Interview

Production Designer

Lights, Camera, Recreation: “Saturday Night” Production Designer Jess Gonchor on Bringing “SNL”‘s Studio to Life

Production designer Jess Gonchor felt right at home on director Jason Reitman’s film Saturday Night, a pulsing recreation of the moments leading up to the first-ever broadcast of Saturday Night Live, which aired on October 11, 1975. Similar to Reitman, who fulfilled a dream of being a guest writer on SNL for a week on Season 35, Gonchor also worked in sketch comedy, so he knew “the inner workings of what this is and what it needed to be.” What that meant for the two-time Oscar-nominated production designer was that everything had to be interconnected.

By Daron James  |  October 22, 2024

Interview

Animator

“The Wild Robot” Head of Story Heidi Jo Gilbert on Motherhood’s Many Meanings

No one is more delighted that The Wild Robot has surpassed all expectations at the box office and with critics than director Chris Sanders. Receiving almost perfect reviews upon its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film is headed towards record-breaking box office numbers for DreamWorks. Buzz has begun for The Wild Robot as a strong contender at this year’s Oscars. Only days ago, DreamWorks gave the green light for a sequel,

By Leslie Combemale  |  October 16, 2024

Interview

Actor

“Saturday Night” Star Lamorne Morris on Lighting Up the Screen as “SNL” Legend Garrett Morris

The camera follows Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) as he walks backstage through a line of camera crews, flickering lights, shouting cast members, costume racks, and one very random llama. 

Ninety minutes until air time. Ninety minutes until the first-ever Saturday Night Live.

This is the opening sequence for Jason Reitman’s latest film, Saturday Night, about the creation of a legendary form of comedic television, but more specifically,

By Andria Moore  |  October 15, 2024
“Joker: Folie À Deux” Production Sound Mixer Steven Morrow Dissects 3 Essential Scenesew

“We tried to do everything we could to make the best sounding movie,” says production sound mixer Steven Morrow about director Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie À Deux. “Larry’s cinematography is beautiful, and with the amount of effort and time he puts into it, we wanted to put that kind of energy and emotion into our work for the audience and for Todd.”

For the much-anticipated sequel to the Oscar-winning film Joker,

By Daron James  |  October 14, 2024

Interview

Cinematographer

“Joker: Folie À Deux” Cinematographer Lawrence Sher Dissects 3 Essential Scenes

“The movie is an extension and a further exploration of this idea of our shadow selves as human beings,” Joker: Folie À Deux cinematographer Lawrence Sher tells The Credits. “We all have sides of ourselves that we hide from people. There are also sides we show to people that aren’t really authentic, and that’s what this movie explores.”

Sher, who was nominated with an Academy Award for Todd Phillips’ Joker,

By Daron James  |  October 11, 2024

Interview

Casting Director

“Casting Director Jennifer Venditti’s Intuitive Touch in “The Sympathizer”

Casting director Jennifer Venditti had one of Hollywood’s great chameleons to work with when she was putting together the pieces for HBO’s limited series The SympathizerRobert Downey Jr. plays a quartet of characters in Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar’s adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel as the Oscar-winning performer is in a constant swirl of dramatic action among performers less well-known but all of them entirely game.

By Bryan Abrams  |  October 7, 2024

Interview

Cinematographer Director

“On Swift Horses” Director Daniel Minahan & DP Luc Montpellier on Love in the Shadows in the 1950s

On Swift Horses director Daniel Minahan has long admired the work of cinematographer Luc Montpellier. “He shot Tales From the Loop, which is one of the best series I’ve ever seen. And [the 2022 film] Women Talking is just a feat of design and performance. So I said to him, ‘Your work is so beautiful and so controlled; I really want to mess it up.’”

 

Minahan was determined that from the music to the set design to the photography,

By Loren King  |  October 3, 2024

Interview

Director

Max Minghella on Reuniting With Elisabeth Moss for his Horror/Comedy “Shell”

One expects Max Minghella to cite the influence of his father, the late director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley), on his acting and directing career. But it’s Minghella’s mother, Carolyn Choa, who gets the shout-out for her impact on his new film, the body horror comedy Shell, starring Elisabeth Moss and Kate Hudson.

“My mother worked for the British Board of Film Classification from 1984 to 1994,

By Loren King  |  October 3, 2024

Interview

Director Screenwriter

“The Wild Robot” Writer/Director Chris Sanders on Kindness as a Survival Skill

With three Oscar nominations under his belt, animation auteur Chris Sanders knew a good story when he saw it the minute his daughter brought home Peter Brown’s children’s book “The Wild Robot” back in 2016. Sanders, who’d worked on The Lion King and later helmed How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, and The Croods, appreciated the tragi-comic tale centered on robot Roz (voiced in the film by Lupita Nyong’o) after she washes up on the shore of a remote island populated with wild animals.

By Hugh Hart  |  October 2, 2024

Interview

Showrunner

“Agatha All Along” Creator Jac Schaeffer on Setting off Marvel’s Witching Hour

Agatha All Along creator Jac Schaeffer explores the witchy side of the Marvel Universe just in time for Halloween. The timing of the show’s release is a happy accident for Schaeffer, who also directed the first two episodes. In bringing the titular witch, Agatha (Kathryn Hahn), back from WandaVision, Schaeffer and her team have made a series with a playful spookiness centered on an irresistible Hahn,

By Jack Giroux  |  October 1, 2024

Interview

Stunt Coordinator/Stunt Person

“Wolfs” Stunt Coordinator George Cottle on Designing Superlative Stunts For George Clooney & Brad Pitt

For stunt coordinator George Cottle, it started on a warm summer’s day in Los Angeles. He and director Jon Watts were shooting an episode of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew when Watts mentioned a film idea he was developing to star Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Watts asked Cottle if he’d like to be involved.

