Talking to the Ashley Smith, The Real Woman Behind Captive

Kate Mara and David Oyelowo star in Captive, the gripping, intense film version of Ashley Smith’s memoir "Unlikely Angel." In the book Smith recounts her experience in 2005 when she had a terrifying but ultimately life-changing encounter with Brian Nichols, who had escaped custody in an Atlanta courthouse and fatally shot four people. Smith- at the time a young widow battling drug-addiction- was held hostage by Nichols in her apartment overnight.

Talking to Author James Dashner about Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

The Credits talks to James Dashner, the author of the best-selling "Maze Runner" trilogy, on the eve of the release of Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials– the second installment of the blockbuster film series based on his novels- about his cinematic writing style, keeping his fans happy and how the filmmaking process has influenced his work.   

Your trilogy and The Hunger Games are both set in a post-apocalyptic landscape and have been hugely popular both as novels and movies for young adults.

Cinematographer Bradford Young on Pawn Sacrifice

Bradford Young is one of the brightest young cinematographers working today. He’s won the Sundance Film Festival’s Best Cinematography award three times (for Pariah, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Mother of George). He helped turn director Ava DuVernay’s Selma (2014) into the powerful, heartbreaking work it was. Two sequences come to mind when considering what Young pulled off in Selma: The hideous murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson,

Game of Thrones Director Jeremy Podeswa on Last Season’s Toughest Episode

Jeremy Podeswa has directed some of the most ambitious television episodes of the last ten years. Rome, Six Feet Under, The Walking Dead, True Detective, Homeland, True Blood, American Horror Story, and Boardwalk Empire are on his resume. He’s been nominated for three Emmys—one for the HBO miniseries The Pacific, one for a 2011 episode of Boardwalk Empire, and now one for his work on the episode of “Unbent,

Boardwalk Empire’s Production Designer on Building Havana & Atlantic City

Bill Groom is a three-time Emmy winner as production designer on HBO’s series Boardwalk Empire. He’s now been nominated a fourth time for his work for the last season of one of the most ambitious mob-centric TV show in history. Centered on the rise of gangster and would-be credible businessman Enoch "Nucky" Thompson (Steve Buscemi) in prohibition-era Atlantic City, Boardwalk Empire offered a panoramic vision of the power players vying for control of the liquor trade and more, from Chicago's Al Capone to New York's Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky.

Andy Milburn on Scoring Screams in Sinister 2

Bughuul (aka The Bogeyman) is back to his terrifying ways in Sinister 2. The Credits talks to composer Andy Milburn, one half of prolific composing duo tomandandy, on working on the score and why horror requires a more delicate touch than you would think.

So, I just saw Sinister 2, and I’m terrified of horror movies, but I got through it.

Listen to Abel Korzeniowski’s Music for Penny Dreadful & More

The first time I became aware of Abel Korzeniowski's work was by accident. It was one of those serendipitous Spotify moments; listening to a one of their radio stations, a song from the soundtrack of Tom Ford's A Single Man came on. It was called "Daydreams."

That was all it took. I listened to every song on the Golden Globe nominated score of A Single Man 

Emmy-Nominated Composer Sean Callery on 24: Live Another Day & More

Composer Sean Callery is one the most prolific people working in TV today. Callery recently received his 14th Emmy nomination for his work on Fox's 24: Live Another Day. Callery's work can be heard on Showtime's Homeland, CBS's Elementary (both of which he was nominated for Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music in 2013), and two more Fox shows—their longest running procedural drama, Bones, and their upcoming,

Composer Daniel Pemberton on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. & More

For you Peep Show fans out there (and we know you're out there), composer Daniel Pemberton is the man who created the British comedy's incredibly catchy theme song, "Pip Pop Plop." If you've never seen the show, you start watching it—it's consistently hilarious. If you have seen the show, then this little diddy will make you smile:

Pemberton has done a lot of great work for British TV,

Mad Style: The Man From U.N.C.L.E’s Production Designer Oliver Scholl

Guy Ritchie’s latest film The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is a remake of the 1960s TV series, starring Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer and Alicia Vikander. The spy film, set at the height of the Cold War, is a stylish ride, shot through with humor. The Credits talks to production designer Oliver Scholl (Jumper, Edge of Tomorrow) about how to achieve a stylish, rather than stylized look,

