How Snowpiercer’s Costume Designer Hopped On the Post-Apocalyptic Ride
Unlike Snowpiercer the train, which hurtles non-stop around the globe during a post-apocalyptic Ice Age, Snowpiercer the series has encountered numerous stops and starts en route to its May 17 premiere on TNT. Based on Parasite‘s Oscar-winning co-writer/director Bong Joon Ho’s 2013 film adaptation of a 1982 French graphic novel called Le Transperceneige, the TV version of Snowpiercer was initially developed by writer-producer Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles,
The Matrix 4 Cast Signs 8-Week Extension
At this point, all news surrounding the reopening of our economy, and film productions, in particular, is incredibly fluid. Yet a new report from Variety at least suggests that studios are seeing some potential to begin filming—or in many cases to resume filming—in the near future. Variety’s Marc Malkin has the exclusive that The Matrix 4 cast has signed eight-week extensions, keeping the actors available until at least July 6.
Set Your Phasers to Spiritual—A Movie Watchlist For Contemplating The Big Stuff
Years and years ago, before “meme” wasn’t even a word, before the internet itself, I was teaching a college film course called Critical Approach to Cinema. The title alone stood as a warning that it was time to get attentive to the art of film.
One of the movies I showed the class was Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I knew that getting them to watch a film whose slow and deliberate unfolding of sound and image would require wholesale changes in their viewing reflexes.
From Public Health to Film, How Thai Filmmaker Nirattisai Ratphithak Found His Path
Like nearly every other industry, the filmmaking world has undergone an unprecedented global shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve been talking to filmmakers all over the world to find out how they’ve been handling the stoppage in work, making the most of their quarantine, and their hopes for the future. Those interviews have included chats with Indian filmmakers Tannishtha Chatterjee and Priyanka Singh, and Filipino filmmaker Keith Sicat.
The Boys Costume Designers Carrie Grace & Laura Jean Shannon – Part II
In part 2 of our interview with the costume designers for Amazon Prime’s anti-hero superhero series The Boys, Laura Jean Shannon and Carrie Grace talked about the mechanics as well as the artistry involved in creating the superhero costumes—and the titular Boys’ more regular-guy clothes—for the hit series. Each super-suit requires a ton of work and enough duplicates that the actors and stunt performers can keep looking good. Season 2 of The Boys will be available later this year.
Dressing The Boys‘ Wholesome Hero Starlight With Costume Designers Carrie Grace & Laura Jean Shannon
A comic book artist has the luxury of creating superhero costumes that have to meet just one standard—looking cool. But when it comes time to translate those looks to screen, the costume designer has challenges that require more than imagination and a pencil. Superhero costumes worn by actors have to look real, even in hi-def. They have to withstand action scenes and they inevitably have to be cleaned and repaired afterward. But they can’t appear too brand-new;
Director Matt Wolf on His Uncannily Timely Documentary Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth tells the fascinating, timely story of eight men and women who, in 1991, stepped into a sealed replica of Earth’s ecosystem to live a fully sustainable life for 24 months. Their world was called Biosphere 2, engineered by inventor/investor John Allen, and the experiment in which they participated, deemed a global media phenomenon. Spaceship Earth is available now on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, FandangoNow, Vudu, DIRECTV, DISH, and longtime NEON partner Hulu.
Hamilton Movie Will Premiere on Disney+ a Full Year Earlier Than Planned
Good news is few and far between these days, so we’ll take it where we can get it. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is good news. The movie version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is arriving on Disney+ a full year (and change) earlier than originally planned. Hamilton will now stream on July 3, 2020, instead of the originally slated release of October 15, 2021. Miranda himself shared the news on Twitter:
It’s only a matter of time…
With Her Amazon Directing Gig on Hold, Indian Filmmaker Tannishtha Chatterjee Embraces Other Creative Pursuits
It’s often two-thirty in the afternoon before actor, writer, and director Tannishtha Chatterjee finds time to turn her attention to creative pursuits. “Till lunchtime…I’m cooking, cutting vegetables, cleaning, dusting and bathing Radhika.”
Radhika is Chatterjee’s four-and-a-half-year-old daughter. For the last six weeks, it’s been just the two of them tucked away in her Mumbai apartment. “She’s actually become quite independent in the last one and a half months. She’s learned many new things.
Erica Mūnoz on Producing & Starring in HBO’s Undocumented Immigrant Story Long Gone By
Just premiered on HBO, Long Gone By is the story of the hardworking single mother and undocumented immigrant Ana, played by Erica Mūnoz, who is trying to create the best life for her brainy teen daughter Izzy (Izzy Hau’ula) in their adoptive small town of Warsaw, Indiana. When a deportation order demands Ana return to Nicaragua, it puts not only her own future in jeopardy, it makes Izzy attending Indiana University nearly impossible.
