Oscars 2016: Spotlight Surprises With Best Picture Win
A genuinely surprising Oscars wrapped with Tom McCarthy's Spotlight winning Best Picture over equally likely contenders The Revenant and The Big Short. Mad Max: Fury Road cleaned up the technical awards, which wasn't surprising, but Mark Rylance beating out Sylvester Stallone for Best Supporting Actor sure was. Despite five nominations, Star Wars: The Force Awakens didn't pick up a single award (but droids C-3PO,
Know Your Oscar Nominees: Film Editors
Looks like it’s part III of our technical guide to the Oscars, with ground to cover even after our breakdowns of the sound mixing and editing category and costume designers. This time around, we’re moving into post-production and looking deep beyond the camera to the race for Best Film Editing, a particularly cutthroat category that pits four Best Picture noms and the year’s highest grossing film against one another. But before we dive into the best 2015 had to offer,
Berlinale 2016: Jude Law Works the Good and Bad in Genius
Opening yesterday at the 66th Berlinale was Genius, a reflective tale of extreme talent and the monstrosity that can be wrought by it, based on the short creative life of early 20th century writer Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law). The movie is the directorial debut of British theater director Michael Grandage, who does an admirable job re-creating New York on the edge, crashing from Jazz Age paradise into slummy Great Depression chaos (Wolfe’s first novel,
Kung Fu Panda 3 Editor Clare Knight Builds a Trilogy and a Family
If anyone was silly enough to bet against the appeal of pandas- especially the martial arts-loving kind- they’ll be sorely disappointed as Kung Fu Panda 3 topped the box office for a second weekend in a row. We chat to editor Clare Knight about spending the last 12 years working on the Panda trilogy, finding the ‘gold nuggets’ of Jack Black’s performance and potentially launching her son’s career as a voice actor (he’s five).
Joy Editors on Playing With Peak Performances
Behind every award-winning performance there is an editor, or editors, who play an integral part in shaping it for the big screen, and Jennifer Lawrence’s Golden Globe-winning performance in David O. Russell’s Joy is no exception. We talk to editors Alan Baumgarten and Jay Cassidy about the role of the editor and when it’s necessary to tell Russell to ‘go away’.
When you are working together are there specific roles that you take on?
Get to Know Your Golden Globe Nominees for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Earlier we published a primer for the Golden Globe nominees for Best Motion Picture, Drama. The idea here is while you probably haven't had the time to see all these films, we have, and we've also interviewed a ton of people from them, thus offering you a chance to give these interviews a glance and bolster your film IQ going into the big night. You can do with this info what you want—we suggest you use it to casually mention minute details of the filmmaking process to whoever you might be watching with.
Spotlight’s Editor Tom McArdle Helps Make Journalism Look Thrilling
People pour over files, excel spreadsheets, and names in a directory. There's phone calls, and more phone calls, and some face-to-face meetings. There's a late hour knock on a nervous journalist's door, and it reveals…a colleague bearing a pizza. These are some of the things editor Tom McArdle was cutting when he worked on Spotlight, and in each instance, the scenes are thrilling. The film, centered on a team of Boston Globe investigative reporters who uncover a massive coverup of sexual abuse at the Catholic archdiocese of Boston in the early aughts,
Editor Joe Walker on Cutting the Brilliant Sicario
Joe Walker’s reputation has soared in recent years, from his work with director Michael Mann on the cyber thriller Blackhat (2014), and from his long collaboration with director Steve McQueen on McQueen’s loose trilogy of films dealing with suffering: Hunger (2008), Shame (2011), and 12 Years A Slave (2013), for which Walker received his first Oscar nomination for Best Editing.
Trainwreck Editor Loves Mistakes: ‘It Feels Real’
Some editors might look for the most perfectly delivered take to put in a movie. But not editor William Kerr, who took the lead editing Amy Schumer-led, Judd Apatow-directed comedy Trainwreck.
“I love dirty stuff,” Kerr said. “I love mistakes, little things that seem peculiar, because they seem like reality.”
The same could be said of the heroine of Universal’s Trainwreck –Schumer. She plays a commitment-phobe,
Modern Family Editor Tony Orcena on the Show’s Trickiest Episode
Tony Orcena has edited 32 episodes of Modern Family, but the one he gets asked about most was one of the most discussed comedy episodes of 2015. This was the episode that was filmed entirely on a variety of personal devices—phones, computers—as Claire, stuck at an airport, is desperately trying to track down Haley after an argument. "Connection Lost" was a first for television, and it couldn't have been possible with Orcena's editing skills.
