Oscar Watch: Picking Three Actors for One Role in Moonlight
Yesi Ramirez knew she wanted to pick the actors for Moonlight as soon as she read the script — twice. "The first time I read the script I cried," she says. "The second time, I cried again." The Los Angeles-based casting director had never worked with Moonlight writer-director Barry Jenkins before, but she liked what she heard when they sat down for breakfasts to discuss the gay-themed Oscar contender that called for three actors to portray the forlorn "Chiron"
Moonlight‘s Editor Joi McMillon on Cutting the Story of a Lifetime
Nominated for six Golden Globes, the stunningly beautiful, brilliantly executed Moonlight was one of the best films of the year. We've spoken to composer Nicholas Brittell, breakout star Janelle Monáe and cinematographer James Laxton about how they helped bring director Barry Jenkins film to life. The story, tracking three periods of time in one young man's life—as a child, a teenager and a grown man—was based on the play by Tarell Alvin McCraney called "In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue."
Orange is the New Black Director Lev Spiro Talks Crazy Eyes
Lev Spiro has been behind the camera on some of the most successful shows on television. The impressive list includes Modern Family, Wizards of Waverly Place, Dawson’s Creek, and Arrested Development. In season 4 of Orange is the New Black, he had the high-pressure task of directing the backstory for fan favorite, Crazy Eyes.
Oscar Watch: Editor Expertly Shreds Time in Manchester By the Sea
Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan famously spent years in the editing suite trying to achieve perfection on his previous movie Margaret. He shot the film in 2005, delivered a much debated cut in 2008 and three years later watched the picture open in two theaters. Lonergan's comeback effort Manchester by the Sea represents an astonishing return to form, widely expected to land a Best Picture Oscar nomination on the strength of Casey Affleck's moving performance as a New England man haunted by his past.
Writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve on Things to Come
French actress Isabelle Huppert is reaping awards from critics’ groups for her roles in two films this year: Elle, from Dutch provocateur Paul Verhoeven, and the quietly poignant Things to Come, from young French writer/directer Mia Hansen-Løve.
While Huppert’s audacious performance in Elle jut might earn the actress her first Oscar nod, it’s the delicate blend of youth and wisdom, melancholy and joy,
Kika Magalhaes on Playing the Final Girl in The Eyes of My Mother
Though not always so kind to the women it relies on, the horror genre has long established a multitude of tropes around its female characters, the most famous of which is an integral part of the stalk-and-slash formula: the Final Girl. Often characterized by her placid “innocence,” the Final Girl is often clear-headed, practically minded, brunette, and (most importantly) virginal. But The Eyes of My Mother, the directorial debut from Nicolas Pesce,
Remembering Carrie Fisher
To a generation that came of age in the ‘70s and ‘80s, she will forever be Princess Leia of the Star Wars films, with her iconic buns-like-headphones hairdo, wielding a blaster as she leads the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. To another, slightly older demographic, Carrie Fisher was synonymous with one of the last great Hollywood scandals. The daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and pop star Eddie Fisher, Carrie Fisher became tabloid fodder at age three when her father left Reynolds to marry Elizabeth Taylor in 1959 at the height of Taylor’s fame.
Oscar Watch: Love & Friendship Designer’s Delicious Duds for Jane Austen Comedy
Jane Austen's fictional universe takes a turn toward the comedic with Love & Friendship adapted by Whit Stillman from one of her early works. The movie, released in May, is now earning Oscar buzz for Irish costume designer Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh and the splendid 18th century gowns she crafted for Kate Beckinsale as gorgeous widower Lady Susan.
Prepping in Dublin for the ten-week production, Mhaoldomhnaigh and her team of seamstresses outfitted Beckinsale/Lady Susan in tightly corseted silk dresses color-coded to reflect her progressive seduction of upper crust society.
Composer Jake Monaco on Building His Instruments, Scoring for Pixar & More
Composer Jake Monaco has worked on everything from big budget comedies like Keeping up with the Joneses, to children’s animations like Amazon’s The Stinky and Dirty Show and the recent Pixar short Piper. Nothing is off limits to Monaco in his search for the perfect sound- he explains how instruments made from everyday objects like vodka bottles, or a $6 wok from Ikea, help him hit the right notes.
How Hacksaw Ridge‘s Production Designer Transformed Australia into Okinawa
Hacksaw Ridge Production designer Barry Robison has worked on films in Australia so often that he acquired dual-citizenship. Being familiar with the area gave him an advantage when working with Australian director, Mel Gibson. The setting, however, was unforgiving for a period piece set in America and Japan. Robison literally reshaped the land to take audiences back 70 years and thousands of miles away. The film garnered three Golden Globes nominations, and his rigorous research and scrupulous attention to detail earned him an Australian Academy Cinema Television Arts (AACTA) award for Best Production Design.