The New York Film Studio That Helped the Allies Win World War II – Part II

We continue our discussion with Hal Rosenbluth, President/CEO of Kaufman Astoria Studios, about the studio’s contribution to the war effort. Once the home of Paramount Pictures, the Astoria Studio was taken over by the U.S. Signal Corps at the beginning of WWII in 1943. Then known as the Army Pictorial Center, it was used for the filming and development of Army training and indoctrination films, including Frank Capra's epic Why We Fight 

The New York Film Studio That Helped the Allies Win World War II – Part I

August 15, 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of V-J Day, the day the world found out that Japan had surrendered which, in effect, ended World War II. To commemorate the anniversary, we had the pleasure of speaking with Hal Rosenbluth, President/CEO of Kaufman Astoria Studios, where, along with the Signal Corps Photographic Center (SCPC), all of the Army’s films where shot. Today Kaufman Astoria Studios produces some of the most acclaimed movies and television shows,

Director Ty Evans on his Skateboard Documentary We Are Blood

Director Ty Evans is a skateboarder and self-taught filmmaker who went from filming his friends using whatever cameras he could scrounge the money for to using state-of-the-art camera equipment, some times mounting cameras to a helicopter, for his groundbreaking work on We Are Blood. The documentary features  renown skateboarder Paul Rodriguez (P-Rod) and his skateboarding family (Theotis “Theo” Beasely, Chris “Cookie” Colbourn and Boo Johnson) as they travel around the world, with Evans and his small crew,

Straight Outta Compton Screenwriter Andrea Berloff on N.W.A.’s Story

They invented gangsta rap and put West Coast hip hop on the map, and in the process triggered a tectonic shift across an entire cultural landscape. N.W.A. was the baddest, boldest, most influential rap band of their era. Coming from South Central Los Angeles in the mid 1980s, N.W.A.'s members—Ice Cube, Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella and MC Ren channeled the rage, remorse and bravado of the streets of Compton, a hotbed of police brutality and gang turf wars between the Crips and the Bloods,

Disney Animation’s Aimee Scribner on Frozen Fever & More

Aimee Scribner worked on two animated short films included on the new Blu-Ray/DVD release, Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection (August 18, 2015). Both were sequels to huge animated musical hits: Tangled Ever After and Frozen Fever. In an interview, she talked about going past the “happily ever after” ending to create new adventures for the characters.

“In both of these, you make a film,

Actress/Producer Miranda Bailey on The Diary of a Teenage Girl

As CEO of Cold Iron Pictures, Miranda Bailey believed strongly in Marielle Heller’s directorial debut, The Diary of a Teenage Girl, itself an adaptation of the critically acclaimed graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. As a producer, Bailey had already proven herself to have a keen eye—she executive produced Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, and more recently, Time out of Mind,

Mission: Impossible Stunt Coordinator on Tom Cruise’s Feats

Tom Cruise is famous for his tenacity when it comes to performing his own stunts, but now that he’s in his fifties he would be forgiven for taking things a little bit easier. But that just isn’t Cruise’s style. If anything, he’s pushing himself harder than ever. Take the opening scene of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. During the four minute, 10-second sequence, Cruise- as secret agent Ethan Hunt- hangs off the side of an Airbus A400M during its steep vertical takeoff.

Greta Gerwig & Lola Kirke Talk Mistress America

Mistress America is a sharply observed, witty story about Tracy, a freshman at NYU, played by Lola Kirke, who becomes friendly with her prospective stepsister named Brooke, played by Greta Gerwig., who co-wrote the film with director Noah Baumbach.

Tracy, a would-be writer who is feeling alone, uncertain, and a little lost, is initially dazzled by Brooke’s sophistication and confidence, though she admits that she often goes along with Brooke because it is fun,

How the David Foster Wallace Film The End of the Tour Came to the Screen

Few modern authors command the kind of intense adoration like the late David Foster Wallace. And among his many pieces of fiction and journalism (want to kill time today at work in the best way possible? Read this, or this, or this), the work that still inspires the most articles, reviews, conversations, critiques, and wonder is his opus, Infinite Jest.

Infinite Jest 

Henry Jackman on Scoring Kingsman: The Secret Service, Pixels, Captain America & More

Killer pre-teens (Kick-Ass), killer mutants (X-Men: First Class), killer Samuel L. Jackson’s (Kingsman: The Secret Service) and now killer classic arcade game characters (Pixels), composer Henry Jackman has scored his fair share of intense action and mayhem. He's been the composer of the apocalypse (This is the End), high seas drama (Captain Phillips),