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, the series dipped a bit with its follow-up,...
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, and one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on is we need a second President Ford...
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. Rooted largely in the niche fan boy culture and cult-status communities of martial-arts worshipping fanatics,...
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, Roth has worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest casts—and he’s gifted us some of the most memorable scripts of the last century...
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. The winner of four Golden Reel awards,...
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 — the unpredictable Pacific Ocean —...
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, and everything in between...
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 – and is slated to open in select theaters by the end of the month...
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.
[wpsqt name="Film School 101" type="quiz"]
*Feature image courtesy of California Institute of the Arts ...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. It’s the kind of inspiration an aspiring filmmaker might just pay $40,000 in tuition for...
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...
