RBG‘s Cinematographer on Revealing an American Icon

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has sparked a cultural fandom that is usually reserved for musicians, actors and athletes. The Supreme Court Justice’s face adorns stickers and pins at every bookstore and she has adopted the moniker ‘Notorious RBG.’ At 85 years old, Ginsburg is engaging the next generation of activists, but her personal history is just as inspiring. RBG Cinematographer Claudia Raschke worked with directors Betsy West and Julie Cohen to peel back the layers of Ginsburg’s career and grant us insight into her life as a wife,

Tara Strong on Voicing Rocky in the Rebooted Rocky and Bullwinkle Series

Over the last 20 years, actress Tara Strong has built a storied career for herself in the animation world as a voice artist. She is known for her expansive portfolio, including her work as Batgirl in Batman: The Killing Joke, Bubbles in The Powerpuff Girls, Twilight Sparkle in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and Harley Quinn in DC Super Hero Girls.

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinke’s Exec Producer on Rebooting a Classic

When you hear the executive producer of the new DreamWorks show The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Scott Fellows, speak about this cartoon, you can hear the passion that he and the entire cast and crew must have put into it. Gratefully, all that enthusiasm shows up onscreen. From the opening credits to the artistry of backgrounds and the writing, they have crafted a reboot worthy of the fans of the 60s classic.

Sweetbitter Creator Stephanie Danler on Adapting her Award-Winning Novel for TV

Sweetbitter portrays a side of restaurants not often seen in mainstream media—delicate, sensual, feminine. The Starz TV show, based on Stephanie Danler’s award-winning novel of the same name, premiered Sunday, May 6.

As executive producer, Danler trades her lyrical sentences for powerful visuals. States of loneliness, intoxication and longing are portrayed in many ways, though most perceptively on star Ella Purnell’s face, best known for her role in Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children.

How Avengers: Infinity War’s VFX Animation Director Micro-Managed Thanos’s Facial Expressions

Phil Cramer doesn’t watch films the way most of people do. When the man who directed  VFX animation for Avengers: Infinity War goes to the movies, he studies the characters’ cheeks. “I like to stare at the actor’s face and see what moves and why does it move,” he says. “You’d be shocked by how complex those motions are.”

Cramer became a student of twitches, jiggles and wrinkles in 2009, when he served as lead animator on the pioneering motion capture epic Avatar.

Ten-Time Daytime Emmy Nominee Sound Editor & Mixer Sean W. Karp on Dinosaur Roars, Dialogue & More

Ten-time daytime Emmy nominee Sean W. Karp is the sound-mixer and editor at Sinking Ship Productions, one of the most prolific production houses in children’s programming, including the series Annedroids, Dino Dana and Odd Squad. Karp began as a musician, playing for bands throughout Toronto throughout the early 90’s. In an interview, he explained the difference between sound editing and sound mixing, the delicate balance of music,

How Avengers: Infinity War‘s VFX Supervisor Created Thanos, Marvel’s Biggest, Baddest Villain Ever

Avengers: Infinity War, the biggest movie in history, found its CGI footing through the collective efforts of 11 different VFX outfits. Visual effects supervisor Kelly Port succinctly sums up the focus for his team at the Los Angeles-based Digital Domain company. Port says, “Basically, all the super depressing scenes were us.” He jokes, “It’s like ‘For the next one, give us something funny to do please,’ because these were really heavy scenes.”

The Supervising Art Director for Avengers: Infinity Wars on Mixing Many Worlds

At two-and-half-hours, Avengers: Infinity War might scare off superhero-movie detractors, and that would be too bad. Though most Marvel titles at least attempt to inject humor into their scripts for broader appeal, the jokes in Infinity Wars always land, no matter where that land might be. In Anthony and Joe Russo’s mega-blockbuster, most of the Marvel universe comes together to fight Thanos (Josh Brolin), a suddenly emotionally complex giant on a complicated mission he believes to be essentially good: population control.

Avengers: Infinity War‘s Production Designer on Helping Build the Film’s Heartbreaking Drama

By now, audiences have gotten to know the newly complex Marvel villain Thanos (Josh Brolin), thwarter of the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Wakandans, the soulful psychopath who has haunted the Marvel Cinematic Universe practically from its inception. The third film in Disney’s Avengers franchise (and the 19th in the MCU), Avengers: Infinity War, is setting both box office records and (spoiler alert) records for how many beloved main characters can be killed off — at least seemingly so — in one 2.5 hour stretch.

Nailing the “Regular People Look” on Tully

For Jason Reitman’s new movie Tully (opening Friday), Charlize Theron gained 50 pounds to play Marlo, the bedraggled mother of three. By design, Marlo’s unkempt house reflects a character who’s way too exhausted to keep the place looking neat and tidy. Canadian production designer Anastasia Masaro explains the backstory. “Marlo’s home is meant to feel like she and her husband bought the house when their first kid was on the way and they really meant to fix it up.”

