“The Creator” Oscar-Nominated Sound Team on Blending Retro-Futurism, Robot Monks, & the Didgeridoo
The Creator‘s Oscar-nominated supervising sound editors, Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn, had a dream experience creating the soundscape for director Gareth Edwards‘ vision of a nightmarish future. The timing of the film couldn’t have been better—The Creator is set at a point in human history where there’s an outright war between humanity and artificial intelligence, a classic sci-fi set-up that felt alarmingly less fictive given the rapid expansion of AI in our real world.
“Maestro” Oscar-Nominated Re-Recording Mixers on Building Emotion With & Without Music
In Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, the music is flipped. Tracking the arc of Leonard Bernstein’s career in tandem with his loving but complicated marriage to Chilean actress Felicia Monteleagre (Carey Mulligan), the film’s music is Bernstein’s music, playing as it did over the course of the composer’s life, whether that’s performed on stage or worked out in the studio at the family’s Fairfield country house. When we revisit emotionally charged, private moments from Bernstein’s life,
“To Kill a Tiger” Director Nisha Pahuja on her Eight-Year Journey to Make her Oscar-Nominated Doc
One of the year’s Oscar Cinderella stories is the best documentary nomination for director Nisha Pahuja’s To Kill a Tiger. It took Pahuja and her small crew eight years to complete their independent film about a father’s fight for justice after three men abducted his 13-year-old daughter and sexually assaulted her in a poor rural village in India.
“It has not quite hit me yet,” says Pahuja of what will be her first-ever trip to the Oscar ceremony on March 10.
Co-Director Moses Bwayo on the Harrowing Journey to Capture the Oscar-Nominated Doc “Bobi Wine: The People’s President”
Imagine for a moment if a music icon like Beyoncé or Dolly Parton ran for United States President. Cool, right? But imagine, during their campaign, they were arrested, brutally beaten, and thrown in jail by the incumbent government while their supporters were detained, shot at, and killed. As Americans, would we simply look the other way? In Uganda, similar events actually took place leading up to the 2021 presidential election as Bobi Wine, a superstar musician,
How Pixar Director Peter Sohn Got Personal in His Oscar-nominated “Elemental”
How do you make fire feel endearing rather than scary? And how do you turn water into a gusher of emotions? Those were key questions faced by director Peter Sohn when he set forth to make Elemental. The Bronx-born animator previously helped anthropomorphize rats, robots, dolphins, and dinosaurs in Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, WALL•E, and The Little Dinosaur. But never before had he tried to put a human face on earth,
“The Holdovers” Oscar-Nominated Editor Kevin Tent on Creating a 70s Vibe With Timeless Performances
Kevin Tent, nominated for this year’s best editing Oscar for The Holdovers, considers himself “the luckiest editor ever” thanks to his 28-year collaboration with director Alexander Payne. Tent has edited all nine of Payne’s films dating back to his feature directing debut Citizen Ruth (1996). It’s an impressive list that includes Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), Sideways (2004), Paris, Je T’aime (2006),
“Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin” Namesake & Co-Writer Robb Armstrong on His Peanuts Immortality
Robb Armstrong’s JumpStart is the most widely syndicated daily comic strip by an African American in the world. He was inspired to his career as a cartoonist, in part, by reading the Peanuts comics by Charles Schulz and started drawing images from the famed strip as a child. Of course, one major influence was Franklin, the first Black character in Peanuts, who was introduced in 1968. Early in his career,
“Lisa Frankenstein” Production Designer Mark Worthington on Reimagining 1980s Horror Comedy
In a send-up of 1980s slasher flicks, Lisa (Kathryn Newton), the anti-heroine of writer Diablo Cody’s and director Zelda Williams’s Lisa Frankenstein, spends too much time in an abandoned cemetery and accidentally calls up a deceased 18th-century hottie (Cole Sprouse) from the dead. Since Lisa is already in love with a living boy, Michael Trent (Henry Eikenberry), and her undead admirer is missing a hand and can’t speak, the high schooler finds herself at the center of a love triangle she’s ill-equipped to handle.
“Bob Marley: One Love” Co-writer/Director Reinaldo Marcus Green on Capturing a Legend’s Spirit
Bob Marley’s family has been trying to create and release a narrative that celebrates the beloved Jamaican performer’s life and music for decades. Only recently did the producers, including Rita, Bob’s wife, and her children Ziggy and Cedella Marley, feel like all the pieces had come together to create a story worthy of Bob’s legacy. The perfect blend of talent to bring Bob’s story to the big screen included casting Kingsley Ben-Adir and Lashana Lynch as Bob and Rita Marley and hiring Reinaldo Marcus Green,
“Say It Loud” Director Deborah Riley Draper on Telling the Complex James Brown Story
It doesn’t take much to get filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper going when it comes to the topic of James Brown. Her new documentary James Brown: Say It Loud (airing Feb. 19 and Feb. 20 on A&E) chronicles the music titan’s remarkable journey from his 1933 birth in a South Carolina shack through his early days as a “buck dancer,” his imprisonment at age 16, the 1956 breakthrough hit Please Please Please,
The Oscar-Nominated Hair & Makeup Team on Turning Helen Mirren Into “Golda”
In 2023, Oscar-winning director Guy Nattiv helmed Golda, a biographical drama about Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir set during the 19 days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. As usual, Dame Helen Mirren is masterful in the title role. One key to the believability of her portrayal was visually melding Mirren and Meir together through costume, makeup, and hair.
