500 Strong: The Joint Effort in Making 20th Century Fox’s Epic
How do you oversee the work of more than 500 people over the course of several years on a giant 3D animated film without losing your mind? Producer Jerry Davis of Blue Sky Studios, who helped shepherd the production of Twentieth Century Fox's Epic along with his producing partner Lori Forte, gives us the scoop.
Epic, which features characters inspired by William Joyce’s children’s book “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs," tells the story of a teenage girl named Mary Katherine (known as M.K.,...
Steven Soderbergh Through the Looking Glass: Behind the Candelabra
One of most fascinating developments out of this year’s Cannes Film Festival has been the inclusion of Steven Soderbergh’s cinematic swan song, the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, in this year’s main competition as per the insistence of festival director Thierry Fremaux. Candelabra, starring Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his live-in lover Scott Thorson, and based on the Thoson-penned tell-all of the same name, was originally intended as a theatrically distributed feature...
A Spotlight on Korean Cinema, Presented by CJ Entertainment and the MPAA
“If 2012 was the year of K-Pop, 2013 is on track to be the year of K-Movies.”
South Korean Ambassador Young-jin Choi spoke these words before the screening of Korean blockbuster Masquerade last Tuesday evening, held at the MPAA headquarters on 16th and I St. in Washington, D.C. He declared that with the influence of Korean actors and music, we are currently “riding the Korean wave.” Choi continued: “When Masquerade was released, the world experienced an explosion of Korean culture like never before,...
Homegrown: How Star Trek Left the Galaxy Without Ever Leaving California
As Star Trek: Into Darkness basks in the space-age glory of an $84.1 million opening week, the blockbuster can take pride in an even more impressive accomplishment: from ever-growing Paramount Studios in Hollywood to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory east of Oakland, every frame of the J.J. Abrams blockbuster was shot in the state of California.
In an era when billionaire bachelor Tony Stark’s fall and rise was filmed primarily in North Carolina and James Franco’s awe-inspiring Oz was actually located in Pontiac,...
10 of the World’s Best Movie Theaters
The Grand Théâtre Lumière in Cannes is just about the most exciting movie theater in the world right now. As the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival enters its second week, we got to thinking about some of the greatest theaters around the world.
America is, of course, no slouch in the great movie theater department–from the iconic Ziegfeld in New York City to the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin (which is now opening up a theater in downtown Los Angeles),...
In Honor of Star Trek: Into Darkness—Our 7 Favorite Invented Languages
Admittedly, writing about Klingon on the Internet is akin to shaving one’s entire body and jumping into a salt bath—we're opening ourselves up to an onslaught of criticism and fastidious fact-checking, so we’ll tread lightly here. But when Bing introduced Klingon to its web-based translation service on Tuesday in anticipation of this weekend’s release of Star Trek: Into Darkness, it couldn’t go without mention.
Though many movies have “invented” new languages,...
Where to Watch: New Site Offers Films & Shows, Legally & Seamlessly
Since our launch last September, The Credits has interviewed a diverse group of filmmakers, working our way through all the different jobs one could have in pre-production, on a film set, and in post. Directors, actors, cinematographers, screenwriters, art directors, costume designers, composers, editors, visual effects supervisors, casting directors, music supervisors, stunt performers and more have told us what it’s like to make a living making movies.
These filmmakers all share a few commonalities;...
Sarah Polley on her Astonishing new Documentary Stories We Tell
Once known primarily for her work as a child actress, as of late, Sarah Polley has distinguished herself as a writer and director, first, on 2006’s Away From Her, and then again with 2011’s Take This Waltz. This month marks Polley’s debut as a documentarian. In Stories We Tell, the Oscar nominee uses recollections of her late mother, who passed when Polley was just 11,...
Jane Campion, Cannes, & the Power of the Short Film
Short films have figured prominently in the Cannes official selection from the Festival’s earliest days, with a jury awarding a Palme d’Or (and occasionally, Jury and Grand Prix prizes) to that year’s most successful short. Famous past winners include Jim Jarmusch’s 1993 Palme d’Or for Coffee and Cigarettes (Somewhere in California), which was later expanded into a feature-length portmanteau comprising 11 interlinked stories, and British director Lynne Ramsay’s 1996 and 1998 Jury Prize wins for her shorts Small Deaths and Gasman (Ramsay sits on the jury of the main competition this year)...
Heavyweight American Films Populate the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival
The 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival is nearly upon us. Running from May 15th to the 26th, the Festival has already been praised for a well-curated lot of films drawn from an eclectic mix of established and rising international filmmakers. This year’s competition films seem a placid bunch, likely to garner more reflection and praise than controversy, but with one of the most Hollywood- and American- leaning competition slates and jury committees in recent years, there are more than a few tantalizing developments to watch as familiar faces and revered talents walk the Croisette for the next two weeks...
