Building Beauty: A Conversation With Sarah Greenwood, Production Designer on Anna Karenina.

When thrice Oscar-nominated production designer Sarah Greenwood signed on to Joe Wright’s adaptation of Anna Karenina, she had complete trust in her longtime collaborator—but both had a nagging yet unspoken concern about how they would turn Karenina into something more than a straightforward period adaptation like the two had done on Pride & Prejudice and Atonement. Coming fresh off of 2011’s Hanna,

Q&A With Chris Carter, Writer and Creator of The X-Files

Chris Carter is a television legend. As the creative mastermind behind the iconic, 90s-defining supernatural television thriller The X-Files, he has nourished a generation with truly out-of-this world entertainment. Part metaphysical suspense, sci-fi epic, and well-wrought drama, The X-Files won over TV-viewing audiences with its unique plot lines, imaginative subject matter, and seemingly effortless execution. And the show's expertly nuanced protagonists, FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully,

Making Waves: Meet Scott Anderson, Visual Effects Supervisor and The Man Behind The Mavericks in Chasing Mavericks

Scott Anderson has provided expertise on films such as Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, and through his company Digital Sandbox, a visual effects company, has worked on a bevy of films.  Anderson and his team were brought on board (pun intended) to help directors Curtis Hanson and Michael Apted make the surf scenes in Chasing Mavericks look so realistic that even the legendary surfers who were stunt doubles and stunt performers on the film would be pleased.

Behind-the-Scenes at the Austin Film Festival

The Credits recently traveled to the Austin Film Festival—a truly unique festival dedicated to the art of screenwriting. The week long event combines extraordinary films with dynamic and engaging discussions, Q&As, and expert panels. Screenwriting icons like Eric Roth, Chris Carter, Paul Feig, and David Chase shared tricks of the trade with festival-goers through workshops, live script readings, and intimate interviews. And A-list actors like Billy Bob Thornton and James Franco were on the scene to promote their latest movies and to shed insight into their creative processes.

The Lore of Lincoln…and Daniel Day-Lewis: Two Larger-Than-Life Personas Intersect in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln

For a president whose face appears on the five dollar bill and who has starred in countless elementary school plays, book reports, and dreaded pop quizzes, Americans just can’t seem to figure out Abraham Lincoln.  Blame his larger-than-life stature, his well-worn anecdotes, or the truly bizarre myths that continue to circulate nearly 200 years after his death, but at least one uncontestable fact still stands: Abraham Lincoln is the ultimate American legend, and that the mere mention of his name is a fable unto itself only proves it.

Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, and Sam Mendes Make Skyfall an Instant Classic, While Taschen Releases the Epic “The James Bond Archives”

James Bond returns with a vengeance in Skyfall, and this superb 23rd entry in the legendary movie series is a smashingly successful tribute to the iconic British spy, who’s celebrating his 50th year in movies. After rebooting the 007 franchise with Daniel Craig as the new Bond in Casino Royale (2006), not only one of the best films in the series but one of the best films of that year,

Sound Supervisor Scott Gershin on His Job As An ‘Audio Photographer’

The Credits recently chatted with Sound Supervisor Scott Gershin at Soundelux Studios about his work on some of the most iconic movies in recent memory. Among his credits? The Doors, The Last of the Mohicans, Gladiator, Kill Bill: Volume 1, American Beauty, and Braveheart–and that hardly scratches the surface. Gershin has contributed to the scores of several award-winning movies and has worked on over 100 features.

President Obama, Governor Romney or President-Elect Samuel L. Jackson? Our Presidential Movie Survey Results Are In.

If you can draw conclusions about your fellow Americans by who they vote for, imagine how much you can know about them by what presidential movies they like, which actors portraying presidents they prefer, and who should be moderating our debates.  

We conducted a survey of 501 voters and found that Hollywood is still coming up far short on creating memorable female presidents, Samuel L. Jackson would make a good (zombie) war-time president,

36 Chambers of Cult: RZA Nails It With Roth and Tarantino-Presents Film, The Man With The Iron Fists

There is, arguably, no other group more defining of the 1990s counter-culture hip-hop wave that took America by storm than the Wu-Tang Clan. (For admittedly paltry proof, I can personally attest to wearing at least 3 copies of 36 Chambers bare in my stickered Discman.) But unlike other hip hop groups that settled their sights on fast money, easy women, and gang lore, the Wu-Tang Clan had a much more dynamic infatuation: kung-fu.