Caitlin Moran on Adapting Her Own Novel How to Build a Girl
The girl in Caitlin Moran’s rowdy coming of age comedy How to Build a Girl, which the popular British author adapted from her 2014 semi-autobiographical debut novel, is so uniquely larger than life that finding the right actress proved problematic — at least for a while. The film is now available on-demand.
“We scoured Britain trying to find a British actress who could do it,” says Moran from her home in London where she’s “been in lockdown for weeks so just talking to another human being that isn’t someone I gave birth to or someone I married is a genuine thrill,” she says.
Composer Vivek Maddala Underscores Discrimination in Asian Americans Documentary for PBS
The versatile composer Vivek Maddala recently shifted gears from his zany Emmy-winning music for Cartoon Network series The Tom and Jerry Show to score PBS’ somber documentary Asian Americans (debuting May 11). A musical prodigy, Maddala enrolled in Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music at age 15 with dreams of becoming a jazz drummer but switched to electrical engineering at Georgia Tech before earning a graduate degree in applied physics.
Andy Serkis Reveals Interesting Nuggets About The Batman
Like every other major production, filming on Matt Reeves‘ hotly-anticipated The Batman was suspended in mid-March. Reeves and his talented cast and crew had begun production in London and had filmed around 25% of the total feature before production had to be shut down due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. The Batman is now slated for an October 1, 2020 release date—which we argued was the perfect time to unleash the new Batman on the world.
Behold the The King of Staten Island Trailer From Pete Davidson & Judd Apatow
The combination of Saturday Night Live‘s most offbeat cast member, the lovable if occasionally troubled Adam Davidson and comedy’s most reliable, sturdy father figure, writer/director Judd Apatow seems like a perfect match. Apatow has nurtured the career of a slew of promising comedic talents, including Seth Rogen, Amy Schumer, and Kumail Nanjiani. With Davidson, Apatow’s steady hand has found perhaps the perfect live wire.
The two teamed up for The King of Staten Island,
Spike Lee Reveals Poster & Release Date for His Netflix Movie Da 5 Bloods
You have to love a surprise Spike Lee film announcement, which is what the news of Da 5 Bloods will be for most folks. Lee teased his new Netflix film in a Tweet, revealing both the poster and the June 12 release date. The film tracks four African-American Vietnam veterans who return to the country to search for the remains of their squad leaders. Also, to try and track down some buried treasure.
How Filipino Filmmaker Keith Sicat is Using Quarantine to Help Fellow Filmmakers (And Entertain Himself in the Process)
“The beautiful thing is, you have to keep occupied right?” So says Filipino writer/director Keith Sicat, speaking from the six-week-long lockdown in Manila.
With three projects primed to go into production at the beginning of the year, Sicat now spends in time between project development, teaching filmmaking, and keeping his creative juices flowing on mini-projects with his young sons. “We started animating his toys, doing stop motion stuff around the house. It was something really fun and it was creative.
How Production Designer Anne Seibel Built a Jazz Club From Scratch in Damien Chazelle’s The Eddy
Contrasting the difficult lives of professional jazz musicians with their joyous, airy music, Damien Chazelle’s (Whiplash, La La Land) new Netflix series The Eddy turns on the personal and professional drama surrounding a titular jazz club in Paris’s down-to-earth 19th arrondissement (premiering on Friday, May 8). A legendary jazz pianist, it’s Elliot’s (André Holland) job to run the struggling club’s musical program until he unexpectedly inherits a backstage mess from his business partner,
Westworld and Snowpiercer Cinematographer John Grillo on Crafting Dueling Apocalypses
Right before lockdown and social distancing began in earnest, we had a chance to talk with notable cinematographer Paul Cameron about his return to Westworld, for which he not only shot the pilot but returned to film the just-concluded season’s opening episode and to direct the fourth.
He kept singing the praises of John Grillo, his cinematographer for that fourth installment, “The Mother of Exiles,” replete with action-strewn set pieces,
Actress Tamlyn Tomita on Star Trek: Picard, Celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and More
Actress Tamlyn Tomita was one of the four panelists in our first-ever virtual Film School Friday event this past April. Tomita appeared alongside (remotely, of course) Fear the Walking Dead and 9-1-1: Lone Star cinematographer Andrew Strahorn, Watchmen scribe Stacy Osei-Kuffour, and Game of Thrones and Westworld composer Brandon Campbell. The panel discussed, among many topics, the collaborative nature of film and television,
Tom Cruise Plans to Be The First Person to Film an Action Movie in Actual Outer Space
Tom Cruise loves to do crazy stunts. Despite being one of Hollywood’s biggest stars for four decades now, Cruise has made it his mission (pun intended) to perform a lot of his own stunts, and many of them have been full-tilt bananas. Holding onto the side of a plane as it took off? Check. Free-climbed the tallest building in the world? Check. Piloted his own helicopter during a fantastically insane chase in the last Mission: Impossible movie?
