Interview With Marty Kaplan, Founding Director of The Norman Lear Center at USC

The Norman Lear Center, founded and directed by professor Marty Kaplan, is based out of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. The Center is named after benefactor Norman Lear, who has been an iconic social activist and television producer in the entertainment industry for years.

Launched in January of 2000, the Center’s mission has been to champion research, public policy, and educational programs that examine the entertainment landscape. The Lear Center's Entertainment Goes Global project looks at the implications of entertainment on society,

Fantastic Film Schools Infographic

Our latest infographic, inspired by Hollywood Reporter's 2nd Annual List of the Top 25 Film Schools, takes a look at some of the best film schools in the country.

Where Hollywood Hones Its Craft: Getting Film Schooled At AFI

Tucked in the hills of Griffith Park, the American Film Institute is as much a Hollywood mainstay as its film lore surroundings. From campus, one can see the hillsides housing such celebrated fixtures as the Hollywood sign, the Observatory where James Dean got into a knife fight in Rebel Without a Cause, and hundreds of eclectic, multimillion-dollar homes—many of which house Hollywood’s biggest stars—stretching all the way to the Malibu coastline.

Back To Film School: On Location At CalArts

Across the country, aspiring filmmakers are hard at work honing their craft at film schools. Whether it's learning about the cultural impact of cinema, getting a technical training education in directing or cinematography, or advancing a lifelong love of cinema, we're celebrating film schools everywhere with a week of film school-themed content.

The Credits recently traveled to the California Institute of the Arts–one of the country's premier arts schools located just outside of Los Angeles.

50 Years of Bond, James Bond

James Bond week continues with our latest infographic, which takes a look at some of the 65 women that have made Bond's life both heaven and hell.

50 Reasons to Love James Bond

Last week marked the highly anticipated arrival of BOND 50 – the complete James Bond film collection showcasing all 22 classic titles on Blu-ray together for the first time ever, in one sleek collectable box-set. This Limited Edition set marks the debut of nine James Bond films previously unavailable in high definition Blu-ray and comes with a dossier of more than 122 hours of bonus features

Bond’s impact on our culture is such that the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is saluting her majesty’s favorite spy (for the second time,

Before There Was Apple, There Was Bond (And Q): 50 Years of Impeccably Cool Gadgets

The James Bond movie franchise celebrates its 50th birthday this year, and the world’s favorite secret agent will blow out the candles with the Nov. 9 release of Skyfall, the 23rd Bond film. The old saying goes that behind every great man is a woman, but there’s one enduring character who is arguably more helpful than Bond’s scantily clad femme fatales: Q. One trailer for Skyfall shows Bond (Daniel Craig, in this incarnation) being presented with a gun featuring a palm-print identity checker so that it can only be fired by the man with a license to kill.

The Film Industry Heads For The Bayou: Introducing Hollywood South

In recent years, Louisiana has become one of the fastest growing film production states in the country. Playing host to projects like True Blood, The Host, and Ender’s Game, many of Hollywood’s biggest productions are opting for a change of scenery; from LA’s traffic-addled freeways, to the South’s bountiful bayou. Thanks to generous film tax incentives, “Hollywood South,” as Louisiana’s been dubbed, is now in the leagues of film state heavyweights like California and New York.

On Location: Western Costume

Founded in the movie biz’s earliest days, Western Costume is a one-stop shop for film, TV, commercial, digital media and theatre costumes. The 100-year old company got its start in downtown Los Angeles providing authentic cowboy and Indian wear for silent one-reel films (hence, the Western Costume name). Today, Western Costume’s 100,000-square-foot North Hollywood warehouse holds between three to five million pieces of clothing, accessories, and footwear. Topping it all off is an extensive research library–an invaluable resource for show designers and costumers.

A Q&A With Chicken With Plums Directors Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud

In this intimate post-screening interview, directors Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud discuss their latest film, Chicken With Plums. Magical realism, animation, and innovative storytelling are trademarks of the filmmaking pair, who won an Oscar for the animated movie Persepolis. Here, Satrapi and Paronnaud discuss inspirations for the film, directing, collaborative storytelling, and the international fabric of Chicken With Plums.

Music and Movies: An Interview with Music Supervisor Randall Poster

Randall Poster from The Credits on Vimeo.

