“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” Oscar-Nominated Hair & Makeup Team on Helping Chastain Channel Faye

Come this Sunday at the 94th Academy Awards ceremony, Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram, and Justin Raleigh may all win their first gold statuette for hair and makeup. The makeup department head, hair department head, and head special makeup effects artist, respectively, are nominated for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, the biopic starring Jessica Chastain, nominated for lead actress, and Andrew Garfield as the renowned and scandal-ridden evangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker.

Oscar-Nominated “The Power of the Dog” Editor Peter Sciberras on Building Unbearable Tension

Jane Campion’s tense, character-driven Western, The Power of the Dog, is a critical favorite and Oscar frontrunner. The film’s vast landscapes (shot in New Zealand, much to the chagrin of actors not involved with the movie) are a backdrop to a slow-moving family melodrama: sweet and earnest George (Jesse Plemons) marries widowed Rose (Kirsten Dunst), bringing out the worst in Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch), George’s volatile, curiously standoffish brother. 

The brothers are also partners in a successful ranch,

Oscar-Nominated Re-Recording Sound Mixer Paul Massey on “No Time To Die”

“When I started out, I had no objective whatsoever to become a re-recording mixer,” says Paul Massey, who may well be the most accomplished accidental Oscar winner in history. Growing up in London, Massey played trumpet in wedding bands, worked at a recording studio and then, he says, “I made a slow, totally unintentional transition to film post-production.”

Like Ridley Scott, one of his most frequent collaborators, Massey, Academy Award winner for Bohemian Rhapsody,

Oscar-Nominated “Dune” Screenwriter Jon Spaihts on Decoding Frank Herbert’s Tome

For Dune‘s Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jon Spaihts, the opportunity to help Denis Villeneuve find a way to crack the elusive code to adapting Frank Herbert’s magisterial, meaty sci-fi tome came at a funny time. “I’d decided I wanted to focus on a personal project that I’d direct myself, so I told my reps, ‘No new jobs,'” Spaiths says. “Then my agent called and said Denis Villeneuve is doing Dune, and I said,

Oscar-Nominated “Dune” DP Greig Fraser on Taming an Epic Sci-Fi Beast

Denis Villeneuve is the director to finally tame a film version of Dune, Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi novel that, over the decades, accidentally spawned a cottage industry of unsuccessful visual projects (see: David Lynch’s 1984 Dune, the SyFy channel’s attempt in 2000, and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, which never saw the light of day). Casting Timothée Chalamet as young prince Paul Atreides and Zendaya as Chani of the Fremen,

How the Oscar-Nominated “tick, tick…BOOM!” Editors Evoked the Excitement of Live Theatre

The magic of live theatre is a precious element that is often elusive to the lens. Countless legendary Broadway performances have sparkled and faded in a night, rarely ever recorded. Even a long run of a popular musical will never see the exact same show cross the stage twice.

Many movie adaptations of musicals are enormous affairs with extravagant sets, costumes, and visual details that fill in the gaps that exist only in the imagination of a live audience.

“Dune” Oscar-Nominated Sound Team on Sandworms, Ornithopters & More

The experience of seeing writer/director Denis Villeneuve’s Oscar-nominated epic Dune was, for this viewer, as much an auditory experience as it was a visual one. The sounds of the alien world depicted in part one of Villeneuve’s two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel are mesmerizing, from the whispering sands shifting across the desert planet of Arrakis to the oddly soothing purr of the dragon fly-winged aircraft, the ornithopter. For supervising sound editor Mark Mangini and supervising sound editor and sound designer Theo Green,

“The Adam Project” Screenwriter Jonathan Tropper on Teaming With Ryan Reynolds & Shawn Levy

The development of The Adam Project has its own time-traveling origin story, one that dates back roughly ten years. Screenwriter Jonathan Tropper says the production took flight, in part, because of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) which stars Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, and Dwayne Johnson in a reboot of the beloved Robin Williams’ film that sucks them into a video game in an adventurous fight for survival. 

“Before Jumanji came out,

Cinematographer Jon Furmanski Reunites With Amy Schumer in “Life & Beth”

When she co-hosts ABC’s Oscar telecast on March 27, Amy Schumer will likely deliver the kind of withering punch lines that forged her reputation as one of America’s most daring comedians. But in her new Hulu series Life & Beth (which debuted on March 18) Schumer brings unexpected angst to her title character, an unhappy wine salesperson trying to make a fresh start in the face of death, disapproval, and dysfunctional family ties.

“The Outfit” Director Graham Moore on His Meticulous, Mobbed-Up Debut

Graham Moore, who won both an Oscar and a Writers Guild of America award for his adaptation of The Imitation Game, has joined a growing list of scribes going behind the camera to helm a production. The Outfit, his feature film directorial debut, has arrived, which the longtime scribe co-wrote with Jonathan McClain. 

