Editor Kirk Baxter on Syncing Three POVs Down to the Second in “A House of Dynamite” — Part 2
How do you edit the same 20-minute countdown three times without it feeling repetitive? Oscar winner Kirk Baxter breaks down the sound, pacing, and POV choices that made "A House of Dynamite" unbearably tense.
“A House of Dynamite” Editor Kirk Baxter on Sculpting Kathryn Bigelow’s Cinéma Vérité Nuclear Thriller
Editor Kirk Baxter on maintaining tension in Kathryn Bigelow's "A House of Dynamite" without exhausting the audience: "The actors slow down when the reality dawns on them, air gets sucked out of the room."
Co-Writer Emily Mortimer on Balancing Agony and Hilarity in Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly”
"Jay Kelly" co-writer Emily Mortimer shares how months of conversation became a script about aging, regret, and finding one friend who matters.
“No Other Choice” Writer/Director Park Chan-wook on His Killer Instinct
Park Chan-wook spent 15 years adapting Donald Westlake's "The Ax" into "No Other Choice"—a darkly comic thriller about a fired executive who chooses vengeance as his next career move.
“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” Production Designer Stefania Cella on Her New Jersey Dream Tour
Bruce Springsteen's legacy is inseparable from New Jersey—so "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere" filmed across 14 NJ municipalities, spending $42M over 31 days. Production designer Stefania Cella sourced a vintage carousel, recreated the Stone Pony, and got access to Bruce's vault.
How “Predator: Badlands” Director Dan Trachtenberg Embraced Fear For His Franchise-Best Vision
"Predator: Badlands" director Dan Trachtenberg on embracing his fear & making the franchise's highest-grossing film.
“Song Sung Blue” Writer/Director Craig Brewer on Touring Kate Hudson & Hugh Jackman Through America’s Heartland
Song Sung Blue is a story of working-class America, made by working-class America. Writer/director Craig Brewer, best known for helming Hustle & Flow and Dolemite Is My Name, even carried that through to the film’s innovative marketing, taking it on a tour of middle America.
The biographical musical drama, based on the 2008 documentary film of the same name, stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as Mike and Claire Sardina,
Producer Vanridee Pongsittisak on Driving Thai Film & TV’s Global Breakthrough
The past few years have marked a period of remarkable momentum for Thai producer Vanridee Pongsittisak.
While the foundations of her career were built over more than a decade, supported by the Bangkok-based GTH and GDH 559 studios, Vanridee has recently led the charge as Thai filmmakers expand their international horizons.
Most visibly, this mission has played out in real time through the runaway success of the Pat Boonnitipat-directed comedy-drama How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies.
The Architect of the Upside Down: Inside “Stranger Things” Production Designer Chris Trujillo’s Epic Season 5 Builds
We’ve come a long way from a group of boys playing Dungeons & Dragons in a basement, and their chance encounter with a shy girl with massive powers shivering in the rain. With Season 5, Matt and Ross Duffer’s Stranger Things came to a close, but not without leaving audiences emotionally spent and deeply satisfied. The production of the closing chapter was wildly ambitious. The first table read took place in December 2023 under the codename “Cedar Lodge,” before shooting for 237 days,
How Costume Designer Deborah L. Scott Dressed the Wind Traders and Ash People for “Avatar: Fire and Ash”
Four decades ago, Deborah L. Scott was on a plane to the middle of nowhere, Alaska, to design costumes for Carroll Ballard’s Never Cry Wolf (1983). The decision changed her career.
“As scared as I was, as ridiculous and unprepared as I probably looked, it was a good idea,” she shares with The Credits. “It’s ok to be unprepared, and stepping out of your comfort zone is good as an artist.” The project introduced her to Steven Spielberg and opened the door to E.T.
“Wicked: For Good” Choreographer Christopher Scott on Conjuring Magical Moves With Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande
Choreographer Christopher Scott reveals why Cynthia Erivo told him to "go hard," and how Bob Fosse inspired Glinda's showstopping intro.
How Simon Franglen Brought Punk Energy and Mongolian Instruments to “Avatar: Fire and Ash”
The audible experience of an Avatar film is as ambitious as the groundbreaking visuals. With both familiar and otherworldly cues, composer Simon Franglen develops textured cues and themes that draw audiences into the story. Together with the sound effects, Franglen, his orchestra, and collaborators deliver another transportive score in James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash.