Howard Director Don Hahn on the Legendary Composer Howard Ashman

The name Howard Ashman —  the subject of the new documentary, Howard, that premiered at the recent Tribeca Film Festival  — might not immediately ring a bell. But you probably have hummed along to the timeless lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Alan Menken for the now-animated classics that led to Disney’s ‘toon revival in the late 80s and early ‘90s and continue to endure today.

The catchy words he penned for the Calypso ballad Kiss the Girl from 1989’s The Little Mermaid and the Oscar-winning title tune from 1991’s Beauty and the Beast just helped two American Idol contestants to advance to the next round of voting earlier this week.

The Music of Lizzie Strikes a Sympathetic Tone for the Famous Killer

The four-line Lizzie Borden rhyme is graphic, if not particularly sympathetic. A woman commits a double homicide and the victims are her own parents. The real Borden was acquitted of the 1892 murders, but her legacy was condemned to the role of cold-blooded killer. Sundance selection Lizzie, starring Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart, revisited the infamous crime with a compassion for Borden and explored the motivation that drove her to pick up the axe.

RBG Co-Directors/Producers on Their Groundbreaking Subject – Part 2

In Part 2 of our two-part interview with Betsy West and Julie Cohen, the filmmaking team behind the Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary RBG that opens May 4, the pair discusses what they learned while doing their research (the justice is a huge opera fan), her nearly 56-year fairy-tale marriage to her incredibly supportive college sweetheart Martin Ginsburg and how they got around not being able to film the Supreme Court in session.

RBG Co-Directors/Producers on Their Groundbreaking Subject – Part I

Ruth Bader Ginsburg – the Brooklyn-born, 85-year-old grandmother of four who became the second female to be appointed as a Supreme Court justice in 1993 – has been having a pop-cultural moment since 2015 or so. That’s when the liberal-leaning Harvard grad was cheekily dubbed The Notorious RBG (a play on the late rapper Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. The Notorious BIG) by a pair of young female writers who saluted this petite powerhouse’s stealthy sense of bad-assery in book form.

Tully‘s Production Designer Anastasia Masaro on Finding Magic in Life’s Mess

It’s been seven years since Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody, the creative forces behind Juno and Young Adult, last collaborated. Now, with Tully, the pair close out a thematic trilogy of sorts – stories that have, at least in some way, been autobiographical for the pair of creatives. “They have this kind of connective tissue between all of them,” Reitman said at the New York premiere of the film.

Striking a Balance of Cruelty and Whimsy for the Score of A Series of Unfortunate Events

Child marriage, infant abuse, insatiable greed, and murder plots do not seem like the makings of a family program. And yet, Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events achieves just that by channeling the highly stylized essence of Daniel Handler’s classic thirteen book series for young adults. Now in season 2, the plots have grown wackier and darker. The show is reliant on composer Jim Dooley to maintain levity. Dooley can attest to the music’s influence,

Dawn Porter on her Netflix Docuseries Bobby Kennedy for President

It’s been 50 years since the turbulence of 1968 changed this nation forever. From the escalating Vietnam War to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to the riots outside the Democratic convention, that year was one of the most difficult our nation has ever faced, and that serves as measuring stick anytime a particular year in America feels especially fraught. Last year was one such year. So was 2016. The same could said of 2018.

Director Sebastian Lelio on Capturing Forbidden Love in his Urgent new Film Disobedience

Director Sebastian Lelio has had quite the exciting past few months. Lelio’s last film, A Fantastic Woman, about a transgender woman whose partner tragically dies, swept the awards circuit. It won 17 awards including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film—which was the first Chilean film to do so. Right now, there’s no stopping Lelio and his work.

In theaters today, Lelio is tackling another story about women’s interior lives.

Cult or Cultural Utopia? The Directors of Wild Wild Country Let Viewers Decide

You would be forgiven for having difficulty placing the term ‘Rajneeshpuram.’ The violent clash between the followers of Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the residents of Antelope Oregon in the mid-1980s seems like the makings of a famous event, but it has somehow faded from cultural memory. Directors Chapman and Maclain Way admitted the incident did not ring a bell to them either when they began their research for breakout Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country.

The Handmaid’s Tale’s Samira Wiley Talks Religion, Love, and Season 2

Fresh from their Peabody Award win, The Handmaid’s Tale returns for a highly anticipated 2nd season. Season 1, which was filmed before Donald Trump was elected, became more than just a cautionary tale after his campaign and first year in office. Though sometimes difficult to watch, it represents some of the best writing and acting on the small screen. It also affirms just how successful and multi-layered a show with a strong female presence,