buzzer and convince audiences it’s athletically legit.
“I”m like a stunt coordinator but with sports,”
Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s Composer Henry Jackman on Scoring a Superhero
The versatile Henry Jackman follows his scores for Seth Rogan's apocalyptic comedy End of the World and the animated NASCAR-racing snail film Turbo with a full-on superhero, Marvel's Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He took time for an interview to talk about the superhero who finds himself something of a Rip Van Winkle, dealing with a world more than 60 years after he was frozen in WWII.
How do you approach a score for a superhero?
Painting a Renaissance Masterpiece From Scratch for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Renaissance painter Johannes van Hoytl the Younger (1613-1669) worked in solitude. Known for his use of light and shade, as well as his attraction to the lustrous and velvety, the painter was particularly un-prolific and a financial failure. Yet, van Hoytl nevertheless produced up to a dozen of the finest portraits the world has ever seen.
He also never existed.
In 2012, director Wes Anderson approached 62-year-old British portrait artist Michael Taylor with a unique challenge: create a fictional Renaissance painting—not too Italian and with a bit of a northern spin—for his upcoming film,
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me Director Chiemi Karasawa’s Rising Star
Although she’s being heralded as a breakout director for the acclaimed documentary Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Chiemi Karasawa is no overnight sensation. The California native moved to New York the day after she graduated from Boston University’s film program and began working for a film producer. She apprenticed as a script supervisor, then worked for many years in that position on numerous films including High Fidelity, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3,
