Black Panther’s Oscar-Nominated Composer on his Global Collaboration
The minute Ludwig Göransson finished reading an early draft of Black Panther sent to him by director Ryan Coogler, the Swedish-born composer knew exactly what he needed to do. “I called up Ryan and said ‘I have to go to Africa,'” recalls Göransson, who is now reaping the benefits of his due diligence. Additional to the Best Score Emmy he won, Göransson is also vying for an Academy Award this Sunday for his Black Panther music.
Roma’s Oscar-Nominated Sound Team on Making a Music-Free Film
Water sloshes in a rooftop laundry tub, a faucet runs, and the strains of a tinny radio shift to the quiet chatter of a family at home. Alfonso Caurón’s Roma depicts the daily life of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), an indigenous maid in a white, middle-class Mexico City household, an employee who gradually emerges as a seventh member of the family for whom she works. Cuarón punctuates her days, shepherding four children out of bed,
Off With Their Wigs! Mary Queen of Scots‘s Hair & Makeup Genius Jenny Shircore
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
This holiday season we’ve been graced with not one but two incredible examples of hair and makeup mastery. The first came in Yorgos Lanthimos’ hilarious The Favourite, which captures the lunacy at court (and in the bedroom) of Queen Anne (a sensational Olivia Colman), who close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) goes to war,
The Favourite‘s Oscar-Nominated DP on Creating one of the Year’s Most Ravishing Films
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
Before The Favourite came his way, Robbie Ryan had never worked with Yorgos Lanthimos, but he did admire the Greek director’s offbeat art house films Dogtooth and Killing of a Sacred Deer. So when Lanthimos invited Ryan to shoot his 18th-century black comedy about Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and rival courtiers (Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone),
Oscar-Nominated Costume Designer Sandy Powell’s Magic Touch on Mary Poppins Returns
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
Three-time Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell came to the production of Mary Poppins Returns with fond memories of the 1964 original, which was the first film she ever saw as a child. She was excited to be a part of creating the look of this new incarnation of the beloved nanny,
Avengers: Infinity War‘s Oscar-Nominated VFX Supervisor Talks Thanos
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
Avengers: Infinity War, one of the biggest movies 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.”
Isabel Coixet’s Ravishing Elisa and Marcela Mark’s Netflix’s 1st Film at Berlinale
Spain legalized same-sex marriage in 2005, the first nuptials of the kind were held in the country in 1901. The true story of Elisa Sánchez Loriga and Marcela Gracia Ibeas, wed by an unwitting priest, is the subject of Isabel Coixet’s black-and-white competition entry to the 69th Berlinale film festival.
As far as the women’s intertwined lives, in Coixet’s telling, the wedding is almost a footnote. Elisa and Marcela opens in 1920s Argentina,
Mary Queen of Scots‘ Oscar-Nominated Costume Designer Alexandra Byrne
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
Mary Queen of Scots is a gorgeous film to behold, with the dueling Queens looking period-perfect from head to toe. “You’ve got two queens, two powerful women, two women who have never met,” hair and makeup artist Jenny Shircore told us. “Yet they’re influenced by each other’s beauty and power.
Oscar-Nominated Composer Nicholas Britell on Nailing the Tone for Vice and If Beale Street Could Talk
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
Juilliard-trained New York composer Nicholas Britell worked non-stop in 2018 and now he’s got two Oscar shortlisted movie scores to show for it. Early in the year, he teamed with Moonlight director Barry Jenkins to write the music for If Beale Street Could Talk,
First Man‘s Oscar-Nominated VFX Supervisor on Building the Biggest LED Screen Ever
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
Watching Damien Chazelle’s First Man offers the earthbound viewer the chance to realize they don’t have the right stuff finally. For folks of a certain age, becoming an astronaut used to be one of the coolest possible professions, the kind of thing you said you wanted to be when you were little and didn’t know what engineering was.
How Free Solo‘s Oscar-Nominated Directors get it Done
Jimmy Chin is a professional climber and filmmaker who specializes in nail-biting documentaries that take place on ludicrously sheer mountain faces. His work demands a supernatural degree of calm. Today, however, Chin sounds like just another irrepressibly stoked dude. He’s fresh from the annual luncheon for Academy Award nominees. Alfonso Cuarón, it turns out, had seen Chin’s latest film, Free Solo, which is nominated for Best Documentary Feature.
