Women Directors Made the Best Movies of the Summer

Director Patty Jenkins has been reaping breathless headlines since Wonder Woman’s premiere — having made a summer blockbuster that isn’t rote or corny, with a lead, relative newcomer Gal Gadot, who deservedly looks like the breakout star of the summer, the film has exceeded all of Warner Bros.’ box office expectations and met with critical success. Audiences are broadly into a superhero film about a woman, made by a woman,

Stunt Performer Annabel Wood is a Real Life Wonder Woman

When she hears the word action, Annabel Wood’s job is to take the command literally. She very often makes her living dying. All in all, Wood has died more times than she can count – and she keeps coming back from more. She’s a stunt performer, and one of the best in the business. She leaps off cliffs and castle walls, dodges speeding cars and motorcycles, and, dons prosthetics to become an ice zombie and charge into a camp prepared to do her worst.

How Taboo’s DP Conjured Painterly Tableaux of 19th Century London

When cinematographer Mark Patten got hired to shoot Tom Hardy's moody 19th century period thriller Taboo, he immediately invited Danish director Kristoffer Nyholm to check out British masterpieces at London museums. "I took Krisotoffer to see landscape paintings by William J. Turner, who was painting the Thames at the time of our story," Patten recalls. "We wanted to understand the way the light looks and start with that knowledge about the river because it gives so much life to Tom Hardy's character.

Writer/Director Edgar Wright Talks his Brilliant new Film Baby Driver

*We’re sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year this week in our ‘Best of 2017’ roundup.

It’s is odd that British auteur and fan-boy fave Edgar Wright, 43, known for spoofing horror flicks (2004’s Shaun of the Dead), buddy-cop procedurals (2007’s Hot Fuzz) and sci-fi thrillers (2013’s The World’s End) has produced his most mature and satisfying spin on a popular genre – this time,

Austin Composers Use Old Synthesizers for New Stranger Things Music

Ever since they bonded over a shared obsession with electronic dance music as Texas fourteen-year olds, Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein spent every spare minute listening to techno artists like Aphex Twin and creating tracks on their laptops. But after college, Dixon and Stein shared an epiphany that would eventually lead to a break-through gig as co-composers for '80s-era Netflix hit thriller Stranger Things.  "We didn't even knowing there had been these things called synthesizers in our teens,"

How the Genius Production Designer Took Audiences Inside the World of Albert Einstein

The first season of National Geographic’s Genius chronicled the life of a man whose name has become almost synonymous with brilliance – Albert Einstein. The story exposes the personal side of Einstein’s life that his scientific contributions often overshadow in textbooks. Filmed in the Czech Republic, primarily Prague, Genius production designer Jonathan Lee created over 600 sets to take audiences from Einstein’s small Swiss studio apartment to his famed lecture halls and Nazi Germany.

Pixels into Pig: Okja VFX Maestro Explains Digital DNA for Star Creature

Part super-pig, part hippo, part elephant, the CGI creature at the heart of director Boon Joon-Ho's mostly live-action animal rights adventure Okja wowed crowds at Cannes this spring without so much as a single line of dialogue. Starring alongside Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie (available Wednesday June 28 on Netflix), the pixel-built beast known as “Okja” communicated through body language, wistful facial expressions and roly-poly heroics choreographed by visual effects wizard Erik De Boer.

Mars Executive Producer Justin Wilkes Talks the Category Defying Miniseries

Last fall, National Geographic premiered a new series that was as ambitious and innovative as its subject: the first manned mission to Mars. Over seven episodes, Mars featured inspiring interviews with some of the greatest minds of our age while visualizing the first human colonization of the red planet. Experts delve into the history of space exploration, the unbelievable technology that’s already been developed, and what it will take to make home on a new planet.

The Wizard of Lies Production Designer on Building Bernie Madoff’s World of Deception

Production designer Laurence Bennett was responsible for creating a visual language for a film without sound, and the results earned him an Oscar nomination. We're talking about Bennet's work on Best Picture winner The Artist, which followed the story of a silent movie star’s life turning upside down after he falls for a young dancer only to witness their careers zoom in opposite directions with the arrival of talking pictures.

While Bennett's currently working on David Simon's 

How Weta Digital & Andy Serkis’s Brilliance Elevate War for the Planet of the Apes

We've written about how the performance capture technology that Andy Serkis has helped create and Weta Digital has perfected made the Planet of the Apes reboot one of the most satisfying, compelling franchise remakes of the century. Serkis plays Caesar, the new trilogy's heart and soul—a chimpanzee that has become vastly more intelligent, and verbal, after he's exposed to an experimental drug meant to battle Alzheimer's disease in-utero in 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

John Waters Interviews Sofia Coppola at the Provincetown Film Festival

Sofia Coppola is Hollywood royalty, an Oscar winner for Lost in Translation, and she has a highly-anticipated new film, The Beguiled, ready to hit theaters. But the soft-spoken director is known for being reticent in interviews.

