SXSW 2015: Sony’s Steve Mosko Talks TV
Sony Pictures Television’s president Steve Mosko recalled the reaction of some of his fellow executives when they were preparing to green light an oddball script some years ago. The story was about a high school chemistry teacher with terminal cancer turning to the production and distribution of crystal meth in order to support his family after he died. Not only was this premise completely baffling to some of Mosko’s colleagues (wait, the protagonist is going to die?
Inside The Americans Costume Shop
"I knew going in that when people heard 1980s they’d automatically think neon, big hair, shoulder pads, and I also knew that was actually not true," costume designer Jenny Gering told us when we interviewed her about her work on The Americans. "1981 looks much more like the late 70s than what people associate with the 1980s. I knew it would be fun for me to reeducate the viewer to the way that time period actually looked.
The American’s Costume Designer Jenny Gering
If you haven’t seen FX’s hit series The Americans yet, you are missing out on the one of the most relentlessly entertaining, thoughtfully produced dramas on television. What’s more, for those of you who have any memory of the 1980s, The Americans is also one of the most gorgeously shot and costumed shows on TV, at once nailing it’s era and milieu and simultaneously subverting what you think the 80s looked like.
Made in Maryland: Hanging With the Crew on the Set of Veep
It was a cold, blustery Tuesday in December when we were on the set of HBO’s Veep in downtown Baltimore. On the production front, however, It was a relatively calm day of filming by Veep standards, but a calm day on the set of this show still requires dozens of crew members to work their butts off. Whether it was Kim Bogues in craft services, costumer Constance Harris or assistant property managers Jamie Bishop and John Bert,
2014 in Review: Lensers, Designers, Makeup Artists & More – PART II
The end of the year brings a few reliable reactions; promises to do x, y and z more consistently in the new year, reflection on all that you accomplished (and failed at, and regretted) this past year, and 'Year in Review' lists. Yesterday we published Part I of our look back at some of the filmmakers we interviewed in 2014. On Monday, we published an interview with cinematographer Robert Yeoman, looking back on his work in Wes Anderson's
Director Michelle MacLaren’s a Wonder Woman
It’s time to get excited about a comic-book movie that’s not directed by Christopher Nolan or Joss Whedon, that doesn’t star or co-star or have a cameo by Robert Downey Jr., and that's not centered on a brooding dude, or a rich, conflicted dude, or a bunch of dudes with various powers. We're talking about a film that’s poised to make a household name of not one woman but two. Your excitement will be warranted,
God of the Gown: Oscar de la Renta’s Influence on Hollywood
Born in the Dominican Republic in 1932, Oscar de la Renta began his career in the 1950s, in Franco’s Spain, and by the time he passed this past Monday at his home in Kent, Connecticut at the age of 82, he was not only an fashion icon but perhaps the most beloved figure in the entire industry. His dresses were worn by first ladies in the White house, by celebrities at the Oscars, by characters in TV and film and by thousands of models on the runway.
What to Expect From Season Five of The Walking Dead
This Sunday at 9 p.m (EST), Rick, Daryl, Michonne and The Walking Dead gang are back. Cable’s most popular show has survived a rotating cast of showrunners (Scott M. Gimple is now their third) and the slings and arrows of disgruntled fans and critics (especially during season two's extended stay on Hershel's farm) by a zombie-like ability to maintain just enough momentum to keep fans interested. “The show reinvents itself every eight episodes,” said Gimple in AMC's production notes,
Full Immersion: Hollywood Eyes New Storytelling Methods
The dreams of a serious virtual reality, the kind of full-tilt total immersion that have been a part of the collective imagination for as long as we've had computers, had seemingly come and gone. Despite the fever dream virtual realities imagined in films like Tron, The Lawnmower Man, and perhaps most evocatively in Kathryn Bigelow's barely remembered but quite robust on a fresh viewing, Strange Days, we've been left wanting when it comes to virtual reality…until now. The VR scene has had a recent rebirth in the eyes of the consumer,
Moira Walley-Beckett: Emmy-Winning Writer of Breaking Bad‘s Best Episode
After the 14th episode in Breaking Bad’s final season aired, creator and showrunner Vince Gilligan called it “the best episode we ever had or ever will have.” Titled "Ozymandias" after Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem, it was the third-to-last episode in the series, and it was the one that, more so than any other in the show’s incredible run, crushed viewers. Death, betrayal and, at long last, the removal of any lingering hope that Walter White might somehow keep his family.
