Oscar-Nominee Greta Gerwig On Moving Behind the Camera for her Solo Directorial Debut Lady Bird
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Greta Gerwig is nominated in two categories; Directing and Writing (Original Screenplay) for her work on Lady Bird. She joins Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk), Jordan Peele (Get Out), Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread) and Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) in the Directing category.
Oscar-Nominated Blade Runner 2049 Sound Mixing Team on the Power of Silence
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re posting our conversation with some of this year’s nominees. Doug Hemphill and Ron Bartlett are nominated for Sound Mixing, alongside Mac Ruth (Blade Runner:2049); Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin, and Mary Ellis (Baby Driver); Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo, and Mark Weingarten (Dunkirk); Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern and glen Gauthier (The Shape of Water); and David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, and Stuart Wilson (Star Wars: The Last Jedi).
The Crucial VFX Enhancements That Led to Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s Snoke Finished Look
From a holographic bogeyman in Star Wars: The Force Awakens to a flesh-and-blood supervillain in The Last Jedi, Supreme Leader Snoke required the very best of the visual effects team to get him just right. This year’s crop of Oscar-nominees for visual effects represents some of the best villain-building in recent memory, with The Last Jedi nominated among killer replicants (Blade Runner 2049), monstrous aliens (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.
Oscar-Nominated Director Luca Guadagnino on his Lush, Lyrical Call Me By Your Name
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees. Luca Guadagnino is nominated in the Best Picture category, alongside his producers Peter Spears, Emilie Georges and Marco Morabito. The other Best Picture nominees are Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Italian director Luca Guadagnino’s lush and luscious love story Call Me By Your Name is an homage to the director’s love for cinema.
Talking to Oscar-Nominee Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part II
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees. Gary Oldman is nominated for Actor in a Leading Role, alongside Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread) and Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name).
In Part 2 of an interview with Darkest Hour director Joe Wright and star Gary Oldman, who has been receiving glowing reviews for his portrait of Winston Churchill in the film that opens November 22,
Talking to Oscar-Nominee Gary Oldman & Director Joe Wright About Darkest Hour—Part I
As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees. Gary Oldman is nominated for Actor in a Leading Role, alongside Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread) and Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name).
In a film career that spans four decades,
Legendary Animator & Oscar-Nominee Glen Keane on his Kobe Bryant Collabroation Dear Basketball—Part II
In this second of a two-part interview with veteran Disney animator Glen Keane, creator of such beloved characters such as Ariel in The Little Mermaid and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, discusses what went into his latest solo project – the Annie-winning and Oscar-nominated short Dear Basketball.
Were you into basketball? I read somewhere that you would sometimes sketch your son when he played basketball.
Legendary Animator & Oscar-Nominee Glen Keane on Teaming up With Kobe Bryant, his Disney Past & More—Part I
Glen Keane is not just a living legend. He’s a Disney Legend (yes, that is an official title). He worked for the studio that Mickey Mouse built starting in the ‘70s as a character animator on such features as The Rescuers and Pete’s Dragon and played a huge role during the second Golden Age of Disney animated features that spanned the ‘90s. But in 2012, like many a cartoon hero or heroine yearning for new adventures,
How Writer-Director James Mangold Snagged Historic Oscar Nom for R-Rated Logan Script
Logan made Oscar history this year as the first comic book-based screenplay nominated for an Academy Award. The distinction’s due in no small part to director/co-writer James Mangold‘s extreme aversion to superhero clichés, which he wearily recites from his office on the 20th Century Fox lot in Los Angeles. “Some new alien arrives with a new power that somehow challenges our heroes; our heroes are fractured among each other so they have to learn how to band together or get over whatever romantic scars they have between them to focus on the fight ahead of them;
Oscar-Nominated Heroin(e) Director on Documenting the National Opioid Crisis
Director Elaine McMillion Sheldon is a native of West Virginia and saw the consequences of opioid addiction in her own community.
In her short documentary Heroin(e), which is now streaming on Netflix, she takes a closer look at the crisis while focusing on three female leaders who are making a difference on the ground.
The feature is set in Huntington, West Virginia. In the movie’s opening moments, the film notes that Huntington “has been called the overdose capital of America” and “its overdose death rate is 10 times the national average.”
Instead of focusing on the community’s pain,
Berlinale 2018: Storyboard Artist Jay Clarke on Drawing Wes Anderson’s Canine Showstopper Isle of Dogs
On Sunday evening an audience of a couple hundred people, almost all of whom appeared to be under thirty, filed into an auditorium at Berlin’s Hebbel am Ufer. It was the third day of the Berlinale, but the crowd wasn’t here for a premiere or a Sundance leftover (the big complaint at this year’s festival), but to hear a talk given by the lead storyboard artist from the Berlinale’s opener, Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animation feature Isle of Dogs.
