Interview

Cinematographer

Going For Broke in HBO’s “Industry” With Cinematographer Federico Cesca

For fans of HBO’s Industry who relished its hyper-intensive peek into the world of international finance, the series’ return this August after an 18-month hiatus was like welcome news on the financial markets.

The ambitious hirers who survived the cutthroat trading floor in season one are upping their game as they fight to make their mark at Pierpoint & Co, the prestigious London-based investment bank. Harper Stern (Myha’la Herrold) is scoring points by currying the favor and business of Jesse Bloom (Jay Duplass),

By Chris Koseluk  |  September 8, 2022

Interview

Director, Producer, Screenwriter

How the Ebo Sisters Find Comedy in Megachurch Scandal Feature “Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul.”

Honk For Jesus. Save Your Soul. came seemingly out of nowhere in January to become a breakout hit at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, where Jordan Peele‘s Monkeypaw production company, Focus Features, and Peacock picked up the dark comedy. But in fact, the movie was a long time coming. Writer/director Adamma Ebo and her twin sister, producer Adanne, spent six years developing their 2015 short film of the same name.

By Hugh Hart  |  September 7, 2022

Interview

Composer

Best of Summer: “Elvis” Composer Elliott Wheeler on The King’s Music & That Doja Cat Collab

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

The dazzling visuals of director Baz Luhrmann’s spine-tingling biopic of Elvis, which were beautifully shot by cinematographer Mandy Walker,

By Daron James  |  September 2, 2022

Interview

Best of Summer: How The “Westworld” Makeup Effects Team Built Body Doubles & More in Season 4

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

Every season of Westworld is an ambitious undertaking, requiring hundreds of talented artists to create HBO’s gorgeously wrought sci-fi puzzle box.

By Bryan Abrams  |  September 2, 2022

Interview

Director

Best of Summer: “Ozark” Director Amanda Marsalis on Ruth, Wendy, and Bittersweet Goodbyes

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

When Ozark came to its bloody, sin-soaked end this year, you might have found yourself, Marty Byrd (Jason Bateman) style,

By Bryan Abrams  |  September 1, 2022

Interview

Best of Summer: “Stranger Things 4” Music Editor Lena Glikson on Cutting Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

From the get-go, Netflix hit Stranger Things has excelled in the art and craft of needle drops.

By Hugh Hart  |  September 1, 2022

Interview

Casting Director

Marvel Studios Casting Director Sarah Finn on Finding the Heroes & Villains of the MCU

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

She’s arguably the most powerful casting director in Hollywood, working alongside Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and his team along with numerous directors to populate 28 superhero movies that have so far earned more than $25 billion at the box office.

By Hugh Hart  |  August 31, 2022

Interview

Actor

Best of Summer: Juliette Binoche on Driving a Tough Road in “Paradise Highway”

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

For writer/director Anna Gutto’s feature debut Paradise Highway, a trucker named Sally will do whatever it takes to keep her brother Dennis (played by Frank Grillo) alive long enough so that he can get out of prison and restart his life.

By Bryan Abrams  |  August 31, 2022

Interview

Actor

Best of Summer: Going to Flight School With “Top Gun: Maverick” Stars Glen Powell & Greg Tarzan Davis

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

Based on everything from the reviews to the overwhelmingly positive chatter online to the 5-minute standing ovation at Cannes,

By Leslie Combemale  |  August 31, 2022

Interview

Special/Visual Effects

Best of Summer: “Nope” VFX Supervisor Guillaume Rocheron on Creating That Spectacular Alien Creature

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

Jordan Peele’s extraterrestrial spectacle Nope has a secret you may not know about: the sky itself is a digital recreation.

By Daron James  |  August 30, 2022

Interview

Sound Designer

Best of Summer: How the “Stranger Things” Sound Team Creeps You Out

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

When Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven experiences a flashback a couple of hours into Stranger Things

By Hugh Hart  |  August 30, 2022

Interview

Costume Designer

Best of Summer: “Thor: Love and Thunder ” Costume Designer Mayes C. Rubeo on Dressing Gods & Goddesses

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

Thor: Love and Thunder has scored the biggest Thor opening yet, proving MCU fans are loving writer/director Taika Waititi’s romantic comedy space adventure.

