Can We Predict The Oscars? Social Media Reveals Who The Public’s Rooting For
They are known as quants (short for ‘quantitative analyst), and their undisputed supreme leader, at least in the public’s perception, is Nate Silver. You’ve heard of Silver, the man who went from relative obscurity before the 2008 presidential election to a household name thanks to his pinpoint accuracy predicting the last two presidential elections.
Quants are not just employed to help us figure out who the next Commander in Chief is going to be,
Celebrate The Other Oscar Nominees – You Know, The Ones Ryan Seacrest Likely Won’t Interview
Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director–these might be the most anticipated categories of the Oscars, but this year, let's celebrate the other half. After all, the year's best films wouldn't stand a chance without the genius nominees in less-publicized realms like Production Design, Cinematography, Makeup/Hairstyle, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects.
Here at The Credits, we love all parts of film, which is why we created this infographic to celebrate the many industry icons who are making big waves (but perhaps not big red carpet debuts) at this year's 85th Academy Awards.
Talking With Malik Bendjelloul, Director of Oscar Nominated Documentary Searching for Sugar Man
A surprise hit at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize for Best International Documentary, first time filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man opened last summer to strong critical reviews and robust commercial success. The story of singer-songwriter Rodriguez, from his late 1960s emergence from the streets of Detroit; his startling and strange success in South Africa during the waning days of Apartheid in the 70s and 80s;
An Evening with Dror Moreh, Oscar Nominated Director of the Documentary The Gatekeepers
Dror Moreh’s stunning, sobering documentary The Gatekeepers is told from a remarkable point of view, or views, rather. Moreh managed to get six former directors of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, to speak to him for hours–on the record. The Shin Bet is, as the Los Angeles Times described the organization, "a combination of the CIA and the FBI.” The agency was created after the Six Day War of 1967,
How Would Lubitsch Do It? A Valentine’s Day Ode to the Classic Rom-Com
It’s Valentine’s Day, which means there’s a good chance you and your special someone might want to catch the latest lighthearted romantic comedy—but right now, there’s not much out that qualifies as such. Sure there is Silver Linings Playbook and Warm Bodies, two recent (and well executed) genre twists on the rom-com, but “light hearted” they are not. The former, up for 8 Academy Awards, is wonderful but dark,
We Are Living in a Star Wars Universe
The film world was riveted with the news that J.J. Abrams, perhaps the most logical successor to George Lucas for the Star Wars franchise, would direct Star Wars: Episode VII. As it’s been widely (and breathlessly) reported, Abrams has already successfully rebooted a space franchise with the release his 2009 Star Trek, which was a critical and commercial success.
Abrams admitted to Entertainment Weekly that he was more of Star Wars fan growing up.
Persistence, Pluck and Luck: Filmmaker Linda Goldstein Knowlton Gets it Done
Four adopted girls scattered throughout America share one commonality: they were all adopted from China because the country’s "One Child Policy" put their parents in an impossible situation. Twelve men and women become the first-ever senior citizen hip-hop dance team in the country, performing at center court for the (then) New Jersey Nets. South Africa, among other nations, begins a co-production with the American children’s program Sesame Street to bring the beloved show to them,
How do you Make a Zombie a Sex Symbol? We Speak With Warm Bodies Writer/Director Jonathan Levine to Find out
It’s no easy to task to make a zombie palatable (let alone credible) as a love interest in a film. Yet, that’s exactly what writer/director Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness) has done with Warm Bodies, which he adapted from the Isaac Marion novel of the same name. The film centers around the budding paranormal romance between a zombie named R (Nicholas Hoult) and a kick-ass young woman named Julie (Teresa Palmer),
Mommy Issues: Making Monsters with Mama Visual Effects Supervisor Aaron Weintraub
A father kills his wife and brings his two young daughters to a secluded cabin where his would-be murder/suicide attempt is foiled by one very maternal ghost. Years later, the girls are discovered, their feral upbringing posing the second biggest obstacle to a normal life behind a spirit that, to put it mildly, has become a bit possessive.
Mama may not be the feel-good hit of the new movie year, but it may be its most pleasant surprise,
A Meditation on Film Festivals: Unraveling Cinema’s Time-Tested Tradition
Sundance is, sadly, drawing to a close. For the last two weeks, the world of film has gone appropriately haywire with around-the-clock coverage of one of the most well recognized film festivals on earth.
