From Turbo to Monsters University, Actors Relive Juicy Past Roles via Animation
DreamWorks Animation’s Turbo, which opens today, is a veritable who’s who of serious actors lending their voices to a selection of mollusks and another animated characters. Paul Giamatti, Luis Guzmán, Michelle Rodriguez, Richard Jenkins and Samuel L. Jackson are a few of the no joke actors involved in this film about a snail named Theo (voiced by Ryan Reynolds) who dreams of being as fast as his favorite IndyCar driver, Guy Gagné.
It’s not news that Academy Award winning and nominated actors have routinely lent their voices to animated movies. It's also not news that many animated features have characters that contain subtlety,...
Married Directors Robert Pulcini & Shari Springer Berman Talk Girl Most Likely
A background in documentary filmmaking came in handy for long-time co-directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini when they needed to film a man in a mollusk-inspired exoskeleton on the busy streets of New York City.
“People are really scared off of [filming on a city street] without a lot of crew,” Berman told The Credits. For example, when 2007’s I Am Legend filmed a major sequence on the normally swarming streets of New York,...
The Psychology of Character Bonding: Why We Feel a Real Connection to Actors
Children can be very cruel to one another. As adults, many of us vividly recall moments of social ostracism on the playground, perhaps when a bully shoved us, a classmate made fun of the way we dressed or no one picked us to play on the kickball team.
Director Robert Zemeckis likely kept this in mind when he filmed the “seat’s taken” scene of Forrest Gump. As the young Forrest makes his way down a school bus aisle,...
An Evening With Fruitvale Station Writer/Director Ryan Coogler
Few directors fresh out of film school can boast their first feature-length movie is a likely Oscar contender, but Ryan Coogler could be one of the few with Fruitvale Station. The movie, which Coogler wrote and directed, won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature and Audience Award for U.S. Dramatic Film at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, and also won the Avenir Prize – Un Certain Regard at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival...
Getting Chatty With Gaby Hoffmann About Sebastian Silva’s Crystal Fairy
Anyone who remembers Gaby Hoffmann as the adorable little girl in huge movies like Field of Dreams and Uncle Buck will be riveted by her very grown-up performance in her latest film, a Chile-based road-trip movie directed by Sebastian Silva [of 2009’s Sundance winner The Maid].
Hoffmann plays Crystal Fairy, a hippie who meets Michael Cera’s pleasure-seeking, drug-loving character, Jamie, at a party — and soon joins Jamie and his friends,...
Eastern Influence: Pacific Rim Latest Film to Draw Inspiration From Japan
The early reviews suggest that Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (which opens this Friday) is nice blend of what you want out of your summer blockbuster—spectacle, suspense and solid storytelling.
Pacific Rim is also a nice blend of the Japanese tradition of Kaiju films (the most famous example being Godzilla) and mecha stories (about robots or machines), popularized in Japanese manga and anime.
Here’s Pacific Rim’s premise in a nutshell: in the future,...
Call of the Holly-Wild: Animal Trainer David Meeks
If you’ve ever seen a rhino in a television commercial, his name is Tank and he’s the only working rhino in show business. Maybe you’ve noticed zebras, bears, leopards, African lions, panthers or Siberian tigers in TV ads or on the big screen and wondered how they're train to stand still, lie down, run around or roar on command for the camera?
Many of the animals you see on the big and small screen belong to David Meeks, director of Hollywild Animal Park in South Carolina...
2013’s Best Movie Industry Commencement Speeches
Celebrities doling out sage advice during college commencement speeches is nothing new, but this year’s crop was especially entertaining. The Class of 2013 was treated to talks by everyone from Julie Andrews, who spoke to the University of Colorado Boulder, to Robert Redford, who got downright sentimental at Westminster College, to Ed Helms, who broke it down for the kids — and busted on the school mascot — at Knox College. (Cue The Hangover jokes!)
If, like us,...
An Insider Discussion on Film Scoring
Remembering the director is boss is key to working in the movie industry, according to music professionals.
“You have to yield to the director. You can only have one vision,” long-time movie music editor Dan Carlin told The Credits after a panel discussion on film scoring hosted by the MPAA in Washington, D.C. “That’s what unites a crew that’s putting together a movie.”
Carlin, whose four decades of movie credits as a music editor include The Last of the Mohicans (1992) and Bruce Almighty (2003),...
The Lone Ranger Rounds Up Work, Buoys Businesses for New Mexico
When The Credits traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the local premiere of The Lone Ranger, we did our best to capture on film the incredible positivity and excitement the movie brought to the people of the state. Talking with New Mexico’s politicians, Native American leaders and locals who worked on the film, it was clear The Lone Ranger meant more to them than job creation and revenue—it was proof that, once again, New Mexico is a state where major films are made...