So it’s no wonder that the Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF) paired Coppola with renowned raconteur John Waters for a one-on-one conversation when Coppola was honored recently as the PIFF’s 2017 Filmmaker on the Edge.

Check out This Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Clip From Nat Geo’s Genius

Last week we shared with you the story of how the hair and make-up departments working on National Geographic's Genius have transformed stars Johnny Flynn and Geoffrey Rush into the young and not-so-young Albert Einstein at the different stages of his life. Now, we've got an exclusive clip from behind-the-scenes of the show (Nat Geo’s first foray into scripted drama, by the way) that showcases the work of showrunner Ken Biller and cinematographer Mathias Herndl. 

Dear White People Creator Justin Simien Talks Race and Comedy

In Netflix series Dear White People, sarcastic black radio host Samantha (Logan Browning), worn out after a long day of anti-racist activism at fictional Ivy League Winchester College, asks her best friend Joelle (Ashley Blaine Featherson) to "Say something funny and specific." Joelle obliges with a snappy one liner involving Drake and his ancient sitcom Degrassi High, propelling the show into its next scene on a buoyant comedic note.

All Eyez on Me Writers Show All Sides of Tupac Shakur

When Tupac Shakur got beaten by a couple of Oakland cops for jaywalking, Eddie Gonzalez, co-writer of the late rapper's All Eyez on Me bio-pic (opening Friday) could relate. Growing up poor in and around L.A.'s tough Compton neighborhood, Gonzalez says "I know about being harassed by police officers. You feel like don't have a voice but you want to say something, do something. That's why people connected with Tupac, and that's why I connected with him.

Genius‘s Hair & Make-up Department on Creating Einstein’s Look

Genius marks National Geographic’s first foray into scripted drama. The series, which is based on Walter Isaacson’s book Einstein: His Life and Universe and executive produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, charts the rise of the disruptive physicist who changed the way we understand the universe. We chat to Fae Hammond (hair) and Davina Lamont (make-up) about the process of transforming stars Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Flynn into the wild-haired genius at the different stages of his life. 

Remembering Adam West

Friday night, the world lost the original Batman, Adam West. West, 88, passed away after a short battle with leukemia.

West played the original Batman in the 1960s television series. Following his run on the show, he went on to pursue other ventures in his acting career, and was beloved for never taking himself too seriously, being kind to those both in and outside the industry, and forever making Batman a part of the American cultural landscape.

Luke Hemsworth on Playing Legendary Wild West Gunslinger in Hickok

Luke Hemsworth’s younger brothers Chris (Thor) and Liam (The Hunger Games) are known for blockbusters, and now Luke Hemsworth (Westworld) is making a name in some smaller projects. His latest is the title role in Hickok, a western about the legendary gunslinger, co-starring Kris Kristofferson and Trace Atkins. In an interview, Hemsworth explained why Wild Bill Hickok wears his gun handles facing toward the back and shared the show business advice he got from an Oscar-winning legend.

One to Watch: Dream, Girl Director Erin Bagwell

You could be excused for reading into the success of Erin Bagwell's directorial debut, the documentary Dream, Girl, and assume she's a graduate of one of the most prestigious film schools in the country. Dream, Girl focuses on more than a dozen female entrepreneurs, uncovering their unique paths, their many challenges and setbacks, and their insights into how they succeeded. Bagwell hired an all female crew, moved into an office,

Zoe Lister-Jones on her Directorial Debut Band Aid

Zoe Lister-Jones has a robust career as a comic and dramatic actress. She’s a regular on the CBS sitcom Life in Pieces and had a featured role as then-Senator Joe Biden’s assistant in HBO’s 2016 drama Confirmation about the Clarence Thomas hearings famous for the testimony from Anita Hill.

But in the indie film world, Lister-Jones has thrived by creating her own roles and wearing many production hats.

Stranger Things VFX Supervisor on Making Monster Mayhem

The Duffer Brothers' Stranger Things was a critical smash for Netflix, a medley of throwback charm, real tension, ace casting and superb pacing. The setting (small town Indiana) and the era (1983) were handled with loving attention and period-perfect detail, as we followed the mysterious case of a missing child, his friends' courageous attempts to find him, and the deepening weirdness that involved government experiments, supernatural creatures and worlds, and a possibly superpowered little girl who goes by Eleven.