One needn’t look farther than a film-trade addled Twitter feed to find first hand dispatches from ultra-exclusive parties, critics weighing in on their favorite new films, and gossip mills aflutter with what ‘it’ stars are wearing whilst gallivanting around Park City,
A Q&A With one of Iceland’s Premiere Filmmakers, Baltasar Kormákur, Director of The Deep
For anyone living in Iceland in the early 1980s, the 1984 shipwreck of the fishing boat Breki that claimed the lives of five men is the stuff of legend—thanks mostly to it’s lone survivor, a man named Gulli, who spent four hours in forty-degree water until he washed ashore near a jagged cliff of volcanic rock, which he proceeded to scale, and then he hiked for two more hours in 27-degree weather until he found safety.
A Q&A With Girl Rising Director Richard E. Robbins About the Nine Incredible Young Women in his Groundbreaking Documentary
Academy Award nominated director Richard E. Robbins will be screening a portion of his latest project, the crucial documentary Girl Rising, at the Sundance Film Festival on Monday, January 21st. The film focuses on the story of nine girls from nine different countries born into unforgiving circumstances, with each girl’s story framed and written by a renowned author from her native country.
The film includes the story of Ruksana,
A Conversation With Broken City Director Allen Hughes
Allen Hughes has been making films with his twin brother, Albert, since they were 12-year- olds running around their house in Pomona, east of Los Angeles, with a video camera their mom had given them. The Hughes Brothers (as they are often credited) co-wrote and co-directed their first major feature, Menace II Society, when they were 20 years old.
Since then, the twins have made a number of gritty,
Amour’s Michael Haneke and International Directors Spotlighted at 10th Annual Golden Globes Foreign Film Symposium
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The much-anticipated 2013 awards season has finally arrived. As the world celebrates one of the most exciting years for film in recent memory, it’s clear 2012 gifted us some truly wondrous works of cinema. Among the standouts: Ben Affleck’s heralded Argo, the dreamy indie smash hit Beasts of the Southern Wild, the heart-warming Silver Linings Playbook, Spielberg’s historical biopic Lincoln with a predictably astounding performance by Daniel Day-Lewis,
Nine Films, Two Documentaries and Two Websites to Enliven Your Weekend
The first weekend in January is often a good time to recuperate after the Thanksgiving-to-New Year's Eve carnival of consumption. So, while you’re starting your new workout regimen (yup, pushups and sit-ups are still as agonizing as last January), finally cracking open Moby Dick (Call you Ishmael? Call me intimidated), and deciding if you can really eat a heaping helping of quinoa every day (you probably can’t), we’ve got you covered for when you want a break from your resolutions.
Remorse and Paradise: Miguel Gomes’ Tabu Compels Beyond The Screen
Tabu—the new feature film by Portuguese director, Miguel Gomes—ruminates on themes of crime and guilt. What the viewer is left to question is what sort of crimes are we talking about? There are crimes of passion, crimes of love, war crimes, crimes for monetary gain, and so on. Yet, the film’s characters seem to speak and act on crimes of the soul, when one’s desires and urges become a crime in and of themselves–where the mere thought of them can bring along a culpability whose punishment is already wrought before the first illicit touch.
Visionary Filmmaker & Inventor Douglas Trumbull Talks The Hobbit and his Latest Incredible Invention
The frame rate for a film refers to the frequency (or rate) at which a camera creates unique consecutive images (frames). Almost every film you have ever seen has been shot and projected at 24 frames-per-second (FPS). We have become so accustomed to seeing films this way that shooting at any other rate can be potentially jarring. Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit was shot in 3D at 48fps, twice the normal rate. It will be projected at 48fps on 400 of the 10,000 theaters when it opens on tomorrow,
The Criterion Collection Releases Christopher Nolan’s Following on Blu-Ray
While some directors begin with a bang—Godard’s Breathless (1960) comes to mind—others begin with a whisper, only to be heard later on as the greatest archivists in cinema amplify its nascence. Today, The Criterion Collection shines its light, for the first time, on Christopher Nolan with the Blu-Ray release of Following (1998). Now known for the latest Batman trilogy, originally recognized for the temporally rearranged suspense film Memento (2000),
A Holiday Gift Guide for the Budding Filmmaker in Your Life
Do you have someone in your life who dreams of making movies? Or perhaps someone who just loves knowing how they’re made? Well, we've got some book and film titles that will satiate the hopeful screenwriters, directors, and producers in your life. No list like this could ever be totally comprehensive, so tweet at us if you’ve got some recommendations to add to this list.
Books on Screenwriting
For screenwriters,
First Film School, Then The World: Three NYU Students On Movies, Ambitions, and The Future of Film
"I believe that while it may not be possible to train people to make films, it is possible to create a climate in which people can learn to make films, where aspiring artists can absorb, in a relatively short, intensive period, insight that others have wrested from the experience of an entire career."
– George Stevens, Jr., founding director of the American Film Institute
With innovation and technology forging ahead at unprecedented rates in the film and television industry,
