Award Winning Documentarian Rachel Beth Anderson on Filming in Conflict Zones
Rachel Beth Anderson is a cinematographer-turned-director who has spent her career working almost exclusively in conflict zones. She was recently awarded the cinematography award for a U.S. documentary at Sundance, along with Ross Kaufman, for her work on E-Team, which followed a group of four Human Rights Watch workers documenting war crimes around the world.
Along with filming in Syria, Anderson has worked in Libya,
The Future of Mad Men‘s Secondary Characters
On April 13th, the seventh and final season of Mad Men premiers on AMC. It's been a long, wild ride. Just think, a mere six seasons ago Don Draper was happily married to Betty, Peter Cambell was a brash and ambitious young buck, Peggy was a secretary, and Sterling Cooper was still a thing. The world around them had barely heard of the Beatles. Who could have guessed then where they would be now?
Game of Thrones: What We Learned From Season Three
Our beloved lunatics from Westeros are back for season four of Game of Thrones, which means it’s time for a refresher course on what the hell is going on in the Seven Kingdoms (and beyond). We all needed a breather after last season’s penultimate episode, “The Rains of Castamere.” That infamous hour of television delivered such a collective gut punch to the millions of fans who hadn’t read George R.
Getting Schooled by Anna Deavere Smith on her HBO Documentary
Playwright, actress, and professor Anna Deavere Smith does not like to be precious about the work she has done with her students over the years. She’s bracingly honest and laid back about the time and effort she’s devoted to helping young people who dream of carving out a career like the one she has had. “It’s not so noble as sharing the craft,” she said when asked why she continues to teach well into a successful career as varied as it is impressive.
From Darryl F. Zanuck to Christine Vachon: The Quotable Producer
Jerry Weintraub, a legendary film producer, took to the stage this past Sunday to accept the Golden Globe for best TV movie or miniseries for Behind the Candelabra. The film was the work of a slew of super talented individuals coming together to create something original and daring. Some of those people include the director Steven Soderbergh, his two stars, Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his young lover Scott Thornson,
Talking Title Sequences With Creator of ‘Art of the Title’
Art of the Title is the most comprehensive online resource of title sequence design you’ll find.
Ian Albinson’s our kind of movie lover—appreciating all the work that goes into the film experience, not just the bold face names.
“From the tense closeups of Kim Novak’s face in 1958’s Vertigo to the singing ruby lips of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975;
The World’s End, Drinking Buddies, & You’re Next: Weekend Watch List
Movie calendars no longer really mean what they used to. Yes, movies with Academy Award aspirations do get back loaded and released during the fall and early winter. Yes, summer is still blockbuster season, a fact as immutable as gravity or Woody Allen releasing a movie a year. Yet assuming you can guess the relative quality of a film based on the date it was released is getting harder and harder to predict.
Take late August,
Creativity in Hollywood: Film Visionaries On Creative Process And Inspiration
Unlike most films and television shows, inspiration is not available on-demand. In the highly creative realm of movie-making, a good idea can catapult careers, spark motion picture franchises, and make cinematic history.
Inventing the next film can mean laying the groundwork for brilliant movies and television, from Inception, Taxi Driver, The Master, or Edward Scissorhands.
Of course, caveats abound.
Filmmaking 101: Vimeo’s Fantastic Video School
The Vimeo Video School is committed to helping budding filmmakers learn the tricks (and most importantly, techniques) of the trade through their series of lessons, tutorials, and advice. The Vimeo staff create the videos, as well as pulls tutorials, Q&As and films from the larger Vimeo community into their curriculum. They’re not only informative and fun, they’re also, blessedly, free.
A lot of the filmmakers we’ve spoken to over the past year said more or less the same thing at some point in the conversation—it’s never been easier to make your own film.
Your Big Break: Hollywood Studio Programs for Emerging Writers
How hard is it to make it as a screenwriter in Hollywood? Watch the Coen brothers Barton Fink or Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard or last year’s Seven Psychopaths for a clue. All three films focus on a struggling screenwriter. All three, while wildly different and wonderfully perverse (in their own specific ways) get at the beating black heart of the unknown screenwriter’s soul—that your soul is for sale, so long as you can get your script made.
