Talking to Composer Abel Korzeniowski About Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals
When I interviewed Abel Korzeniowski in August of 2015, it was to discuss his work on the small screen, specifically Penny Dreadful. Yet what had drawn me to his work, long before I ever knew I’d be speaking with him, was his score for Tom Ford’s A Single Man. Lush, at turns haunting and, from beginning to end, totally gorgeous, Korzeniowski's A Single Man score became a major part of my listening rotation.
From Storyboard to Animation: See how Pixar Created Toy Story 2
Storyboards are an essential part of the filmmaking process, and perhaps no studio on the planet relies on them quite the way that Pixar does. A Pixar storyboard is essentially a hand-drawn version of the movie, and helps the artists making diagram the action and the dialogue. The storyboard is basically the blueprint for the film. "Each storyboard artist receives script pages or a 'beat outline', a map of the characters' emotional changes that need to be seen through actions,"
Darren Fung on Scoring The Great Human Odyssey
Composer Darren Fung’s sweeping score for PBS’ The Great Human Odyssey earned him a Canadian Screen Award for best music, but he almost didn’t take the project on. When anthropologist Dr. Niobe Thompson first approached Fung about the job, the response was unsure. “In all honesty, I kind of thought when Niobe had his vision of what the music was going to be, he couldn’t afford it,” Fung remembered.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Costume Designer Ann Foley Gives Superheroes Style
Throughout four action-packed seasons of ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., costume designer Ann Foley has created the look for an ever-expanding cast of characters in the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU). The show brought on two new characters this season that fans have welcomed feverishly. The antihero Ghost Rider, who has a penchant for flaring up, and android Aida, built in secret by Radcliffe,
Historian Deborah Lipstadt on Inspiring the new Film Denial
Deborah Lipstadt's History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier recounts a deadly serious farce: Almost two decades ago, the Emory University professor found herself in a London court, defending herself in a libel case brought by David Irving, a self-styled historian whose books take a pro-Nazi view of World War II and the genocide of Europe's Jews and other victims. The book was recently republished under the title Denial,
Atticus Shaffer Talks Growing Up on The Middle
Over the impressive seven season run of ABC’s The Middle, Brick has been the oft forgotten third child of Frankie (Patricia Heaton) and Mike Heck (Neil Flynn). His family has literally forgotten him at work and school, but actor Atticus Shaffer has become a fan favorite. A child actor no more (he just turned 18), Atticus has played Brick Heck since he was eight years old.
Socially awkward, book smart Brick is a sage and precocious observer who often teaches adults a life lesson or two.
The Dressmaker’s Costume Designer’s Stunning Creations
The Dressmaker, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse and adapted from Rosalie Ham’s beloved novel, stars Kate Winslet as Tilly Dunnage, a chic, sophisticated dressmaker who returns from Paris to her small Australian outback town to find out the truth behind the scandal she was at the center of as a child. We speak to costume designer Marion Boyce about designing the incredible costumes, alongside Margot Wilson, that are the backbone of this offbeat comedy/drama.
Mark Duplass on Stripping Away Artifice For Blue Jay
Mark Duplass readily admits he’s “a schmaltz hound.”
“I have it deep in me. I can put on Same Time, Next Year or Somewhere in Time and just go for it,” he says. “I’m a nostalgic and melancholic person and I normally try to curb that in my art because I feel like if I don’t, it’s going to run rampant over everything. With this movie,
Dressing the Goofballs of Masterminds
Boasting credits that include George Clooney's Michael Clayton and Angelina Jolie's Salt, costume designer Sarah Edwards usually dresses glamorous stars in sleek outfits for serious adult dramas.
And then there's Masterminds.
Based on an actual 1997 North Carolina heist and directed by quirky Napoleon Dynamite filmmaker Jared Hess, Masterminds stars Zach Galifianakis as a simple-minded armored truck guard who conspires with trailer park goofballs (Owen Wilson and Kristen Wiig) to steal $17.3 million from his employer.
The 54th Annual New York Film Festival Begins Today
The 54th annual New York Film Festival kicked off today with the premiere of 13TH at the Alice Tully Hall movie theater in Upper West Side, Manhattan. Directed by Ava DuVernay, the documentary explores the intricate prison system and incarceration of modern America. Commenting on her film’s subject material, DuVernay said in interview with The Village Voice, “I wanted to give people this information so that they couldn’t say they didn’t know anymore.
