How Emmy-Nominated Editor Katheryn Naranjo Cut “Stranger Things” Season 3 Finale
The third season of The Duffer Brothers’ Netflix hit Stranger Things culminated in an epic finale with two huge battle scenes and a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows. For the uninitiated, Stranger Things is a sci-fi/horror series set in set in the 80s (with the soundtrack to match), which follows a group of young kids as they explore what’s behind a series of supernatural happenings in their town. Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers) leads the young cast—including Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven),
Emmy-Nominated Production Designer Monica Sotto on “Drunk History”
Let’s get the sad part out of the way; Comedy Central’s beloved Drunk History was recently canceled, after 6 glorious, inebriated, compulsively watchable seasons. Shortly before that bad bit of news was revealed, we got a chance to chat with the show’s production designer Monica Sotto, whose work on the season 6 finale “Bad Blood,” which focused on the highly infectious Typhoid Mary (narrated by Jackie Johnson) and Cleopatra’s younger sister,
Emmy-Nominated DP Greig Fraser on Harnessing Cutting-Edge Tech in “The Mandalorian”
The Emmys have spoken: The ballots are in, and among the most-nominated shows was Disney’s first live action Star Wars series, The Mandalorian.
One big reason for that was cinematographer Greig Fraser, a previous Oscar nominee for his work on Lion, and now sharing an Emmy nom with Barry “Baz” Idoine on the Disney+ series, in particular its gunslinging penultimate episode,
How Emmy-Nominated Choreographer Jemel McWilliams Makes His Moves
When Emmy-nominated choreographer Jemel McWilliams was a first grader growing up in the D.C. area, most of his friends spent their time worshipping and talking about Michael Jordan. It was the Nineties, and Jordan and the Bulls were at peak fame level. But McWilliams had a few other idols in his sights: Sammy Davis, Jr. and Savion Glover.
“I just loved that Sammy was an actor, a singer,
Emmy-Nominated Production Designer Jason Sherwood on Designing the Oscars
At 30 years old, Emmy-winning production designer Jason Sherwood became the youngest person to ever design the Oscars for this past year’s historic ceremony. Sherwood, already a talented theater designer, nabbed his first Emmy just last year for the design of Rent Live (which was also his first foray into major TV production).
For this year’s Oscars, Sherwood and his collaborator and fellow nominee, art director Alana Billingsley,
Production Designer John Paino Snags Dual Emmy Noms for “The Morning Show” and “Big Little Lies”
They might be rich and powerful, but that doesn’t mean the women of Big Little Lies and The Morning Show are content. Production designer John Paino made it his mission to create sleek environments that counterpoint the characters’ well-concealed inner turmoil. His efforts for each series have nabbed him two Emmy nominations this year. “My contribution is mood and atmosphere and continuity,” says Paino. “A lot of design is about finding this sweet spot where something’s so realistic you don’t even bat an eye,
Emmy-Nominated “Watchmen” Production Designer on The Show’s Eclectic Inspirations
Not only did Watchmen top all TV rivals by earning 26 Emmy nominations; the sprawling HBO series also tackled racism in America en route to becoming arguably the most topical drama of the year. Rooted in the horrific 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre of more than 300 Black citizens, Watchmen pits fictional superhero Sister Night (Regina King) against a secret society of white supremacists Hell-bent on taking over the world.
Elizabeth Debicki Cast as Princess Diana for Last Two Seasons of “The Crown”
One of the most sought-after roles in all of TV has been filled.
Netflix’s lush period drama The Crown has two more seasons to go. This past season introduced the great Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth, stepping in to replace the also splendid Claire Foy as the Queen in middle age. Now, the role that fans have been waiting to see filled—that of the Queen’s most famous in-law of them all,
“Hanna” Editor Morten Højbjerg on Cutting Amazon’s High-Octane Thriller
Hanna editor Morten Højbjerg cut the first two episodes of season one of creator David Farr’s relentlessly action-packed Amazon series, which was adapted from Joe Wright’s 2011 film (which Farr wrote) that starred Saoirse Ronan in the title role. In the series, Esme Creed-Miles takes over for Ronan as the titular young girl with a certain set of extraordinary skills not usually found in youngsters. Instead of planning sleepovers, doing homework,
Allison Jones & Ben Harris On the Funny-Unfunny “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Casting Process
How do you cast a show where most household name actors play themselves and entire scenes are based on improv? Well, it’s complicated. To get on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, now in its 10th season and booked to begin shooting Season 11 come fall, coronavirus permitting, you need to be funny, but you don’t have to be funny, and you definitely can’t seem to be trying to be funny. On actors who make it to an in-person audition,
“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” Getting Rebooted as a Drama
It’s time to start singing the Fresh Prince theme again (and really, why did we ever stop?). In a piece of fantastic news, The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop that Will Smith and Morgan Cooper, the creator of the viral YouTube trailer Bel-Air, are teaming up to adapt Cooper’s vision of a dramatic version of the iconic NBC comedy. THR writes that Bel-Air is being described as a dramatic riff on the comedy that turned Smith into a household name,
Hilary Swank Heads for Mars in New Trailer for “Away”
The pull of the Red Planet is such that it could qualify as its own Martian genre, which itself would encompass everything from horror to heartfelt, reality-based to rococo. From Ridley Scott’s The Martian to Andrew Stanton’s John Carter to Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! to Simon Wells Disney animated Mars Needs Moms, we keep going back to our nearest planetary neighbor, with a staggeringly diverse set of results.
