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,
By The Book: Literary Icons Flock to Hollywood
Los Angeles, arguably best known for its flagship status as a gateway to Hollywood and the film industry at large, has developed uncountable stereotypes for the culture that populates its traffic-clogged arteries. And while there might be too many LAisms to count (for starters: epic taco trucks, grass-scented juice bars, fuzzed-up band members sauntering down Sunset Boulevard, etc. etc.) those reserved for the film industry are particularly iconic misnomers. Among them, my favorite: the questioningly ambitious,
Are you a Joffrey, a Cersei, or a Jon Snow? Take our Game of Thrones Personality Quiz
Season three of Game of Thrones is finally, mercifully here. Of the many, many reasons to love GOT (dragons, palace intrigue, a Tolkien-esque commitment to mythical cartography with a Cinemax After Dark commitment to carnal relations), we've found that it’s the fantastically divergent (and huge) cast of characters that makes it endlessly enjoyable, week after week. Millions of fans would no doubt agree.These characters!
The Art of Armory: Chatting With Game of Thrones Costume Designer Michele Clapton
Emmy and BAFTA award winning costume designer Michele Clapton has perhaps one of the most demanding, and most fun, jobs in TV—she clothes the wild, epic world of HBO’s Game of Thrones. Clapton, who works in Belfast, Ireland, heads up a team of weavers, embroiderers and armorers as she creates the costumes, most of them from scratch (they have their own loom in which they weave the fabric) for a show unrivaled in its scope,
Triple Threat: Chatting With Film/TV/Video Game Composer Christopher Lennertz of NBC’s Revolution
Christopher Lennertz’s composing career has settled nicely across three mediums, making him one of the busiest musicians in Hollywood. His most recent film successes includes scoring a string star-studded comedies like Identity Thief, Think Like a Man and Horrible Bosses. For scoring TV, his credits include NBC’s new series Revolution, about a family struggling to reunite in a totally powerless American landscape–and we mean that literally,
Week in Review: Eight Talking Points from the World of Film & TV From This Past Week
Surely you’ve got more to talk about than Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon…
Back to school: The Weinstein Company has officially confirmed they will release Salinger, a feature length documentary on the Catcher in the Rye author, on September 6th. The film was directed by Shane Salerno (he also co-wrote a companion biography with journalist David Shields, to be published by Simon & Schuster, who is a co-producer on the film).
Veronica Mars Takes Hollywood By Storm: We Imagine The Next Back-From-The-Dead Kickstarter Projects
The wildly successful campaign for the Veronica Mars movie brought in $4 million in mere days, making Kickstarter a viable interest-vetting platform for Hollywood. As rumors continue to volley about the potential resurrection of long-forgotten or ended-too-soon series, sequels, and one-offs, industry insiders have been prophetically asking: does the digital model of supply-and-demand mark a new era of movie-making as we know it?
How'd it happen?
From Game of Thrones to 42: An Epic Spring Awaits
At 7:02 a.m. EDT this morning, the sun crossed directly over the Earth’s equator in a moment called the vernal equinox (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, that is)—when both day and night are, more or less, equal. Spring lasts until the summer solstice, which comes on Friday, June 21st. Although this might sound like a strange intro to a Weather.com report, we’re merely alerting you to this specific stretch of time because, between today and June 21st,
Documentary Filmmaker Andrew Jenks Makes Compassion Cool on MTV’s World of Jenks
Andrew Jenks wasn’t the first free spirit to drop out of college. He also wasn’t the first to do it despite having two successful parents, one of whom currently serves as the Assistant Secretary General for the United Nations. But he was certainly the first to go from the halls of NYU straight into an assisted living facility, where the documentary he shot, Andrew Jenks, Room 335, was quickly acquired by HBO,
Lovesick: Comedian Natasha Leggero Knocks Our Socks Off in the Ben Stiller Produced Burning Love
Sixteen lovelorn bachelorettes bunk up in an L.A. mansion where they’ll compete for the heart of hunky firefighter Mark Orlando and, naturally, embark on some epic makeout sessions and drunken catfights along the way. If it sounds like the “plot” to just about every reality show out there, that’s because it is. But Burning Love, an instant cult classic that started as a Yahoo web series and began its TV run on E!
Making his Mark: From Fake Tattoos to Ghastly Wounds, Meet Oscar Winning Makeup & SFX Guru Christien Tinsley
You may not know Christien Tinsley by name, but if you've seen American Horror Story, Sons of Anarchy, The Passion of the Christ or Gangster Squad, you've seen his work. A fan of fantasy and monster movies since he was a young boy growing up outside of Seattle, Tinsley is now a king in the biz: a well-regarded makeup and prosthetic artist and owner of Tinsley Studio and TinsleyTransfers,
The Queen of Casting: Meet Emmy Award Winning Casting Director & Baltimore Legend Pat Moran
The plight of the casting director is well known to people who follow the industry—they are crucial, they are highly skilled, and they are almost comically overlooked when it comes to having their contributions to filmmaking recognized (the TV world is, however, more egalitarian—they are honored at the Emmys). The gap between their worth to the films they work on and the respect they receive has generated pieces from the likes of Deadline.com and The Wrap, who wonder why the work of such critical collaborators,
Second Screens, Morgan Spurlock, and the Future of Film and TV: Variety’s Entertainment Summit At CES
The Credits recently journeyed to the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show, where we caught Variety’s Entertainment Summit amid the bustling Las Vegas Convention Center. Sponsored by one of the industry’s most venerable publications, the two-day summit celebrates innovation in the content industries.
Tucked away from the effervescent, gadget-adorned exhibition halls, we watched dynamic panels and discussions on the future of film,
Vision-Controlled TV, 110-Inch 4K Screens, and Danny DeVito: The Credits Journeys to 2013 CES
Last week, The Credits attended the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show to check out the newest, cutting-edge technology and innovation happening in the world of film and television. Voyaging to the Las Vegas Convention Center for CES is a bit of a spiritual pilgrimage for tech fans and gadget devotees, so expectations were reasonably high that we'd see futuristic high-tech finds. Well, 2013 CES certainly delivered–surpassing our paltry little hopes.
We saw things that could have been plucked straight from George Lucas's wildest dreams: A 'smart'
Golden Globes Co-Hosts Tina Fey & Amy Poehler’s Best Live TV Moments
Even though the show hasn’t happened yet (and all due respect to the "most feared man in Hollywood," Ricky Gervais), we’re gonna go out on a limb and say that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were the best Golden Globes hosts in the show’s 70-year history (airing Sunday, 8ET/5PT on NBC). Not only did the dynamic duo display the hilarity, inventiveness, and chemistry of longtime friends who also happen to be comedic geniuses,
The Many Lives Of a Hollywood Stunt Performer: A Conversation With Oliver Keller
Oliver Keller grew up in a small town in Switzerland dreaming of becoming a stuntman in Hollywood. His appetite for excitement led him to Super G Downhill skiing and an eventual apprenticeship with a German stunt professional, but he had his sights set on bigger things.
Today, Oliver is a rising star in Hollywood’s stunt community, and has worked on mega-blockbusters from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl to Master &