Cutting Chaos With Homeland Editor Jordan Goldman
You may watch Homeland and assume the reason you're so riveted is the subject matter (international espionage), the performances (Claire Danes brilliant, bi-polar CIA operative Carrie Mathison, Mandy Patinkin's CIA chief Saul Berenson, etc.), and, of course, the relentless action. And you wouldn't be wrong. But what you might be missing is another key element that makes watching Homeland so intense: it's edited to put you, the viewer, in the character's shoes.
How to Make a Killer Trailer: One of the Best Explains
As a international economics student at Middlebury College in Vermont, Nick Temple had no idea he'd wind up becoming one of Hollywood's top trailer cutters. But when a post-graduation cross-country trip with a couple of buddies brought him to Los Angeles in 2000, Temple needed a job so he started working as a runner at Burbank, California production house. There, he quickly became hooked on movie teasers. "There was something compelling for me about looking at footage and compressing it to tell a story,"
Actress Katharine Emmer Wanted A Life in Color, so she Became a Director
NYU graduate Katharine Emmer looked to have a bright acting career in front of her. She landed an episode of Desperate Housewives; she had a role in indie film Puccini for Beginners, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. At NYU she was the recipient of the Annual Tisch Artistic Achievement Award. But even with her growing resume, she was not a full-time working actor;
Inherent Risk: Editor and Producer Mathilde Bonnefoy on Making Citizenfour
When documentarian Laura Poitras asked Edward Snowden why he had chosen her, out of all the potential people to disclose his information to, he replied, “I didn’t. You chose yourself.” At the time Snowden was writing to her as “citizen four,” and for months Poitras alone knew about his trove of information on the N.S.A.'s surveillance program.
Eventually, as we learn in Citizenfour, the Oscar-nominated documentary that culminated from her relationship with Snowden,
Selma Editor Spencer Averick on the Film’s Toughest Scenes to Cut
Troopers storm into a café. They're looking for the old man, his daughter and his grandson that they'd been chasing after breaking up a night march in Selma. The old man, Cager Lee (played by the phenomenal Henry Sanders), his daughter Viola (Charity Jordan) and his grandson Jimmie Lee Jackson (Keith Stanfield) are trying to hide their faces behind menus at a table in the back. The troopers spot them and throw the 82-year old Cager Lee to the ground,
A Glimpse at the 72nd Annual Golden Globes
The 72nd Annual Golden Globes air this Sunday night at 8 pm EST, with hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler returning for a third consecutive time. You know these two are going to keep it fresh.
Let’s take a look at a few of the nominees and see what we know going in.
Best Motion Picture, Drama
On the one hand, you have Richard Linklater’s Boyhood,
Invisibly Invaluable: Birdman Editors Douglas Crise & Stephen Mirrione – PART II
Yesterday we posted Part I of our interview with Birdman editors Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise. As you know by now, Birdman was shot in a such an ingenious way that it made you feel like you were watching a single, 119-minute continuous shot. Watch it and try to find a single cut, a single break in the action or a clear transition that would alert you to the work of an editor.
Invisibly Invaluable: Birdman Editors Douglas Crise & Stephen Mirrione – Part I
Yesterday we published our interview with Birdman writer/director Alejandor G. Iñárritu, and late last year, we spoke to the film’s composer, drummer Antonio Sanchez. Birdman was sufficiently strange and wonderful that it’s made us want to know as much as we possibly can about how it was made. The first and most obvious question one asks after seeing the film is how in the world they made it look like a single,
The Grand Budapest Hotel’s Editor Barney Pilling
Editor Barney Pilling began his film career as a location scout on 24 Hour Party People, in 2002. A few years later, he’d become an editor, and worked on a string of narratively complex films, including An Education in 2009, the haunting adaptation Never Let me Go, from Kazuo Ishiguro’s difficult, daring novel, and One Day, in 2011, based on David Nichols novel which shows its two characters on the same date,
Unbroken & The Imitation Game Editor Billy Goldenberg
In 2012, Billy Goldenberg won an Oscar for his editing work on Argo. A thrilling moment, of course, but perhaps in this case it was slightly dulled by the fact that Goldenberg's odds for a win were a mite better than everyone else in the category; he and Dylan Tichenor were also up for Zero Dark Thirty.
There is a chance that Goldenberg could enhance his odds again this year,