Oscar-Nominated Doc Maker Steve James on his Gripping Immigrant’s Story Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Chicago filmmaker Steve James has a fraught history with the Oscars dating back to 1994, when his critically acclaimed box office hit Hoop Dreams failed to get nominated for an Academy Award. The snub outraged late movie critic Roger Ebert, prompted an Entertainment Weekly expose and inspired changes in Academy voting procedures. Cut to 2011, when James made The Interrupters, a gritty group portrait of reformed gang members fighting to stop murders on the streets of Chicago.
Black Panther Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter on Creating the Iconic Panther Suit
Part of Black Panther costume designer Ruth E. Carter‘s many responsibilities included steeping the characters of the fictional world of Wakanda in a wardrobe that spoke to the real Africa, while retaining the mythic quality that the reclusive, technologically advanced nation required. We saw this in her work on the bald, beautiful and bad ass Dora Milaje, the elite, all-female fighting force at the heart of the film. In part two of our interview,
Writer/Director Ziad Doueiri on Earning Lebanon’s First Ever Oscar-Nomination With His Film The Insult
When writer/director Ziad Doueiri got word that his film The Insult earned an Oscar nomination in the foreign language category, the first time that a movie from Lebanon was recognized with that honor, he felt joy.
“It is a beautiful present for a tiny country that’s never been to the Oscars. It’s like Jamaica winning the bobsled at the Olympics, remember?” says Doueiri, who is now an American citizen living in Paris.
Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter on Designing Black Panther‘s Fierce Dora Milaje
Bald, beautiful, and ferocious, Black Panther‘s elite, all-female fighting force the Dora Milaje are quickly becoming some of the most iconic characters in Marvel history. Lead by Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, Danai Gurira’s Okoyoe, and Florence Kasumba’s Ayo, the Dora Milaje are the protectors of the titular Black Panther, T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), whose ascendence to the Wakandan throne is the central storyline in Black Panther. Survival won’t be easy (Michael B.
How the Black Panther Production Designer Rooted the World’s Most Advanced Nation in African Culture
Everyone on the set of Black Panther felt the weight of being a trailblazer. Realizing Wakanda for the screen meant reclaiming a painful history, honoring a rich heritage, and imagining the hope of the future right now. It also has the potential to confirm the demand for more diverse storytelling. It was a challenge that would require the greatest talents of our time to come together. Miraculously, it seems they did.
Watch How They Made the Thunderbird, Obscurus & More in This Fantastic Beasts VFX Breakdown
It takes a small army (or sometimes a middle-sized one) to make a film like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. When you have a wizard losing a briefcase full of magical creatures in Jazz age New York City, you’re going to need a really good visual effects company. Thankfully for Warner Bros., director David Yates and his screenwriter J.K. Rowling (the original creator of the entire Wizarding world, of course) they had Double Negative Visual Effects.
The Breadwinner‘s Oscar-Nominated Director on Her Animated Film About a Girl Who Outsmarts the Taliban
When Irish director Nora Twomey auditions actors for her animated movies, she does not look at them. She listens. And when 10-year old Saara Chaudry tried out for the starring role in The Breadwinner, Twomey liked what she heard. “I put up drawings on the wall and look at the pictures of the characters to see if they match what I’m listening to,” says Twomey. “Saara had so much range and depth I immediately felt ‘This is Parvana.'”
Billy Zane on Playing the Evil King Balek in Samson
Samson’s tyrannical King Balek is not the first time Billy Zane has played the bad guy. He is probably best remembered as the arrogant Caledon Hockley in the Oscar-winning blockbuster Titanic. And he played a villain in the thriller Dead Calm. But he also was a quintessential “cool dude” in Zoolander, and his roles have ranged from a singing lawyer (in Chicago on stage) to an ex-demon on Charmed.
Oscar-Nominated Disaster Artist Screenwriters on the Art of Adaptation
Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter have a history of bringing character-driven stories to the big screen. They co-wrote the 2009 drama (500) Days of Summer together and they’ve successfully adapted several beloved books into screenplays.
In 2013, their cinematic adaptation of Tim Tharp’s novel The Spectacular Now arrived in theaters to rave reviews. A year later, their adaptation of John Green’s bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars opened to critical and commercial success.