Charlie Kaufman’s New Netflix Film & Ridley Scott’s New HBO Max Series Drop Trailers
Hot trailers alert! The trailer for I’m Thinking of Ending Things, the long-awaited next film from writer/director Charlie Kaufman is here (it’s the first live-action film he’s directed in a decade). So, too, is the official trailer for Raised By Wolves, Ridley Scott’s new HBO Max sci-fi series. Lots to be excited about here folks.
Let’s begin with Scott’s series. We all know that Scott made his name with sci-fi,
Emmy-Nominated Production Designer Ruth Ammon on “The Alienist”
For Emmy-nominated production designer Ruth Ammon, life as a production designer started when she was waiting tables at the Jersey Shore—and a small, independent film blew into town.
“I’d studied art and art history and I was a painter, and then this little after school special, Mystery at Fire Island, came to the island and I got on the crew, in the art department,” Ammon says. “I knew instantly that’s what I wanted to do.
How Justin Simien Schools Viewers in “Dear White People”
On one hand, Dear White People creator Justin Simien was thrilled to see a 600 percent increase in viewership for his Netflix series in the wake of George Floyd’s death. On the other hand, he says, “It’s also a little bit annoying because like, ‘Where were y’all when we started this conversation with this franchise six years ago when this [racism] was just as relevant then as it is now?'”
In tracking the trials and tribulations of wise-cracking Black students at an Ivy League-level fictional school called Winchester University,
Join Our Latest Virtual Film School Friday Chat on The Future of Awards
This year’s awards season will be unlike any other. This is hardly surprising considering 2020 is a year unlike any other, and the entertainment industry has had to reshuffle, rethink, and restructure itself on the fly like so many other sectors of our society. Just recently, the Emmy’s announced they’d be producing the show remotely due to COVID-19, with host Jimmy Kimmel and all of the nominees coming together virtually to deliver the show.
Showtime Reveals “The Comey Rule” Trailer
And there you have it, our first look at Brendan Gleeson channeling Donald Trump in Showtime‘s The Comey Rule. The miniseries is based on former FBI Director James Comey‘s best-selling book “A Higher Loyalty,” adapted and directed by Billy Ray. The new trailer not only reveals our first good look at Ray’s new series but also that, per his request, it will be premiering before election day, over two days on September 27 and 28.
Watch The Entire Opening Scene to Season 2 of “The Umbrella Academy”
What you need to handle the mid-week doldrums is a shot of The Umbrella Academy straight into your veins. The opening scene to the delightfully bizarre, beautifully constructed Netflix series is available to do just that, and it starts off with a bang.
The opening scene begins with Aidan Gallagher’s Number Five touching down in Dallas. He’s looking for his lost siblings, but the first thing he finds is that the Cold War has gone suddenly hot;
“Watchmen” Tops List of 2020 Emmy Nominations
Your 2020 Primetime Emmy Award nominees have been announced. The full list is available here. The Emmys are currently scheduled to air on ABC on September 20 with Jimmy Kimmel hosting. What form the ceremony will take is, like just about everything this year, subject to change. What we do know is that Kimmel and the Emmy producers are putting on some kind of show, and they’ll be celebrating a truly remarkable year on the small screen (all hail the most nominated show of the year,
Showtime Developing Series About Mafia’s First Family
If you were going to put together a new series based on the history of organized crime in America, we feel confident you really couldn’t do a better job than Showtime is currently doing. Granted, it’s still early days here, but the network is in the early stages of developing a series from Goodfellas and Casino co-writer Nicholas Pileggi, Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter (he also wrote and executive produced a little show called The Sopranos),
