“The Fabelmans” Oscar-Nominated Production Designer Rick Carter Gets Personal With Steven Spielberg
Veteran production designer Rick Carter art-directed the first Avatar, won an Oscar for his work on Forrest Gump, designed two Star Wars films, and collaborated with Steven Spielberg on ten movies ranging from Jurassic Park to Lincoln. Last month, Carter earned his fifth Oscar nomination for designing Spielberg’s autobiographically inspired The Fabelmans.
In contrast with much of his previous work,
Oscar-Nominated Makeup & Hair Designer Heike Merker Paints With Mud & Blood in “All Quiet on the Western Front”
Director Edward Berger’s adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front is a painfully absorbing epic. Berger’s take on Erich Maria Remarque’s iconic 1929 novel, captured with astonishing vividness by cinematographer James Friend, teases out the themes in the seminal work about the horrors of World War I with bloody precision. The film wastes no time in depicting the dehumanizing industry of the first mechanized war, in which a dead soldier is stripped of his uniform so that it can be stitched up,
Oscar-Nominated Sound Designer Frank Kruse Makes Some Noise on “All Quiet on the Western Front”
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel that lays bare the harsh brutality of war through the eyes of a naive youth fighting in the German trenches during WWI, is considered a literary classic. So Frank Kruse admits some hesitation when director Edward Berger told him he was doing a modern retelling. That disappeared after Kruse read the script. Though the challenge would be daunting, he wanted to be the film’s sound designer and supervising sound editor.
Filmmaker Sara Dosa Captures a Couple’s Burning Passion in Her Oscar-Nominated Doc “Fire of Love”
When Sara Dosa won Best Film Documentary Director from the Directors Guild on February 18 for Fire of Love, it was no doubt an acknowledgment of the daunting task Dosa faced in shaping nearly 200 hours of 16 mm archival footage shot by her subjects, without sound, into her mesmerizing film. Fire of Love is also nominated for this year’s Best Documentary Oscar.
Fire of Love, a National Geographic film on Disney+,
Oscar-Nominee Brendan Fraser on his Deep Dive into “The Whale”
Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky often pursues the road less taken in movies like The Wrestler, Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream. He’s done it again in The Whale, which stars Oscar-nominated Brendan Fraser as Charlie, a 600-pound English teacher who conducts classes over Zoom with his screen image hidden so students can’t see his true size. The entire film (now available on demand on Prime Video,
“The Whale” Oscar-Nominated Prosthetics Artist Adrien Morot Breaks the Mold
When it comes to makeup effects, Adrien Morot ranks among the very best. From fierce alligators (Crawl), to mutant superheroes (X Men films X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, and Dark Phoenix), to this year’s favorite film doll (M3GAN), Morot has proven time and again he’s a prosthetic wizard. But even he wondered if he had met his match when director Darren Aronofsky offered him The Whale.
“Cocaine Bear” VFX Supervisor Robin Hollander on Creating an Ursine Junkie
Cocaine Bear began snorting up viral eyeballs last fall, boosted by a madcap trailer that racked up 18 million views. Now boasting a $28 million opening weekend, second only to M3GAN as 2023’s biggest non-franchise hit, it’s based on the true story of a black bear who discovered a duffel bag of cocaine in the Georgia woods. Directed by Elizabeth Banks, Cocaine Bear features human stars Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich and Isiah Whitlock Jr.,
“Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” Composer Christophe Beck on Kang, the Langs, & Depeche Mode
Christophe Beck is one of the most prominent composers in the Marvel sandbox. He not only scored all three Ant-Man films but co-composed Hawkeye and, to great acclaim, WandaVision. After eight years of collaborating with the Marvel team, Beck is well-versed in the MCU’s sonic landscape.
The composer’s first collaboration with director Peyton Reed was years before he composed themes for Ant-Man’s miniaturized adventures.
“Sharper” Star Briana Middleton on Finding Her Edge in Apple TV’s New Thriller
Filled with plot twists, double-crosses and characters who never seem to be who they are, Sharper is designed to keep you guessing right to the end. But one thing is for certain; with a razor-sharp cast that includes Julianne Moore, Briana Middleton, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith and John Lithgow, the Apple TV+ original film delivers its many satisfactions with a cast more than equal to the job.
“It’s so fun,” says Middleton during a recent interview.
Harpo Films Director of Development & Production Lauren Tuck Wants Her Creators to Flourish
Harpo Films and OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network has been leading the pack in Hollywood in terms of diversity and inclusion for years. From the very beginning of OWN’s drama series Queen Sugar, creator Ava DuVernay envisioned using all female directors for the series, and both OWN and Harpo Films were 100% behind that. DuVernay’s show proved a hit, and her commitment to hiring diverse female directors resulted in greater success for the 42 helmers that took part.
