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.
Production Designer Seth Reed Takes on Psychic Drama Shut Eye
With temperatures dropping, Hulu has your winter binge watching needs covered. Shut Eye, set in sunny southern California, dropped last Wednesday and the psychic drama sizzles. Production designer Seth Reed created the show’s sets with one big challenge you wouldn’t predict.
Composer Justin Hurwitz on Creating La La Land‘s Gorgeous Score
The collaboration between writer/director Damien Chazelle and composer Justin Hurwitz has produced three of the most musically ambitious films of the last seven years. Their first, which began its life as a student film and ended up becoming a major calling card for both of them, was Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. The original concept for the film, as Hurwitz explained it to us in 2014, was to make a sixteen millimeter black and white vérité style movie,
How Jackie‘s Editor Helped Show First Lady in Brand New Light
When Chilean director Pablo Larrain chose to make Jackie his first film in English, he invited his frequent collaborator and fellow Chilean Sebastian Sepúlveda to edit the film. That’s little surprise, since Sepúlveda’s work is one of the reasons Larrain’s films are heralded for their distinct mix of the surreal and the politically incisive.
Sepúlveda edited Larrain’s acclaimed The Club (2015), about a secret retirement home in Chile for Catholics priests.
La La Land‘s Choreographer Puts the Pep in the Musical’s Steps
Mandy Moore, 40, a four-time Emmy nominee lauded for her routines on the talent competition show So You Think You Can Dance, is one of the most in-demand choreographers working today. She just finished Season 23 of Dancing With the Stars and is currently in rehearsals for the touring version, which kicks off Dec. 16. And she is film director David O. Russell’s go-to dance guru, overseeing the fancy footwork performed by Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in
Tom Cruise’s Most Insane Stunt Yet: the Zero Gravity Scene in The Mummy
We've written about the insane dedication Tom Cruise has put in to accomplishing the most ambitious practical stunts, rivaling some of the work of the very best stunt performers. When we interviewed stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood about Cruise's work on Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation, he talked about all the ways Cruise is consistently prepared and extremely hard working. What Cruise wants is to make the audience feel as if what they're watching is real,
Breakout Star Janelle Monáe on Moonlight and Hidden Figures
The multi-talented Janelle Monáe is having one of the most remarkable starts to a film career in recent memory. The iconic musician has moved into acting with two roles in films that will likely vie for Oscars, and her performances in both have been earning plaudits from critics far and wide.
As Teresa in Barry Jenkins' remarkable Moonlight, the story of a young man name Chiron's struggle to find himself,
Passengers Production Designer Takes Trip to Outer Space
Two actors and one space ship command center stage in Passengers, the science fiction star vehicle opening December 21. Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt hold up their end of the entertainment bargain as travelers on the Starship Avalon who wake up way too early during their 120-year voyage to a distant planet. To craft a backdrop equal to the performances, British production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas challenged himself to infuse the story's familiar trapped-in-space premise with fresh visuals.
Cinematographer Mandy Walker Frames History in Hidden Figures
Mandy Walker knows a thing or two about defying expectations. One of the movie industry's very few female cinematographers, she decided at age 13 to become a DP. "My dad made me a little dark room in the back yard and I loved going to movies, so I decided to join those two things together," says Walker, an award-winning Australian with credits that include Shattered Glass and Mia Wasikowska's desert adventure Tracks.