The Academy has recognized all the attention to detail and artistry used to achieve Golda’s finished look with an Oscar nomination for best achievement in makeup and hair styling.
“The Last Repair Shop” Co-Composer & Co-Director Kris Bowers on his Perfectly Tuned Oscar-Nominated Doc
Composer Kris Bowers has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most versatile film scorers with a stunning list of credits, including Ava DuVernay’s Origin, The Color Purple, and the upcoming Bob Marley: One Love. But Bowers is also the Oscar-nominated co-director of this year’s documentary short The Last Repair Shop, which spotlighted a story right in Bowers’s backyard.
“Lisa Frankenstein” Costume Designer Meagan McLaughlin Luster on Dressing a Muse and a Monster
In Juno and Jennifer’s Body, screenwriter Diablo Cody depicted the worldview of alienated teenage girls with pitch-perfect wit. Her latest film, Lisa Frankenstein (in theaters now), directed by Zelda Williams, grafts Mary Shelley’s 19th-century monster myth onto the modern horrors of high school. Set in 1989, the movie casts Kathryn Newton as depressed Goth girl Lisa Swallows, who gains a whole new perspective after a muddy corpse (Cole Sprouse of Riverdale fame) breaks out of the graveyard and into her life.
From “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” to “Bullet Train,” Producer Georgina Pope Has Her Eyes on Japan
Georgina Pope has been the go-to producer for overseas projects shooting in Japan for decades. She’s navigated the country’s cultural, logistical, and technical landscape and film industry to help bring a panoply of projects to fruition. As head of production at Twenty First City in Tokyo, her list of credits includes Earthquake Bird, Bullet Train, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, Kumiko the Treasure Hunter,
“Rebel Moon” Sound Editors on Creating Different Sonic Worlds for Zack Snyder
Part one of director Zach Snyder’s Netflix space epic, Rebel Moon — A Child of Fire, opens on a quaint farming community on a peaceful moon called Veldt. Hard at work in the fields, Kora (Sofia Boutella) is clearly not of this community of self-styled Luddites, and the evil Imperium she’s escaping soon catches up with her. A massive ship alights above Veldt’s rolling fields, dropping Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) and a band of soldiers onto the moon to commandeer the farmers’ grain stores and disturb their bucolic way of life forever.
Maddie Ziegler and Emily Hampshire On Finding Their Voices in “Fitting In”
Being a teenage girl is hard. Being a teenage girl with a rare reproductive disorder is a nightmare.
Fitting In (originally titled Bloody Hell) is a semi-autobiographical account of writer/director Molly McGlynn’s own Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) diagnosis. MRKH Syndrome is a rare congenital disorder that is characterized by an underdeveloped vagina and uterus, making it difficult to perform vaginally penetrative sex and impossible to become pregnant or carry a child.
The Fittingly Frankenstein Creations of “Poor Things” Poster Designer Vasilis Marmatakis
“The movie’s poster is usually the first thing you see, so it should create an anticipation to see the film,” said Vasilis Marmatakis, the Greek graphic designer and illustrator behind the alluring poster art for Poor Things, a feminist riff on the Frankenstein legend that is up for 11 Oscars, including Best Picture. “It’s an entry point.”
In the age of social media and star contracts, which specify their face appear front and center on promotional materials,
“The Peasants” Co-Director/Writer Hugh Welchman on Hand Painting Real Life Hardships Into Animated Magic
Creating any animated feature film is an awesome commitment of time, talent, and resources. But the animated films of the Poland-based husband-and-wife directing team of Hugh Welchman (who is British) and D.K. Welchman (who is Polish) go well beyond the common description of “labor of love.” For their groundbreaking debut in 2017, the Oscar-nominated animated feature Loving Vincent, the team used a hand-painted animation technique to bring the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh to life.
Producer Tran Thi Bich Ngoc on Fighting Piracy, Championing Filmmakers, and Vietnam’s Huge Potential
Tran Thi Bich Ngoc is an established Vietnamese film producer with a long track record of success and an eye for great stories. Among her latest projects are Bui Thac Chuyen’s Glorious Ashes, Vietnam’s submission to the 2024 Academy Awards for the best international feature film category.
In 2022, the rural drama received its world premiere as the first Vietnamese film selected for the main competition of the Tokyo International Film Festival.
Jake Johnson on his Diabolically Fun Directorial Debut “Self Reliance”
Would you watch a reality show where someone is actively being hunted for a million-dollar prize? Morally, the answer is no. In Jake Johnson’s directorial debut, Self Reliance (streaming on Hulu), he believes the answer is yes. The concept for Johnson’s new film is one he developed years ago after watching a Japanese reality show (Susunu! Denpa Shōnen) where contestants were placed in bizarre situations and filmed.
“And then in the middle of the night,
