Supervising Sound Editor on Capturing the Sound of “Ted Lasso” Remotely
Ted Lasso began life nearly a decade ago, in what must now seem like a more innocent time, as a character in a series of promos for NBC as they embarked on coverage of Britain’s Premier League. That character, created and portrayed by SNL alum Jason Sudeikis, is an American football coach, hot off a miracle season with a perpetually struggling college, who is hired by England’s mythical AFC Richmond squad to coach,
Editor Marco Capalbo on Cutting Werner Herzog’s Cosmic New Doc “Fireball”
Editor Marco Capalbo has been working with the inimitable German director Werner Herzog for the past eight years, most recently on Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, which premieres on Apple TV+ on November 13. We chat with Marco, who specializes in editing documentaries, about tackling the vast subject matter of meteors, comets and their influence on ancient religions, and how he looks for those “Herzogian moments” that make Herzog’s documentaries unique.
Producer Brad Feinstein Moves Audiences With Dramas “Jungleland” and “Dreamland”
Although only a few years old, Romulus Entertainment already boasts an admirable slate of what founder and CEO Brad Feinstein describes as “socially conscious prestige dramas and action thrillers” — City of Lies, Driven, and American Woman, to name just a few. The roster is also a lengthy one: At the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, Feinstein noted in an interview that the company had produced 12 films in just 24 months.
Writer/Director Francis Lee on His Hard Scrabble Love Story “Ammonite”
Writer-director Francis Lee’s acclaimed 2017 debut feature God’s Own Country and his follow-up, Ammonite (Neon), unabashedly center on queer, working-class characters. So it may come as a bit of a surprise that Lee cites 1980s studio movies as among his all-time favorite films.
“In my head, when I’m making my films, I’m making my version of An Officer and a Gentleman or Pretty Woman or Working Girl;
Cinematographer Andy Rydzewski on Lighting the Horrors of Middle School in “Pen15”
We’ve hit the apex of spooky season, so let’s talk about one of the creepiest shows on television: Pen15. Yep, co-creators Maya Erskine’s and Anna Konkle’s adult foray back to seventh grade, rife with slut-shaming, passive aggression, and surprise three-way phone calls. Now in the first half of its second season (the next seven episodes will likely air on Hulu in the spring), the women are once again ensconced among their young peers,
“You Should Have Left” Production Designer on the Lasting Allure of the Haunted House
The haunted house has been a staple of the horror genre since the early days of silent films. There’s just something about creaky doors and shadows dancing around in dimly lit hallways that send shivers up our spines — especially when it’s a dark and stormy night.
And with most of us homebound for Halloween, what better time to celebrate the haunted house?
“You never know what’s around the corner,” says production designer Sophie Becher during a zoom interview.
“His House” Writer/Director Remi Weekes on his Gut Punch Feature Debut
Back another lifetime ago, writer/director Remi Weekes‘ His House celebrated its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this past January. Netflix quickly acquired it, and the future was looking bright for the talented filmmaker and his debut feature. You know what happened next.
Yet here we are, months later and living in our nightmarish world, with Weekes’ stunning horror film set to debut on October 30. “I’m excited,” Weekes said from London when I asked him what it felt like to finally see his film released into the wild,
Composer Steven Price on Scoring David Attenborough’s Plea to Humanity & Glen Keane’s “Over the Moon”
Those who work in the arts have an innate ability to invoke emotions through their work— to cause an audience to connect with a certain theme or issue. But what if that issue is the inevitable destruction of the planet told through the life story of one famed historian and world traveler? That was the daunting task presented to Oscar-winning composer Steven Price (Gravity, Suicide Squad, Baby Driver).
David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet serves dual purposes as both Attenborough’s witness statement — his plea to humanity to save the Earth — and an autobiography of sorts.
“One Night In Miami” DP Tami Reiker on Regina King’s Stunning Directorial Debut
Tami Reiker has had a very busy year. She was the cinematographer on Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s The Old Guard, one of the most-viewed movies ever on Netflix, and just finished work on One Night in Miami, Regina King’s feature debut as a director. The fact-based story is about the night four friends, Malcolm X, Jim Brown, Cassius Clay, and Sam Cooke spent together on February 25th,
“A New York Christmas Wedding” Writer/Director Otoja Abit on His Debut Feature
When we attended the Savannah Film Festival in 2018, one of the filmmakers we covered was Otoja Abit, an actor who had roles in television series (The Defenders, The Night Of) and film (Stonewall), who was in Savannah to screen his short, Jitters. The 12-minute film centered on Abit’s central character, a man undergoing some last-second concerns in the moments before his wedding.