“The Last of Us” Production Designer John Paino on Building a World in Ruins
“I’ve noticed an uptick in mushroom articles,” production designer John Paino jokes. So have I, actually, but it might be a case of being suddenly aware of the ubiquity and centrality of fungi to the living world ever since HBO’s The Last of Us premiered. The series, based on the critically acclaimed video game by Naughty Dog, asks us to look afresh at the fungus and fear. It presents a world in which fungi,
Director Haifaa Al-Mansour on Casting a Spell in “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches”
Though Haifaa Al-Mansour is known as the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia by virtue of her award-winning 2012 feature Wadjda, she has since become a go-to director inside and outside Hollywood through both features and projects on the small screen. The writer/director’s releases Mary Shelley and The Perfect Candidate were lauded by critics and audiences, and her artistic contributions to shows like The Good Lord Bird,
“Knock at the Cabin” VFX Supervisor Tommy Tran on Creating an Unnervingly Believable Apocalypse
Seeing is believing. At least, the four prophets preaching the end of the world in M. Night Shyamalan‘s Knock at the Cabin hope that is the case. The quartet predict a series of plagues that will bring about the end of humanity unless a sacrifice is made, but will the sacrifice buy their story in time? VFX Supervisor with FuseFX Tommy Tran led work on the first global catastrophe and the eerie aftermath of all four events.
“Fight the Power” Producer Helen Bart on Exploring Hip Hop’s Explosive Power With Chuck D
Nearly fifty years ago in the Bronx, on August 11, 1973, Jamaican American DJ Kool Herc used two turntables to spin funky drum breaks at his sister’s back-to-school party. The event turned out to be hip hop’s big bang moment. In the decades that followed, the music became a politically charged platform empowering Black America to share its culture through rhymes brimming with wit, ferocity and pathos. Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World,
“Sick” Production Designer Jenny Möller Builds the Lake House From Hell in Peacock’s Peak Pandemic Slasher
Slashers don’t take sick days, even during a lockdown. Leave it to Scream writer Kevin Williamson to give us more to fear than the virus in Peacock’s Sick, which takes us back to the peak of the COVID pandemic. Best friends Parker (Gideon Adlon) and Miri (Bethlehem Million) quarantine together at a luxury lake house, but their isolation is interrupted by a masked killer.
Production Designer Jenny Möller rolled back the clock to an eerie experience we all shared –
“Descendant” Co-Writer & Producer Dr. Kern Jackson on Uncovering Living History in Mobile, Alabama
The documentary Descendant is about many things, but mostly it’s about storytelling — how oral histories, passed down from generation to generation, inform identity and community and connect the living to their ancestors. History can’t be erased or denied as long as stories are still being told.
Descendant, which won the US Documentary Special Jury Award for Creative Vision at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and is now on Netflix,
Stunt Coordinator Freddie Poole Trades Jabs with Sylvester Stallone in “Tulsa King”
Stunt coordinator Freddie Poole has worked long enough with Sylvester Stallone that, although he may not be able to finish the actor’s sentences, he can sure finish his punches. So when the call came to oversee the action on the Paramount+ series Tulsa King, Poole didn’t hesitate.
Stallone stars as Dwight “The General” Manfredi, an NYC mob capo who, after serving a 25-year prison sentence, is exiled to Tulsa,
Documentarian Sam Pollard on Courting an Icon in “Bill Russell: Legend”
This week, LeBron James broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time NBA scoring record, but one superstar stat seems unlikely to be eclipsed any time soon: the late Bill Russell’s collection of 11 NBA Championship rings. One of the league’s first Black players, Russell led the Boston Celtics from 1957 through the sixties. The team’s reign culminated in 1969 after Russell became the league’s first Black player-coach and led the Celtics to a come-from-behind victory over arch-rivals the Los Angeles Lakers.
Taking a Magical Tour With Becky Cline, Director of The Walt Disney Archives
Becky Cline knows a thing or two about wearing multiple hats in her long, successful career at Disney. In fact, as the Director of the Walt Disney Archives, Cline is responsible for one of the most iconic hats of all time (belonging to a certain magical British nanny—more on her later), and a treasure trove of other iconic props, costumes, and more. Cline’s remit is sweeping, as she’s charged with collecting and preserving the entire breadth of Disney history and making sure this treasure trove is available to documentarians and other filmmakers,
“The Last of Us” Cinematographer Eben Bolter on Episode 4 & More
It took a decade to get there, but The Last of Us’ migration from video game to television paid off big time last month when the post-apocalyptic thriller enjoyed the largest viewership jump in HBO history. Audience numbers increased 22 percent to 5.7 million viewers for the show’s second episode in the wake of its January 15 debut. Already renewed for a second season, the series comes from Emmy-winning writer-producer Craig Mazin of Chernobyl fame in collaboration with Neil Druckmann,