The movie follows a highly skilled English tailor, played by Academy Award winner Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies),

How “The Batman” Batsuit Designers Went Lean & Mean

Outside of The Batman writer/director Matt Reeves (who co-wrote the script with Peter Craig), Glyn Dillon and David Crossman probably have The Batman‘s coolest credits attached to their names. Both share the title of Batsuit costume designers, with Dillon serving as chief concept artist and Crossman the costume supervisor. In terms of superhero icons, it doesn’t get much better than designing the Caped Crusader, and the tandem created a unique silhouette for a younger Bruce Wayne,

“Winning Time” Costume Designer Emma Potter on Making Magic With the Lakers

Working on Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty didn’t require an advanced degree in NBA fandom in general and Lakes lore specifically, yet a lot of the folks involved had both. Hecht himself is a lifelong Lakers fan, and writer Rodney Barnes has loved basketball his whole life, and everyone likes Magic Johnson. Yet, one of the key people who helped give Winning Time its period-perfect look admits she was neither a massive b-ball fan or a follower of the NBA.

“The Batman” Cinematographer Greig Fraser on Finding Light in the Darkness

At a gripping three hours, The Batman isn’t so much an endurance test as it is a lengthy visual puzzle, one that takes place primarily after hours. Director Matt Reeves’s take on Batman (Robert Pattinson) may be the franchise’s most disaffected nocturnal not-so-superhero yet. Working, brooding, and convening with Alfred (Andy Serkis) from dusk ’til dawn, this Bruce Wayne is consumed by trying to undo a complex web of official corruption hidden by Gotham City’s entrenched crop of violent mafiosos.

“After Yang” Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb on the Spare Sci-Fi Beauty of Kogonada’s Latest

After Yang cinematographer Benjamin Loeb knew the minute he met South Korean-born director Kogonada that theirs would not be a standard show biz collaboration. When Loeb called from his native Oslo to Zoom interview for the DP job, he and Kogonada barely mentioned the project at hand. Instead, they talked about ramen. “We spent hours talking about the complexion of broth and what makes the broth look good and feel good,” Loeb recalls.

“Turning Red” Co-Writer Julia Cho on Writing Pixar’s Tender New Film

Pixar’s new movie Turning Red follows straight-A student Meilin, whose perfect 13-year-old life implodes when she starts turning into a giant panda every time her emotions get out of control. Heir to a fierce ancestral spirit that’s affected women in her family for generations, Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) defies her domineering mother Ming (Sandra Oh) and joins her friends to see Four Town, a boyband that sounds very much like NSYNC thanks to the period-perfect pop songs crafted by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O’Connell. 

MPA Creator Award Recipient Writer/Director Nikyatu Jusu on her Stunning Debut Feature “Nanny”

Deploying West African folklore to interrogate the myth of the American dream, writer/director Nikyatu Jusu‘s debut feature Nanny is a remarkably assured genre-melding experience. Nanny also gives viewers something that’s sadly still quite rare—it evocatively places us inside the head, heart, and aching soul of Aisha (Anna Diop), an undocumented Senegalese immigrant trying to navigate the mystifying codes of the United States to create a stable place to bring her son,

“Inventing Anna” Costume Designer Lyn Paolo on Dressing a Cunning Chameleon

When Anna Sorokin, a Russian woman in her early twenties, landed in New York, she had little in the way of entry to the glitzy social world she hoped to break into — no wealth, few friends, and a single stint as an intern at Purple, a raunchy Paris fashion magazine. 

But as creator Shonda Rhimes swiftly demonstrates in Inventing Anna, Netflix’s nine-hour recounting of the fake German heiress Anna Delvey (Julia Garner) and the reporter who broke her story,

Telling Stories With Singapore-Based Producer Si En Tan

Singapore-based producer Si En Tan already has an impressive resume in a relatively short career. After working as an assistant producer on Kirsten Tan’s Thai-Singapore co-production Pop Aye (2017), she went on to produce Anthony Chen’s Wet Season (2019), which won a string of awards at film festivals and the Golden Horse Awards held annually in Taiwan. Her producing credits also include Chen’s segment of the seven-part anthology film The Year Of The Everlasting Storm,

Smiely Khurana is Leading the Sustainability Charge in Canada With Reel Green

Smiely Khurana is the face of the sustainability movement in Hollywood North. As Creative BC’s in-house Sustainability Lead with Reel Green™, she’s cutting a singular path for the industry in Canada; one that is quickly being modeled in production hubs across the country. Through Reel Green™, Khurana is accelerating knowledge sharing and working to deepen local industry expertise. She’s leading the charge on training and developing new tools to help Canada’s film community green its story and transition to a circular economy. 

“Winning Time” Writer Rodney Barnes on Scripting HBO’s Fast-Breaking Lakers Series

It’s pretty much a slam dunk that Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty will appeal to basketball fans. After all, it tells the story of one of the most pivotal moments in NBA history and features some of the game’s most notable figures — Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West, and Pat Riley. 

But Rodney Barnes, who shares scripting duties with Max Borenstein and Jim Hecht, and serves as an Executive Producer on the 10-episode HBO series that debuted March 6,