Agent Knox vs. Eli Thompson:Boardwalk Empire’s Brian Geraghty on Season 4 Finale
Spoiler alert. For those of you not caught up with Boardwalk Empire, do not watch the video or read the below.
In one corner, you've got Agent Warren Knox (Brian Geraghty), the young comer at the Bureau of Investigation whose clean shaven baby face belies a murderer's malice. In the other corner stands Eli Thompson (Shea Whigham), little brother to Atlantic City's crime boss Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi), a former police chief,
The Very Real Effect Fictional Characters Have on Tourism
If you've been to Albuquerque anytime in the past few years, you've probably noticed that the city embraced a little show called Breaking Bad. Walter White's visage, as well as Jesse's, Hank's and the beloved hitman Mike's, could be seen peeking out of store windows on T-shirts and spray painted on walls. Such was the mass appeal of Breaking Bad that graffiti artists honoring the show unveiled their work in Leicester Square in London.
Exec Producer & Writer on FX’s Tyrant Talks About Groundbreaking Show
FX's new show Tyrant is unlike anything currently on television. Showcasing Arab characters and cultures, set in the Middle East, the 10-episode first season is a bold step towards showing American audiences people and situations rarely depicted. While Netflix's Orange is the New Black is deservedly lauded for filling the frame with three dimensional female characters who are black, brown, gay and transgendered, Tyrant will put faces on our screen who have too often been portrayed as villains or marginal characters at best.
Father’s Day With the Lannisters: Game of Thrones Thrilling Finale
An absolute ton of spoilers below. Just a ton. Don't read if you're not caught up.
The end of the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones, “The Watchers on the Wall,” saw Jon Snow leaving Castle Black after surviving the first onslaught of Mance Rayder’s Wildling army. Giants, mammoths, Wildlings and Crows were strewn inside and outside the wall, dead and soon to be burned. Jon was leaving, alone, without his sword and,
Chatting With Greer Grammer of MTV’s hit Series Awkward
Greer Grammer knows a thing or two about multitasking. The young actress, currently shooting the fourth season of MTV’s breakout scripted drama Awkward, is also making her way through her junior year at the University of Southern California. This sometimes means being on set until 5 a.m., returning to her apartment for two hours of sleep and then heading off to class. The theater major’s not complaining, however. Having nabbed a regular role on the critically acclaimed Awkward,
Lions and Transformers and Giant Lizards, Oh My! Studios Taking to Tumblr
Adidas became the first major brand to build an advertising campaign on Tumblr, back in 2012, shortly after Tumblr announced they would be including paid advertising on their site. Today, the Adidas Tumblr page is a wonder of beautiful product shots, videos, artwork and what feels like an infinite amount of scrollable content.
Tumblr now hosts nearly 189 million blogs comprising more than 83 billion posts, with more than 90 million posts created each day.
Damon Lindelof Returns to TV to for HBO’s The Leftovers
“Two percent doesn’t sound like much, but, two percent of the entire planet, of every person on it, that’s more than the world’s ten largest cities combined. That’s more than every death from every war in the 20th century. If every one of those people joined hands, they’d wrap around the world six times. It’s one hundred and forty million people. And like that…they were gone.”
The above quote comes from one of the clever,
Comedy Central’s Growing Roster of Female Showstoppers
If you haven’t watched any of Inside Amy Schumer on Comedy Central, you should start doing so immediately. Far from coming out of nowhere (Schumer’s been on Comedy Central in several capacities over the years, and finished fourth on NBC's Last Comic Standing), there are still many people in the country who haven’t heard of her, so watching her show can feel like witnessing the sudden birth of the total comedy package—like a foul-mouthed,
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,
Tribeca 2014: David Simon, Beau Willimon, Nate Silver & Anne Thompson Talk Stories
We all know that our shopping habits are fodder for various entities looking to target their advertising and increase their profits, but the same kind of Big Data is being used by media and entertainment entities, from HBO and Netflix to the New York Times and Fox News, to figure out who we are, what we read and watch, and what, perhaps, we want next. "Does betting on the ‘wisdom of crowds’ bode well or ill for future innovation in film,