Breaking Bad, Austenland, JOBS: Your Schizophrenic Weekend Viewing Guide
Summer’s winding down, folks. So you really need to maximize all the relaxing you can do before the inevitable crush of obligations and stress that is fall, the holiday season, and the end of the year bears down on you.
August is the midday nap of the calendar. It’s a month for whiling away hours in repose. Movie theaters offer one of the last spaces on our hyper-connected planet where you’re obligated to silence your smart phone and be quiet for two hours.
George Mastras on Writing & Directing One of Breaking Bad’s Best Episodes
George Mastras has been a criminal investigator for the public defender’s office in Washington D.C., a counselor at a juvenile correctional facility during the crack epidemic of the 1990s, a litigator in New York, and a defense attorney in Los Angeles. Then he quit, bought a one-way ticket to China and backpacked around the world for two years. He wrote a novel while he was in Indonesia that was published by Scribner in early 2009 to very good reviews.
Narrative Darwinsim: House of Cards Showrunner Beau Willimon Gets Creative
Since shooting on House of Cards began just one year ago this month, Netflix’s debut series has been the focus of tremendous buzz and speculation—due in large part to its innovative distribution model, stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, and executive producer and sometimes director David Fincher. But from the very beginning, it’s been 35 year-old showrunner Beau Willimon who has been in charge of completely overhauling the 1990 British miniseries of the same name and turning it into one of television’s most compelling and often prescient pieces of programming.
Handicapping the Emmy’s With John “The Actor Whisperer” Pallotta
Some exciting things happened this year when the Emmys were announced by Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul and host Neil Patrick Harris (filling in for House of Cards’ Kate Mara, who was stuck on location in Santa Fe): American Horror Story — an extreme, boundary-pushing creepfest — lead the pack with 17 noms, and the Netflix series House of Cards made history by scoring nods for Best Drama,
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 &
From Hot Topic to Hollywood: Costume Designer Trayce Field of 2 Broke Girls
Tonight is the season finale of 2 Broke Girls, so it’s a perfect time to get to know the woman who gives the show it’s indelible look. In a quick Q&A, costume designer Trayce Field reveals how her road to primetime success has a lot to do with Hot Topic, what she’s working on with Will Ferrell (she was the costume designer for his Casa de mi Padre),
How Disney Creates Magic Moments and Generations of Happy Customers
No other brand on the planet has so thoroughly captured the essence of ‘enchantment’ quite like Walt Disney has. Fairy tales, animation, an international treasure trove of ethereal amusement parks – Walt Disney’s CV is proof that the brand’s ceaseless commitment to provoking wonder in everyone, of any age, anywhere pays off in dividends. Look no farther than memory recall – the mere mention of the brand name evokes sun-hued snapshots of real life magic;
Veep‘s new VIP: Veteran Actress Mimi Kennedy Takes us Behind-the-Scenes of HBO’s Comedy
Mimi Kennedy pops up on the screen in the most unexpected places, but as an actor, writer and political activist that should be no surprise. She recently played the formidable madam in a house of ill repute in ABC's Scandal, Jason Segel’s tough talking mother on the big screen in The Five-Year Engagement and the soigneé mother-in-law-to-be in Woody Allen’s all-star cast of
The Midas Touch: From Mad Men and Breaking Bad to Copper, Christina Wayne’s on a Roll
You will not meet a lot of TV executives who were once writers and directors themselves. This might go some way in explaining how Christina Wayne, now the president of Cineflix Studios, has had such a keen eye when it comes to selecting incredible (and oft-overlooked) scripts and getting them made. Wayne’s credits include not one but two game-changing shows, Mad Men and Breaking Bad,
House of Sound: Composer Jeff Beal Talks David Fincher, Scoring Netflix’s Breakout Hit, and Jazz
When composer Jeff Beal heard that director David Fincher was involved in an intriguing television project with Netflix, he wanted in. That project was House of Cards, an original series starring Kevin Spacey as House Majority Whip Frank Underwood, a vengeful political animal with scores to settle. Fincher asked Beal to submit some musical sketches, and what Beal created ended up becoming the basis for the show’s theme,