In this exclusive interview, The Credits chats with legendary music supervisor Randall Poster about Moonrise Kingdom, working with director Wes Anderson, and the importance of protecting creativity at all costs. And for more insight into where Randall Poster draws inspiration from, check out this iTunes playlist of his favorite tracks from movie scores:

On Location: EUE/Screen Gems Studios Atlanta

ScreenGems from The Credits on Vimeo.

The Credits recently traveled to Atlanta–home of Coca Cola, the Braves, and one of the most dynamic movie and television studios around. EUE/Screen Gems Studio Atlanta is a 33-acre, state of the art lot that hosts some of the biggest projects in film and television–from USA's Necessary Roughness to Columbia Pictures' Zombieland (2009). Boasting one of the largest independent film studios in the country,

Summing It Up, Boiling It Down: The Art of the Movie Tagline

We’d all like to think we’re too savvy to fall for modern-day marketing tactics, but when it comes to movie messaging, they’re just so darn clever. By the time you sit down in a theater, it’s likely that the marketing behind a film has already worked it’s magic on you, and taglines—the single phrases you see emblazoned across billboards, buses, benches, and subway walls—help to set the stage. Whether they’re piquing your interest ("Reality is a thing of the past"

From Bookshelves to the Big Screen: Young Readers Spur A Movie Boom

After the stratospheric success of movies based on the Harry Potter, Twilight and Narnia book series, young adult fiction has become a rich hunting ground for studios looking for the next franchise.

The next wave of YA-based films has already arrived with The Hunger Games, but filmgoers can expect many more in the coming months. So what are the next page-turners to hit the silver screen? Get a sneak peek below.

The Wired Theater: Audiences Get Social At The Cinema

There is a well-known myth of movie audiences in the late 19th century fleeing for the exits at the sight of a train that seemed to be barreling straight toward them. In reality, audiences’ early fascination with motion pictures quickly turned to admiration, a sacred respect for the movie going experience. Talking during movies became, almost instantaneously, strictly verboten. Decades later, other rules reared their heads to stomp out social distractions in the cinema. First it was,

The Return of Smell-O-Vision, the Advent of 4D Cinema, and the Brave New World of Sensory Film

TIME Magazine might have deemed it one of the worst 100 ideas in history, but it’s hard not to harbor a fond nostalgia for the wonderfully bizarre promise Smell-O-Vision once afforded moviegoers. Making movies that smelled was a bold and definitively quirky concept intended to persuade the television-hooked masses of 1950s Americana to migrate from their plastic-covered couches and microwaved TV dinners in order to experience movies in a ‘scent’sational new way. Of course,

Movie Poster Masterminds: An Interview With Allied Creative

Everyone knows movie ad campaigns are crucial to the industry. After all, who hasn’t let an eight-foot billboard of an impressive movie advert persuade them into making a trip to the local theater queue? But, like most things in the business, there’s more to making movie posters than meets the eye. Creative agencies are devoted to achieving the optimal aesthetic of movie posters and ad campaigns—from appealing to the target audience, to capturing the ambiance and essence of the movie itself.

Special Effects for Everyone: The Democratization of CGI Technology

You could say independent filmmaker Gareth Edwards is a surprising champion for CGI technology. After all, his feature film Monsters (2010) wasn’t a big-budget summer blockbuster, nor did it star Tom Cruise, Matt Damon or any other major A-list actor. In fact, he made his film for a mere $800,000—and that’s with CGI technology included. In an interview with film critic Mark Kermode, Edwards said, “You can go in [a] shop now and buy a computer that’s faster than the computers they made Jurassic Park on.”

MPAA and DGA Present: An Evening With Director Michael Apted

Senator Chris Dodd interviews British director Michael Apted in the inaugural installment of the MPAA’s new series, “An Evening With…,” which celebrates the work of cherished film icons and aims to shed new light onto contemporary issues facing the industry—from expanding into international markets, to raising awareness about copyright issues, to fostering an ongoing dialogue about innovations in the world of cinema.

Michael Apted is a critically acclaimed director, writer, producer,

On Location in Albuquerque: The Film Industry Drives a Creative and Economic Resurgence

If you ask Ann Lerner when the film industry landed in New Mexico, she’ll say it all began in 1898 with a one-minute silent documentary called “Indian Day School.” Then she’ll laugh and tell you that even though Hollywood has been shooting in the state for more than a century, it wasn’t until 2003 that a rumble erupted into a boom.

Lerner is the film liaison for Albuquerque’s Office of Economic Development, and she’s witnessed firsthand the surge in local film and television productions over the past few years,