How Star Wars‘ Editor Prepared Passengers for Lift Off
Oscar-nominated editor Maryann Brandon came straight off Star Wars: The Force Awakens to prepare Passengers for lift off. A frequent J.J. Abrams collaborator — she also edited his Star Trek Into Darkness — Brandon has became Hollywood’s go-to editor for big space epics in part because she brings an exacting eye to action sequences. Her mantra: Make sure the audience understands what’s happening.
"I don’t just cut for the sake of spectacle,
Arrival‘s Screenwriter on Crafting one of the Year’s Best Films
For sci-fi fans, there was something doubly wonderful about watching director Denis Villeneuve's Arrival; it proved that the most malleable of genres is still alive and well, and, confirmed that Villeneuve was absolutely the right choice to helm the upcoming Blade Runner sequel, Blade Runner 2049.
Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner is one of sci-fi's most iconic films (coming just a few years after his equally iconic
Passengers‘ VFX Supervisor on Creating Zero Gravity Mayhem
A serene, unusual spacecraft drifts through space. The Avalon is on a 120 year course, carrying 5000+ passengers to a new colony, plant-like and twinkling on its exterior, silent and gleaming on the inside. Its well-stocked and highly-designed but empty chambers are reminiscent of another era’s grand hotel, devoid of guests, ready to close for the season, And then a hibernation pod malfunctions, and passenger Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) wakes up 90 years early. He will grow old and die before anyone else on the ship awakes,
Hidden Figures Production Designer’s Subliminal Storytelling
Hidden Figures tells a quintessentially American story—a true story, no less—that has gone more or less untold until now. The film, based on Margot Lee Shetterly's book of the same name, tells the true story of three brilliant African-American women who helped NASA change the course of the Space Race between America and the Soviet Union. Those women were Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), they served as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: the launch of astronaut John Glenn (Glen Powell) into orbit,
Molly Shannon on her Heartbreaking Role in Other People
For Molly Shannon fans (and we are legion), it's long been known the former SNL standout had acting chops that stretched beyond her iconic contributions to the show. But what contributions! Shannon became a featured player on SNL in 1995 and inhabited a few of the show's most memorable characters, including (of course) oddball Catholic school girly Mary Katherine Gallagher (Shannon took the character onto the big screen with 1999's Superstar),
Chopped & Screwed: How Moonlight Composer Morphed Acoustic Music into Rumbling Soundscapes
Composer Nicholas Britell played classical piano as a kid, attended Juilliard School's Pre-College program and studied music at Harvard University. But Britell brought an entirely different skill set to bear when director Barry Jenkins asked him to score coming-of-age Oscar contender Moonlight with "chopped and screwed" southern hip hop in mind.
What, exactly, is 'chopping and screwed'? "Basically, it’s when you slow down tracks so the pitch goes really low and you get these deep-end,
Writer/Director Garth Jennings Mixes Legendary Music & Animation in Sing
If you have ever watched American Idol or The Voice and wished that the contestants were animals instead of humans, then Sing is definitely playing your tune – or should that be ‘toon? Writer/director Garth Jennings – the British filmmaker whose quirky vision graced the cult hit Son of Rambow as well as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy –takes his first stab at an animated feature,
Costume Designer Evokes Vintage NASA Look for Hidden Figures
Costume designer Renee Ehrlich Kalfus had just heard about the death of astronaut John Glenn when she got on the phone last week to talk about NASA period piece Hidden Figures (opening limited Dec. 25). “I'm so upset," she said. "These guys were so brave and cocky and well-trained, they were like cowboys — the rock stars of their time." Cocksure yes, but not flashy. "I put Jim Powell, the actor who played John Glenn,
Screenwriters Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick on Deadpool 2 & More
Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have created the perfect recipe for mixing high-octane action, gore, and comedy without being heavy handed. The duo struck gold with Zombieland and if you thought their success might be a fluke, they came back and did it again in Deadpool. The R-rated Marvel box-office smash was just nominated for two Golden Globes, thanks in no small part to Reese and Wernick's mastery of combining humor and action. Their ability to mix genres could be disastrous in less skilled hands.
La La Land Cinematographer Goes Wide to Evoke Classic Hollywood Look
Oscar frontrunner La La Land declares its affection for old-school Hollywood spectacle in its very first frame, when a retro-looking PRESENTED IN CINEMASCOPE logo takes over the screen. From that moment on, writer director Damien Chazelle’s movie musical unspools across an unusually wide screen as an expertly crafted love letter to mid-century movie making. The challenge for Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren? He needed to capture present Emma Stone's struggling actress and Ryan Gosling's downcast jazz musician against a modern-day Los Angeles backdrop that assumes fairytale like splendor once the sun goes down.
