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 &
Emmy Award-Winning Actor Tony Shalhoub On Craft
Tony Shalhoub is a prolific actor whose illustrious career has spanned television shows, theater productions, and major Hollywood films. His performances have earned him three Emmy awards and a Golden Globe for his work on the television show Monk, and a Tony nomination for his work on Broadway.
The characters he's portrayed have become cultural legends–from his award-winning performance of the endearing OCD-plagued criminal detective Adrian Monk of the hit television show Monk,
Exec Producer and Writer Mark Goffman of White Collar Talks Aaron Sorkin, President Obama, and Patrick Swayze’s Final Show
Mark Goffman, a veteran TV writer and producer, has worked on a wide range of shows and films, including mega-hits like The West Wing and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He’s currently a writer and executive producer on USA Network’s White Collar (the new season starts on January 22 at 10/9 central), about a criminal who agrees to help the FBI catch his brothers-in-crime using his expertise as an art and securities thief.
“The Funniest People I Know Are Women”: Director Paul Feig on The Heat, Bridesmaids and Freaks and Geeks
As one of the most respected comedy writers in Hollywood, Paul Feig’s professional trajectory has become something of an industry legend. The comedian turned actor-writer-director-producer has been relentless in his quest to leave an indelible mark on the state of comedy television and cinema. And his ambitions are infectious. Along the way, Feig’s helped launch the careers of many talented actors; James Franco, Jason Segel, and Seth Rogen all became household names thanks to Feig's instant television classic,
Film at the Vatican Without Leaving LA: How Stargate Studios’ Virtual Backlot Is Revolutionizing The Industry
On location shooting is a variable that can make or break a film or television project. It might be the difference between shooting a scene at Westminster Abbey, or at the neighborhood church. So when visual effects house Stargate Studios launched their Virtual Backlot nearly a decade ago, television shows everywhere could hardly wait to use their game-changing library of virtual backdrops. From Vegas casinos to idyllic beaches, producers could finally green-light exotically ambitious scripts,
The Credits’ Thanksgiving Movie Survival Guide
Here's our curated movie survival guide, packed with every conceivable kind of film for you to gorge on during the Thanksgiving holiday. Please watch responsibly.
Featured image of Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower watching a television during the Republican National Convention, Chicago, Illinois, 1952. Photo taken by Thomas J. O'Halloran, courtesy the Library of Congress.