See how They Made Black Panther’s Suit
Last week we shared the news with you that Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War was created entirely in post-production. The suit was the product of state-of-the-art visual effects, necessary beacuse the look directors Anthony and Joe Russo wanted would have been impossible to achieve practically.
Luckily, the VFX studio Cinesite was there to help. Civil War was their third Marvel collaboration, and they were prepared to help make Black Panther's suit by far the coolest superhero duds around.
See how They Filmed Jurassic World in new Behind-the-Scenes Videos
This might be the largest release of behind-the-scenes footage by a studio on their YouTube page ever. I mean, wow. Universal Studios' Jurrasic World YouTube page has made an absolute ton of awesome footage available—this includes, behind the scenes b-roll footage, rough-cut dailies, previs, interviews and a whole lot more.
We're giving you just a few of these videos (there's too many to stuff on a single post) for you to enjoy.
Jonás Cuarón Talks About his Savagely Intense Film Desierto
Desierto, Mexico’s official submission as Best Foreign Language Film to the next Academy Awards, doesn’t seem a likely inspiration for Gravity, which won seven Oscars in 2014. But when young filmmaker Jonás Cuarón showed the first draft of the script to his father Alfonso nearly 10 years ago, the elder Cuarón said he wanted to make a movie like it — in space.
“Like Gravity,
Talking to the Director Robert Kenner & Writer Eric Schlosser About Command & Control
In September 1980, a Titan II missile bearing a nuclear warhead caught on fire in a Air Force silo near Damascus, Arkansas. The incident was reported at the time, but the full implications of the conflagration weren't widely known until Eric Schlosser's book, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, was published in 2013.
The author interviewed Harold Brown, then the U.S. Secretary of Defense;
Cinematographer Kirsten Johnson Creates Cinematic Memoir From Outtakes
Sifting through outtakes from some three dozen documentaries she shot over the years, cinematographer Kirsten Johnson initially came up with a cinematic memoir she now calls the "trauma cut." Johnson, whose credits include Fahrenheit 9/11 and Oscar-winning Citizenfour and, says "I reached out for material that had been the most haunting to me."
The New York filmmaker had plenty of disturbing stuff to pick from,
Jonathan Ames Talks Season 2 of Blunt Talk
The idea was an inspired one. Novelist, screenwriter and TV creator Jonathan Ames, the man behind HBO's beloved (but short-lived) detective comedy Bored to Death, got an email from his agent saying that Seth McFarlane was looking to create a comedy for Sir Patrick Stewart. Stewart had proven his comedic chops by lending his voice to several episodes of McFardland's Family Guy, and now the budding mogul wanted to create a whole show around the legendary British thespian and movie star.
Black Panther’s all CGI Suit a True Marvel
The inclusion of the new Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War was a big deal for Marvel-heads. What was especially interesting was his new look—specifically his clearly CGI-assisted changing eye sizes (which the internet has speculated are actually camera-assisted eyes, thanks to Tony Stark). The look was a hit, and fans went away very excited for the Tom Holland-led version of Spidey going forward. Then there was Giant-Man, which we touched upon yesterday.
Tim Squyres on Editing Ang Lee’s Groundbreaking Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Tim Squyres has been director Ang Lee’s go-to film editor for years. The pair first worked together in the early 1990s when Lee was shooting his debut film, Pushing Hands. “They would have liked an editor who spoke Mandarin, but they couldn’t find one,” says Squyres, who remembers editing that feature in a closet off of a noisy production office.
Times have certainly changed since then. Squyres now performs his cinematic magic in a fully equipped,
Talking to Veep‘s Emmy-Nominated Director About Art Imitating Life
Veep Assistant Director Dale Stern has been the creative right hand man to show creator Armando Iannucci for four seasons, steering the series toward critical and audience acclaim. In the fifth season, Stern took over the directing chair for a single episode that was so brilliantly executed it earned him an Emmy nomination. In mid-season standout Mother, Stern took on some of the darkest material the show has tackled and it turned out to be some of the funniest.
See how They Created the Visual Effects for Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Industrial Light & Magic has made as massive impact on filmmaking. ILM's imprint is all over the entirety of the Star Wars saga, and has touched so many of our most visually dazzling films it's hard to understate their impact. We've interviewed multiple ILM employees over the years to find out how they made alien robot-car hyrbids walk and talk, how they created the amazing time travel sequence at the end of