The Lego Movie 2‘s Animation Director on World Building Brick-by-Brick
Five years ago, the first Lego Movie surprised audiences with its nimble moral-dealing in the importance of flexibility and independent thought. Also the song “Everything is Awesome.” The sequel (not counting two in between spin-offs, Lego Batman and Lego Ninjago), director Mike Mitchell’s The Second Part, is back to address sibling rivalry and the value of collaboration. Finn, the human creator of the universe in which Emmet (Chris Pratt),
Black Panther‘s Oscar-Nominated Production Designer Hannah Beachler Builds a new Nation
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
Everyone on the set of Black Panther had the weight of being a trailblazer. Realizing Wakanda for the screen meant reclaiming a painful history, honoring a rich heritage, and imagining the hope of the future right now. It also has the potential to confirm the demand for more diverse storytelling.
A Star is Born’s Oscar-Nominated Sound Mixer on Capturing Brilliance Up-Close
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
Warner Bros.’ A Star is Born, the fourth version of the film and Bradley Cooper’s first time directing, has earned a hero’s welcome as the best iteration yet of the tale of love, talent, and the price of fame. Lady Gaga stars as Ally, a struggling musician with powerhouse pipes,
A Quiet Place‘s Oscar-Nominated Sound Designers on Triggering our Brain’s Reptilian Fear Response
*In the run-up to this Sunday’s Oscars telecast, we’re sharing some of our favorite interviews with nominees.
Supervising sound editors Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van Der Ryn had the unusual challenge of applying their expertise to a film that would be so quiet, it had the word in its title. John Krasinski’s thrilling, chilling A Quiet Place was predicated on a brilliant idea; alien monsters have turned the planet into one giant Amtrak quiet car.
Berlin Station‘s Executive Producer on Making TV for Troubled Times
On one of the very few scripted television dramas to reflect the current global political climate, the covert C.I.A. operatives of Epix’s Berlin Station have found themselves mired in complex situations wrought by any number of familiar cranks and villains—internal whistle-blowers, far-right political parties, Russian thugs, mysterious hackers, and the list goes on. In depicting the inner workings of a fictionalized Berlin C.I.A. office, spy novelist Olen Steinhauer’s first television series works hard to examine the moral gray area of international espionage,
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s Oscar-Nominated Directors on Being Bold
Directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman asked themselves a question: how could they tell a story and be as wild and bold as they could adapting a comic book to the big screen that hadn’t been seen before. Enter Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Now the three are Oscar-nominated directors, and their film has become a critical and commercial smash hit.
The coming of age story from Sony Pictures Animation follows Miles Morales (Shameik Moore),
Back to the Future With Star Trek: Discovery’s Production Designer
Star Trek: Discovery has been boldly going places even past incarnations of the iconic TV series have never been. It took a mere two episodes for the show to break completely new ground; the Starfleet’s first mutiny carried out by the star of the show, Sonequa Martin Green’s Michael Burnham.
The major advances are not the only narrative. Behind the scenes, a top-flight crew has been making the most of the latest technology and some very special locations to pull off the kind of show Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry would have loved and made,
Celebrating the ASC’s Top 10 Films of the 20th Century
The American Society of Cinematographers recently released their “100 Milestone Films in Cinematography of 20th Century.” For the uninitiated (which is 99% of the viewing public), the ASC is “an honorary organization made up of the best cinematographers in the world,” says cinematographer Richard Crudo, ASC (this explains why you often see an “ASC” after a cinematographer’s name in the credits.) “Membership is by invitation only and is extended after the candidate has been proposed by members and has passed a screening process.”
The titles in the ASC’s list were compiled through an internal poll conducted by the Society.
Star Trek: Discovery‘s Art Director Gives you the VIP Tour
When Art Director Jody Clement stepped in to work on CBS’s Star Trek: Discovery, she was no stranger to ambitious sci-fi television series. She’d already worked on Guillermo del Toro’s deliciously creepy The Strain, as well as BBC America’s narratively complex Orphan Black. For Star Trek: Discovery, Clement was stepping into both a major new show and TV history simultaneously.
“We do our initial research based on canon,