By Leslie Combemale  |  August 29, 2022

Interview

Best of Summer: How the “Top Gun: Maverick” Sound Team Ingeniously Captured Raw Emotion Mid-Flight

As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. 

Mark Weingarten is no stranger to navigating the challenges of a production sound mixer. Over his accomplished career,

By Daron James  |  August 29, 2022

Interview

Special/Visual Effects

How “Where the Crawdads Sing” VFX Team Elevated the Mystery and Wonder of the Marsh

Deep in the forgotten marsh of North Carolina, a magical world quietly flourishes for those who seek it. Where the Crawdads Sing has plenty of romance, but the true love story blooms between Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and the wildlife that shares her home. The untouched nature of Kya’s world is rarer now than in 1965, but VFX Supervisor Kolby Kember and VFX Producer Sarah McCulley of Crafty Apes VFX were on hand to subtly restore the rich environment. 

By Kelle Long  |  August 26, 2022

Interview

Editor

How “Bullet Train” Editor Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir Shaped a Thrill Ride

Bullet Train has already punched through $100 million worldwide at the box office and isn’t slowing down. The thrill ride from director David Leitch roars with laughter and delivers a bounty of ass-kicking action sequences that may have you consider taking classes at your local dojo.

The Brad Pitt vehicle has him playing Ladybug, a down-on-his-luck assassin struggling to retrieve a suitcase on a Kyoto-bound train while trying to avoid a gritty group of killers with their own motives.

By Daron James  |  August 25, 2022

Interview

Casting Director

“Thor: Love and Thunder” Casting Director Sarah Finn on Picking Stars for the Marvel Cinematic Universe

She’s arguably the most powerful casting director in Hollywood, working alongside Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and his team along with numerous directors to populate 28 superhero movies that have so far earned more than $25 billion at the box office. Her name is Sarah Finn. She majored in Theater Studies at Yale, moved to Los Angeles and cast the Oscar-winning Crash. Then, in 2006, Finn got a call to meet with Feige about a little thing called Iron Man.

By Hugh Hart  |  August 24, 2022

Interview

Cinematographer

Emmy-Nominated “Dopesick” Cinematographer Checco Varese on Layering in Subliminal Clues

Cinematographer Checco Varese is no stranger when it comes to photographing pilots, having created alluring visual palettes for over twenty projects, including David Elliot’s Four Brothers, Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain, and HBO’s True Blood. He reconnected with Empire creator Danny Strong to shoot Hulu’s Dopesick, a poignant narrative about the opioid crisis starring Michael Keaton as a doctor in a small mining town affected by the addictive drug.

By Daron James  |  August 23, 2022

Interview

Hair/Makeup

“Bridgerton” Emmy-Nominated Costume & Hairstyling Team on Season Two’s Sumptuous Styles

Netflix’s Regency-era romance Bridgerton became one of its most-streamed series thanks to creator Chris Van Dusen’s modern, Skittles-hued take on historic upper-crust British mores. His ethos going in — that this London Ton would be a “bonnet-free world” — held up for Season 2, in which the eldest Bridgerton heir, Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), finds true love, not with the season’s social diamond, Edwina (Charithra Chandran), but her romance-averse older sister, Kate (Simone Ashley). 

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  August 19, 2022

Interview

Costume Designer

“Westworld” Costume Designer Debra Beebe on Living in Charlotte Hale’s World

Westworld season four wrapped this past Sunday after a dizzyingly twisted 8-episode arc, burrowing ever deeper into the rabbit hole of a post-human world. As ever, Westworld remains one of the most ambitious shows on television, and season four has arguably been the series’ most devilishly complex yet. With the line between “real” and synthetic obliterated ever since the hosts slipped the confines of the original theme park and infiltrated the real world,

By Bryan Abrams  |  August 18, 2022

Interview

Sound Designer

“Nope” Sound Designer Johnnie Burn Puts the Fear in What We Hear

Before the opening credits even clear the screen, Nope plunges us into an alarming soundscape: the canned laughter of a sitcom. Knowing that this is a Jordan Peele horror film, immediate tension strikes. Something is bound to shatter that wholesome sound, and, of course, this happens in a brutal way. 

Our ears get the first warning sign moment after terrifying moment in Nope as we hear what we can’t yet,

By Kelle Long  |  August 18, 2022