A Man of Many Worlds: From Munich to Forrest Gump, A Conversation With Writer Eric Roth

The Credits recently traveled to the Austin Film Festival, the first fest to boast a unique devotion to the craft of screenwriting. And who better to teach us the tricks of the trade than legendary scriptwriter, Eric Roth? As the writer of movies like Forrest Gump, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Munich, The Good Shepard, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ali, and most recently, the television show Luck,

Meet A Maker (Halloween Edition): Legendary Makeup Artist Steve LaPorte

The Credits recently chatted with iconic makeup artist Steve LaPorte, who has worked on memorable films and television shows like Terminator 2, Lost, The X-Files and the upcoming picture, Oz: The Great and Powerful (and so many more.) But perhaps most impressively, LaPorte won an Oscar for his character-defining makeup work on Beetlejuice. In this intimate interview, Steve LaPorte discusses how he broke into the film makeup business after a short stint in clown school,

Did You Hear That? Nightmare on Elm Street Foley Artist Gary Hecker Reveals How Horror Movies’ Scariest Sound Effects Are Made

Ear-splitting screams. Ominous silence. The howling wind. The telltale creak of the stairs. It’s hard to imagine horror films without these heart-pounding audio elements, but they wouldn’t exist without the talented foley artists who use everything from celery stalks to leather belts to create aural terror.

As Halloween approaches, we thought we’d check in with industry vet Gary Hecker, who’s been honing his craft for 30 years and now works as the supervising foley artist at Todd-AO.

A Video Q&A With Documentary Filmmaker Eugene Jarecki About His Crucial New Film The House I Live In

Documentarian Eugene Jarecki has made a career of taking hugely complex, sprawling issues and creating passionate films about them that are at once accessible, informative and deeply moving. Jarecki’s films include Why We Fight, a dissection of America’s military industrial complex, in essence the ‘business’ of making war, and The Trial of Henry Kissinger, examining the alleged war crimes of the former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State.

The Surfer King: A Conversation With Chasing Mavericks Surf Coordinator and Big Wave Expert Grant Washburn

Making a great biopic can be a high stakes game: How do you do tell an enthralling story about a real person, while keeping the audience entertained and also maintaining authenticity when it comes to the subject in question? For Grant Washburn, the Surf Coordinator on Chasing Mavericks, the story of iconic big wave surfer Jay Moriarty, the stakes were even higher because there was another determining factor —

Nosferatu, Night Monster, Hocus Pocus: An Ode to Halloween, the Movie-Lover’s Holiday

It’s that time of year when things that go bump in the night are on our minds and our movie screens. Halloween, perhaps even more so than Christmas, is a movie holiday; what else are you supposed to do to celebrate, once society deems you too old to knock on doors and demand candy?

Boutique theaters across the country understand this grown-up Halloween need, and answer enthusiastically with holiday-specific programming that runs the gamut—from camp to horror,

In Honor of HBO’s New Film The Girl: Ten Great Movies About Making Movies

Movie lovers, and Hitchcock fans in particular, are about to get a fascinating double dose of behind-the-scenes dramatization. First up is The Girl, which premiered on HBO on October 20, tells the story of the relationship between Hitchcock (Toby Jones) and Tippi Hedren (Sienna Miller), the model selected to star in The Birds despite having no acting experience. Then, on November 1, Hitchcock will premiere at the AFI Film Festival –

Putting the Walk in The Walking Dead: An Interview With Stargate Studios CEO and VFX Guru Sam Nicholson

Stargate Studios CEO Sam Nicholson is a visual effects legend (VFX). A cinematographer by trade, Nicholson hails from the mother ship of visual effects gigs, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. His work on The Enterprise shot Nicholson’s career to stratospheric heights and spans some of the greatest television shows in recent memory—and we’re not being hyperbolic. Nicholson founded the incredibly busy visual effects house Stargate Studios, which has performed post-production visual effects for TV shows including CSI,

Book Shelf: Gifted Actor Stanley Tucci’s Italian Cookbook

Why, you might ask, another cookbook? Actor Stanley Tucci has a simple and elegant answer to that question, which he lets the New York Times in on in the companion video to their profile of him, found here.

Since there are only so many recipes, he says, just like there are only so many plots, it’s about how you tell the story, as opposed to the way the other guy tells the story.

Two Alfred Hitchcock Masterpieces get the Blu-Ray Treatment

Released on Oct 9, Warner Bros’ Blu-Ray of Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train (1951) showcases the Master of Suspense returning to top form after several years of critical and commercial disappointments. At the beginning of the 50’s, a decade in which he would produce some of his greatest movies, Hitchcock was hungry for material that would bring out the best in his work. He found it in the eponymous debut novel of a 29-year old Patricia Highsmith,

Film School 101

Cinema verite, mise-en-scene, establishing shot–think you have the chops to make it in film school? Take our film school-inspired quiz to find out.

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