“I’ve done three Spider-Man’s with him. I love the way he works,” says Cottle says.

By Chris Koseluk  |  September 30, 2024

Interview

Production Designer

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Production Designer Mark Scruton’s Masterful Marriage of Art & Architecture

“It was going to be a continuation of the first film and not some sort of reboot,” production designer Mark Scruton says about Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel to the 1988 cult classic that reunites the absurdly talented Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder as everyone’s favorite goth-undead will they won’t they couple.

The story picks up years after the events in Beetlejuice and sees the Deetz family – Ryder’s Lydia,

By Daron James  |  September 26, 2024

Interview

Director Screenwriter

“My Old Ass” Writer/Director Megan Park on Magic, Mushrooms, and Meeting Yourself

In Megan Park’s wide-eyed, warm-as-the-waning-summer-evenings sophomore feature, My Old Ass, time itself is a trip. 

When Elliott (Maisy Stella) ushers in her 18th birthday with a camping excursion à la psilocybin-laced mushrooms, the last thing she expects is her psyche to conjure up an “old ass” version of herself (at 39 years old), portrayed by Aubrey Plaza. With her last summer in the picturesque lakeside town of Muskoka, Canada, before she heads off to the University of Toronto,

By Natalie Oganesyan  |  September 24, 2024

Interview

Showrunner

“The Perfect Couple” Showrunner Jenna Lamia on Meghann Fahy’s Mesmerizing Merritt Monaco

In part one of our interview with The Perfect Couple showrunner Jenna Lamia, she discussed adapting Elin Hilderbrand’s novel, character development, and writing the script. Now we move on to some of the specifics of how Lamia stuck the landing, delivering a satisfying whodunit on the picturesque island of Nantucket, the playground of the uber-wealthy Winbury clan.

In the final shot of the penultimate episode of The Perfect Couple,

By Andria Moore  |  September 24, 2024

Interview

Hair/Makeup

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Hair and Makeup Head Christine Blundell on Bringing Out the Dead

Almost four decades after the original, Tim Burton’s follow-up, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, is a hit for Warner Bros. Reprising their original roles, Winona Ryder’s Lydia is now a television talk show host ghost hunter, Catherine O’Hara’s Delia is still a daffy cosmopolitan creative, and Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice remains an undead charlatan pining for Lydia. Lydia also has a teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), who misses her late dad, Richard (Santiago Cabrera),

By Susannah Edelbaum  |  September 23, 2024

Interview

Screenwriter Showrunner

“The Perfect Couple” Showrunner Jenna Lamia on Her Nicole Kidman-led Whodunit on Nantucket

When showrunner Jenna Lamia set out to bring Elin Hilderbrand’s beloved novel The Perfect Couple to life, we were just getting reacquainted with our obsession with mystery and drama. The limited series format, which has seen success in shows like Big Little LiesNine Perfect Strangers, and The White Lotus, ushered in an era of mystery, scandal,

By Andria Moore  |  September 23, 2024

Interview

Director

“Transformers One” Director Josh Cooley on Humanizing the Origin of Optimus Prime and Megatron’s Ancient Feud

Transformers One isn’t the first animated Transformers film, but it has achieved multiple firsts for the iconic franchise. 

The science fiction action film is an origin story that focuses on the early relationship of Orion Pax and D-16, how they changed the fate of their home planet of Cybertron, and how they became Optimus Prime and Megatron, respectively. Directed by Josh Cooley, best known for helming Oscar-nominated Toy Story 4,

By Simon Thompson  |  September 20, 2024

Interview

Editor

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Editor Jay Prychidny on Capturing a Debauched Poltergeist’s Manic Energy

36 years after he first burst onto the screen in his title film—for a grand total of 17 minutes, by the way—Michael Keaton’s debauched poltergeist is back in trademark sinister style, black and white suit and hair akimbo, in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Tim Burton’s sequel turns up the heart, laughs, and gags, a cinematic feast overflowing with gleeful madness only Burton and his regular team of collaborators—longtime costume designer Colleen Atwood and composer Danny Elfman included—could dream up.

By Jack Giroux  |  September 19, 2024

Interview

Costume Designer

Designed to Shred: How “Alien: Romulus” Costume Designer Carlos Rosario Stylized Horror

Previously, we talked to Alien: Romulus costume designer Carlos Rosario about how American farmers’ attire from the 1940s-1960s inspired some of the wardrobe for our Jackson’s Star inhabitants and several sartorial callbacks from the first two films in the franchise. 

In part two, Rosario discusses how director Fede Alvarez’s approach to his ferocious interquel helped the designer account for the wear and tear on the costumes, caused,

By Su Fang Tham  |  September 18, 2024

Interview

Editor

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” Editor Jay Prychidny on the Gospel of Ghoulish Pacing

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice isn’t a rehash of the past. Director Tim Burton revisits familiar characters and locations to tell a new story about aging, family, and regaining a sense of self that can get lost along the way through life’s trials and tribulations. It’s not just a nostalgic sequel but another personal adventure from the mind of one of contemporary cinema’s most singular filmmakers.

As usual with a Burton film, there are a lot of forces at play,

By Jack Giroux  |  September 17, 2024