As vast as the world of Pandora is, the experience for Franglen scoring these mammoth spectacles is counterintuitively intimate.
Shaken & Stirred: “The Testament of Ann Lee” DP William Rexer on Capturing Amanda Seyfried’s Fearless Performance
Intimate and uninhibited, director Mona Fastvold’s (co-writer, executive producer, and 2nd unit director of The Brutalist) The Testament of Ann Lee is a devoted biopic about the unusual founder of the Shaker movement, Mother Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried). Considered a representative of God, Lee guided her offshoot of the Quakers into existence during a period of English Evangelical revival, but the group’s unrestrained dancing, curtailed sexual relations, and encouragement of gender equality were unique even within the broader religious resurgence.
“Marty Supreme” Composer Daniel Lopatin on Blending Synths & Orchestra for Timothée Chalamet’s Ultra Ambitious Striver
Oscar-shortlisted composer Daniel Lopatin earned a reputation amongst electronic music fans for his steady stream of experimental solo albums recorded under the name OneOhTrix Point Never. But it’s Lopatin’s pulsating score for Marty Supreme that will surely expose his synth-driven compositions to a broader audience.
Filmed in New York City and set in 1952, writer-director Josh Safdie’s fact-based movie stars Timothée Chalamet as ping-pong hustler Marty Mauser,
Inside “Stranger Things” Season 5: DP Caleb Heymann on Will’s Visions, Vecna’s Mind-Maze, & Demogorgon Drones
The fifth and final season of Stranger Things may take place over the course of a few November days, but the Duffer Brothers’ ever-ambitious epic took almost a year to shoot. Volume 1, the season’s first four episodes, saw Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) putting her powers to work in the Upside Down, Will (Noah Schnapp) telepathically connecting with demogorgons, and the youngest Wheeler sibling, Holly (Tinsley Price), taken prisoner by Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower),
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” Scene-Stealer Oona Chaplin on Creating the Captivating, Vengeful Varang
If ever there was an actor more perfectly aligned with the ethos of James Cameron and the world of Pandora, it’s Oona Chaplin. Chaplin’s first conversation with Cameron revolved around biodynamic and organic farming. She is an activist and environmentalist whose humanitarian efforts span from Brazil, Cuba, Chile, Mexico, and beyond. She’s volunteered in refugee camps and supported film education for Saharawi refugees through the FiSahara Festival.
“Wake Up Dead Man” Costume Designer Jenny Eagan on Priestly Fashion and Daniel Craig’s ’70s-Inspired Suits
For her third collaboration with writer-director Rian Johnson on his Knives Out Mystery franchise, costume designer Jenny Eagan recalibrated her color palette to suit Wake Up Dead Man‘s darker tone. Daniel Craig, of course, returns as detective Benoit Blanc, but the new installment co-stars Josh O’Connor and Josh Brolin as small-town priests. Rounding out the cast of killers, victims, and innocent bystanders are Glenn Close,
Inside & Upside Down on “Wicked: For Good”: Production Designer Nathan Crowley on His Anti-Gravity Architecture
In order for production designer Nathan Crowley to be able to realize his vision for director Jon M. Chu’s Wicked films, he needed to assemble a crack team of artisans he has relied on for decades. Combining age-old skills and techniques with organic materials foraged from forests, seeing locations as sculptures that needed to evolve with the filmmaking and storytelling process.
Wicked: For Good focuses on the maelstrom surrounding Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba,
Best of 2025: “Part Debate Club and Part Therapy”: Inside “The Pitt” Writers’ Room With Cynthia Adarkwa & Valerie Chu
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
HBO’s The Pitt emerged as one of television’s most gripping medical dramas in years by doing something deceptively simple yet extraordinarily difficult: following a single, brutal 15-hour shift in a Pittsburgh emergency room in real time. What made the series so compelling wasn’t just its relentless intensity or unflinching medical realism (the “floating face”
Best of 2025: “Alien: Earth” Cinematographer and Director Dana Gonzalez on Bringing Cinema’s Most Iconic Monster to TV
It’s that time of year again—when we slow down, look back (overeat), and celebrate our favorite conversations from another surprising, often wonderful, and occasionally wild year in cinema and TV.
On Earth, everyone can hear you scream. No apologies for the dreadful play on the classic logline for Alien, which continues to reach new, strange heights in FX’s Alien: Earth, created by Fargo‘s Noah Hawley.