Trailer Talk: Evaluating What’s Coming out in Three Minutes or Less
The end of this week saw the release of trailers for several of next fall’s most hotly anticipated film releases. Here’s our take on what to expect based on our extensive deep dives into their sub-three minute trailers…
The World’s End
Is it lazy to just write about films in terms of those that have come before them? What about writing about two movies that haven’t come out yet? Does your complete lack of familiarity with either film cancel out the laziness?...
Eli Roth on Aftershock, Learning to Love Horror, and Woody Allen
Brilliant, demented horror master Eli Roth — the Frank Sinatra of The Splat Pack — is ready to make the next round of moviegoers barf, thanks to Aftershock, a shock fest that chronicles the hell-on-earth circumstances that befall coastal Valparaiso, Chile, after an earthquake levels the town. While the film is helmed by Chilean director Nicolás López, Roth produces and stars, playing a hapless American who goes from partying and chasing girls to worrying about collapsing nightclubs and escaped prisoners. ...
The Greatest Gatsby: Before Leo,There was Redford
When Paramount purchased the film rights to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel for $350,000 (more than fifty times what the author earned for the book in his lifetime), studio head Robert Evans had no way of knowing just how different the 1974 film would look from his original vision. For a story that’s all about dwelling on the past, on the eve of Baz Luhrmann’s latest 'Great Gatsby' interpretation, it seems fitting to look back on the making of the Robert Redford-Mia Farrow film,...
Golden Age of Documentaries: A Q&A With Filmmaker Jamie Meltzer
Documentarian Jamie Meltzer knows how to pick his subject matter. Take his award-winning film Informant, which took home the Grand Jury Award at the DocNYC Festival as well as Best Documentary at the Austin Film Festival. Informant examines the life of Brandon Darby, a radical leftist activist turned FBI informant. Darby became a hero when he traveled to a Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans and braved toxic floodwaters to rescue a friend of his stranded in the Ninth Ward...
The Wild, Expensive (and not Always Improbable) Technology of Iron Man
You’d have to be a billionaire to equip yourself like Tony Stark, but it’s not entirely impossible.
Tony Stark is back. After helping his fellow Avengers save the world against a Norse god and vicious aliens, he spent years working on his technology, because at heart, Stark is an engineer. Marvel president Kevin Feige told GeekyTyrant.com that Stark has a whopping 42 new suits of armor in Iron Man 3, including “a prehensile suit that allows each individual piece of the suit to fly separately and latch on to him.”...
Iron Man Unmasked: Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle & More Talk Character
There’s more to Robert Downey Jr. and Don Cheadle’s characters than hardware as they ramp up the buddy action in Marvel’s Iron Man 3, in theaters today.
For all those high-flying, save-the-world acrobatics, sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there’s a man behind the suit—Tony Stark is Iron Man. And just as Iron Man is nothing without Tony, it’s nearly impossible to imagine Marvel’s Iron Man films without actor Robert Downey Jr.,...
One of America’s Greatest Exports: 2012 a Banner Year at the Global Box Office
With Iron Man 3 set to open wide tomorrow (and having already done brisk business overseas), this year has a slew of giant films that are likely to translate into boffo sales overseas. Those films include Star Trek: Into Darkness, Man of Steel, and Pacific Rim. It would not be a risky bet to pick all three as big-time global performers,...
From Soldier to Filmmaker: Q&A With The Iceman Director Ariel Vromen
How does an 'extreme' special unit Israeli Air Force soldier, law student and world-traveling DJ become a successful director working with some of the country’s biggest stars? Here’s the circuitous route Ariel Vromen took on his path from performing military maneuvers in Israel and reading dense law texts in England to getting behind the camera. Vromen faced an endless string of challenges to get his latest project, The Iceman, onto the big screen...
Artists, Executives, and Politicians Talk Innovation: Highlights From the Creativity Conference
‘Creativity’ might not be the very first synonym associated with the nation’s capital, but Friday’s D.C.-based Creativity Conference, presented by the MPAA, TIME, and Microsoft gave attendees good reason to rethink that. The first-ever event brought together leaders from film, politics, technology, and journalism, to talk candidly about the state of creativity in the U.S.
The stylish Corcoran Gallery of Art served as stimulating backdrop for the innovation-focused conference,...
Steaming Live: 2013 Creativity Conference, Presented by MPAA, Microsoft, and TIME
Today, the realms of film, tech, and journalism are colliding for a full day of invigorating panels, speakers, and demos in celebration of all things creative. The Motion Picture Association of America, Microsoft, and TIME are the official sponsors of the 2013 Creativity Conference, which kicks off today at 9am from the most creative place in the nation’s capital – the renowned Corcoran Museum.
Business leaders, artists, Hollywood executives, and government officials will convene to collaborate and share their respective expertise in channeling creativity...