Walt Disney Studios Reimagines The Lone Ranger & Breathes Life Into Westerns
“So who was that masked man, anyway?” A question invariably asked at the end of every episode of The Lone Ranger television series. Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski hope to provide a definitive answer to that question with the brand-new film The Lone Ranger, their reinvention of both the Western genre and the titular hero, in theaters today.
John Reid, a.k.a. the Lone Ranger,...
Oscar Winners Nat Faxon & Jim Rash on Reading, Writing, & The Way Way Back
After winning an Oscar for their screenplay for The Descendants, the screenwriting duo of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash appeared to have burst onto the scene as a couple of unknowns. In reality the writing and directing team have been on Hollywood filmmakers’ short list since 2007, when their script for The Way Way Back was being read and praised by insiders. The Credits sat down with the old friends and collaborators in advance of their already well reviewed coming-of-age comedy to find out about their process,...
Hanging With John Waters, Mary Harron & More at the Provincetown Film Festival
From June 19th to the 24th, The Credits had the distinct pleasure of attending the 15th Anniversary of the Provincetown International Film Festival. Unlike Sundance, or Cannes, or Toronto, PIFF is the kind of gathering where first-time filmmakers fight with industry legends for space at the ice cream counter instead of over grand jury prizes, and the lineup of films not only makes room for women's issues, LGBTQ rights, Native American films,...
How’d They do That? Creating the Presidential Limo in White House Down
White House Down, which opens today starring Jamie Foxx as the President and Channing Tatum as the man who springs into action when the White House is besieged by a paramilitary unit, isn't a gear-head car movie. It’s a pure, fun action flick—a buddy movie where one of the buddies happens to be the leader of the free world. But that didn't stop Columbia Pictures, the studio behind the movie, from obsessing about creating one particular car —...
Director Douglas Tirola Serves up the Doc Hey Bartender
In the rollicking documentary Hey Bartender — which opened in select theaters and on iTunes and On Demand on June 7 — director-producer Douglas Tirola chronicles the resurgence of the craft cocktail — and the eclectic, opinionated characters who drink and pour them.
We chatted with Tirola, who has made docs about everything from poker (All In: The Poker Movie) to prison (An Omar Broadway Film) about getting lucky,...
From Philadelphia to Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Hollywood!
In 2010, following a tragic rise in suicides among LGBTQ youth, Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller founded the It Gets Better Project. The campaign set out to deliver the powerful message that despite moments of hopelessness, bright futures abound for bullied youth.
In just a few years, the campaign has attracted messages of support from over 50,000 including President Barack Obama and movie star Daniel Radcliffe. It Gets Better videos have been collectively viewed 50 million times to reach (and likely save) countless lives...
The Art of Animatronics: How Old School Movie Magic Compliments CGI
The release of Jurassic Park 3D earlier this year has people talking about more than just the technological update of a classic. For all of its digital wow when Jurassic Park debuted in 1993, the film employed unmatched animatronics and puppetry as well.
The question is, will that movie prove to be the last hurrah for spectacular practical effects? At least one practitioner of the craft admits to having his moments of doubt, but there's reason to believe animatronics will supplement digital tricks for some time to come...
Black Belt, Mother, Zombie Survivalist: Mireille Enos of World War Z
It’s a big year for actress Mireille Enos. The Texas native returns for a third season of detective work in AMC’s The Killing, and fights zombies with Brad Pitt in director Marc Forster’s big-budget, apocalyptic thriller World War Z, out today.
While she’s mired in dire circumstances for make believe, in real life her career experiences have been pretty pleasant. She started early, training at The High School for the Performing &...
Class in Session: Meet the Makers of Monsters University
Like most good college stories, it started at a party. John Lasseter’s surprise 50th birthday party nearly seven years ago, in fact. Ever the opportunist, John pulled party guest and award-winning entertainer Billy Crystal aside to talk shop. “He said, ‘We have an idea I want to tell you about,’” Billy whispers, playfully imitating the Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios chief creative officer. “‘What if Mike and Sulley are in college, and we make a prequel?’ I immediately said,...
Chatting with American Black Film Festival Founder Jeff Friday
The American Black Film Festival (ABFF) is the leading film festival in the world for African American and urban content. The ABFF has showcased more than 600 films since its inception, giving a platform to independent filmmakers who have been under represented in film festivals around the world. The 17th annual ABFF began yesterday and runs through the weekend.
ABFF founder Jeff Friday has rooted the festival in diversity and social responsibility, supporting aspiring actors, filmmakers and industry executives through the festival’s multifaceted program: premieres,...