Screenwriter Madhuri Shekar on Adapting Her Own Audio Play for Blumhouse’s “Evil Eye”
This month, Blumhouse Productions has released a collection of unsettling thrillers in partnership with Amazon Prime, just in time for Halloween. One of these films is Evil Eye, in which a romance turns dark when a mother becomes convinced her daughter’s ‘perfect’ new boyfriend has supernatural connections to her own past. The story is centered in Indian and Indian-American culture, with a cast of actors that are of Indian descent,
Co-Director Lisa Cortés on Voting Rights Past & Present in “All In: The Fight for Democracy”
Amazon’s recent documentary about voting rights and voter suppression, All In: The Fight for Democracy, opens to newscast audio from November 6, 2018, covering the Georgia governor’s race between Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp. That election, which would have seen Abrams become the country’s first African-American woman governor had she been elected, became a flashpoint for a nationwide recognizance of contemporary issues surrounding the closure of polling stations, deliberate under-training of poll monitors,
Production Designer Talks Riots & Courtrooms in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
The Trial of the Chicago 7 revisits the circus-like legal proceedings that pitted anti-war activists including Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen), Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne), Black Panther Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), and lawyer Bill Kunstler (Mark Ryland) against a hard-nosed judge (Frank Langella) over charges that they conspired to incite violent riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention.
Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, the movie (which came out on October 16 on Netflix) features the dramatist’s famously sharp dialogue along with shots of tear gas,
DP Phedon Papamichael on Designing for Dialogue in Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
Aaron Sorkin is well-known for his densely-packed dialogue, and The Trial of the Chicago 7, his retelling of the 1969 trial that saw counter-culture luminaries like Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale tried for conspiracy and inciting a riot, the writer-director is true to form. The film, which debuts on Netflix on October 16th, swerves between the trial and the defendants’ memories, to revisit what each of the seven accused was doing the day the police went after previously peaceful protestors outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
Writer/Director Miranda July on Her Joyously Original Third Feature “Kajillionaire”
Miranda July wears many hats—writer, filmmaker, actress, performance artist, and more. Indeed, her name appears as bylines on magazine articles, as director, writer, and actor in feature-film credits, and as an author on book covers (she has penned an award-winning collection of short stories and published both fiction and nonfiction). Her artistic diversity is perhaps what makes her projects so unique and nuanced and wonderful to engage with.
July’s breakthrough on the big screen came with the 2005 release of Me and You and Everyone We Know,
Aaron Sorkin on Writing & Directing his Timely “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
When writer/director Aaron Sorkin started writing The Trial of the Chicago 7 over 12 years ago, he had no way of knowing how his script based on a real-life conspiracy trial for men accused of inciting riots during the 1968 Democratic Convention would parallel current events in 2020. Now, his film is set to premiere on October 16th on Netflix, only weeks before the most important election of our time.
Alan Baumgarten on Editing Aaron Sorkin’s Rapid-Fire Dialogue in “The Trial of the Chicago 7”
For his latest feature coming to Netflix on October 16th, writer and director Aaron Sorkin shifts his political eye from the West Wing to the US government’s judicial branch. In The Trial of the Chicago 7, Sorkin revisits the drawn-out trial of a group of Vietnam War protestors, including Abbie Hoffmann and Tom Hayden, accused of inciting violent riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The crux of the trial turns on whether the men conspired in their actions,
DP James Kniest on Netflix’s New Horror Series “The Haunting of Bly Manor”
The question central to Henry James’ horror novella “The Turn of the Screw” is whether a nanny who tries and fails to protect her young charges from ghosts ever really saw the ghosts, or if she’s gone mad and is thereby herself at fault for the two children’s’ demise. In Mike Flanagan’s loose adaptation of this and other horror works by James, the creator zooms out, asking instead whether all the occupants of Bly Manor might be losing it.
Director Angel Manuel Soto on His High-Octane HBO Max Feature “Charm City Kings”
In some ways, it’s a story that director Angel Manuel Soto knows little about. But it’s also one he knows only too well. Centered around the urban dirt bike culture in Baltimore, Maryland, Charm City Kings, making its debut on HBO Max, is a raw, coming-of-age drama based in a culture where respect is earned through stunt riding.
Take the bikes out of the equation, and it is remarkably similar to how Soto felt growing up in Puerto Rico.
“The Good Lord Bird” Costume Designer on Dressing Ethan Hawke as Abolitionist John Brown
Rampaging through “Bloody Kansas” in 1856, abolitionist John Brown and his hardy band of followers lived in the wilderness foraging for food and killing pro-slavery “Red Shirts.” As dramatized in seven-episode miniseries The Good Lord Bird, produced by Blumhouse Television and premiering on Showtime this past Sunday [October 4], the tiny army led by Ethan Hawke‘s vainglorious John Brown rarely had the money for food or store-bought clothing.
