Composer Chris Willis on Scoring Armando Iannucci’s Darkly Hilarious The Death of Stalin

Armando Iannucci said that he wanted to take a break from the insanity of American politics after creating the critically acclaimed, depressingly believable satire Veep on HBO. After five years of looking at the inanities and insanities of Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)’s rise, fall, rise and fall in Washington D.C., Iannucci needed a palate cleanser—so he turned his attention to the very end Stalin’s ruthless, murderous grip on the Soviet Union with The Death of Stalin.

Writer/Director Atsuko Hirayanagi on Synchronicity & Inspiration in her Feature Oh Lucy!

Originally, writer/director Atsuko Hirayanagi’s Oh, Lucy! was written and produced as a short, winning the Jury Prize for International Fiction at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Now she has expanded it into a full-length feature, and Oh, Lucy! has just been released across the country to universally positive reviews.

Shinobu Terajima, an A-list actress in her native Japan, was nominated for a Best Female Lead Independent Spirit Award for her role as Setkuko,

Meet the Man Behind the Fish in Best Picture Winner The Shape of Water

While Andy Serkis has become a superstar utilizing performance capture technology to become The Lord of the Rings’ Gollum, King Kong and the Planet of the Apes’ chimpanzee hero Caesar, another incredibly talented performer has also had a stellar career being utterly unrecognizable. Only this actor mostly performs behind latex masks and within very heavy, hot body suits, and he’s finally getting his due. His name is Doug Jones,

Detective Turned Producer on Revisiting Murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls in Unsolved

Though he’s no longer a detective, Greg Kading continues to deal with his 2006 investigation, when he led a task force charged with figuring out who killed Tupac Shakur and Christopher “Biggie Smalls” Wallace. Now retired from the Los Angeles Police Department, Kading co-executive produces USA Network’s limited series Unsolved: The Murders of Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. (Tuesdays starting Feb. 27). Based on his self-published book “Murder Rap: The Untold Story of the Biggie Smalls &

The Missouri Policeman Who Prepared Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Sam Rockwell’s character, Officer Dixon, is by no means a model police officer in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. He’s violent, bigoted, temperamental and aloof. Yet, in order to play a character that gets everything wrong, sometimes you have to know what it looks like to get the job right. To research the role, Rockwell turned to Springfield, Missouri police officer Josh McMullin to learn the ropes.

Three Billboards dialect coach Liz Himelstein first contacted the Springfield Police department to research a Southwest Missouri accent.

How the Hair Design of Mudbound Became the Basis of an Oscar Nominated Performance

The heat and mud of the Mississippi farmland is palpable from the makeup to the clothing to the score in Dee Rees’ Mudbound. As the Jackson and McAllan families struggle through the muck and mire of poverty and racial tensions, they wear the Earth like badges of war. The oppressive climate was no trick of the camera, said hair department head Lawrence Davis.

“It was physically challenging just to be there walking through the mud,” Davis recalled.

Oscar-Nominated SFX Makeup Artist Arjen Tuiten on the Immense Responsibility of Working on Wonder

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, while publishing new interviews throughout the week. Wonder makeup SFX artist Arjen Tuiten is nominated for Makeup & Hairstyling. Also nomianted are Kazuhiro Tsjuji, David Malinowski & Lucy Sibbick (Darkest Hour) and Daniel Phillips & Lou Sheppard (Victoria Abdul). 

The last time we spoke to special effects makeup artist Arjen Tuiten,

Baby Driver’s Oscar-Nominated Supervising Sound Editor Dissects the Movie’s Unique Syncopated Style

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, while publishing new interviews throughout the week. Baby Driver sound editor Julian Slater is nominated alongside his collaborators Tim Cavagin and Mary H. Ellis. They’re up against Ron Bartlett, Doug Hemphill & Mac Ruth (Blade Runner 2049), Mark Weingarten, Greg Landaker & Gary A Rizzo (Dunkirk), Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern & Glen Gauthier (The Shape of Water),

I, Tonya‘s Oscar-Nominated Editor Tatiana S. Riegel on What Makes a Scene Work and Why

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, while publishing new interviews throughout the week. I, Tonya Editor Tatiana S. Riegel is nominated alongside Paul Machliss & Jonathan Amos (Baby Driver), Lee Smith (Dunkirk), Sidney Wolinsky (The Shape of Water) and Jon Gregory (Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri).  

One could make a case that the most competitive category in the upcoming Oscars isn’t for best picture or best director,

How The Last Jedi & Dunkirk‘s Colorist Subtly Manipulated Your Feelings

The son of farmers from near Turin, Italy, colorist Walter Volpatto went from studying electrical engineering at a local university to working at Italy’s national public broadcasting company, RAI. It was here he honed his chops with electronic compositing, lighting and photography. When computers became both ubiquitous and advantageous for his line of work, Volpatto jumped into the digital world with his usual passion and committment. Now, he is one of the premiere colorists working in the film industry,

How The Shape of Water‘s VFX Producer Turned a Monster Into a Romantic Lead

In the final part of this two-part interview, visual effects coordinator and frequent Guillermo del Toro collaborator Luke Groves reveals how he worked with the filmmaker to craft some of The Shape of Water’s most awe-inspiring sequences and reveals how he and the visual effects team at Mr. X walked the line between CG magic and practical effects to create movie magic that looks impressively real.

I want to talk about the opening sequence because I know it was shot wet-to-dry which is absolutely incredible.

The Shape of Water‘s VFX Producer on Creating the Year’s Most Unique Leading Man

For all its ambitious underwater sequences and that stunning central creature, it’s oddly easy to forget the technical majesty at work in Guillermo del Toro’s meticulous, Oscar-nominated The Shape of Water. Not for its lack of quality, in fact, quite the opposite. The work, which makes every inch of del Toro’s beguiling fantasy possible, is so seamless as to give the impression that even the film’s most outlandish design elements are through some mysterious magic,

Love & Other Illusions: How Blade Runner 2049‘s Oscar-Nominated Sound Designer Played With our Heart Strings

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Sound editor Theo Green is nominated alongside his Blade Runner 2049 collaborator Mark Mangini. The Sound Editing category includes Julian Slater (Baby Driver), Richard King & Alex Gibson (Dunkirk), Nathan Robitaille & Nelson Ferreira (The Shape of Water),

How Blade Runner 2049’s Oscar-Nominated Sound Designer Pulled no Punches

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing new interviews with those vying for Oscar gold this Sunday. Sound editor Theo Green is nominated alongside his Blade Runner 2049 collaborator Mark Mangini. The Sound Editing category includes Julian Slater (Baby Driver), Richard King & Alex Gibson (Dunkirk), Nathan Robitaille & Nelson Ferreira (The Shape of Water),

Replicant vs. Replicant: How Blade Runner 2049’s Oscar-Nominated Sound Designer Pulled no Punches

K. vs. Sapper

It’s a mismatch. One replicant is 6’0” and slender. The other is a goliath, standing at 6’3” and weighing 290lbs. They’re all alone in a creaky cabin on a distant, desolate protein farm, and they know they are about to have at it. The slender replicant, Officer K (Ryan Gosling), is there to “retire” Sapper (Dave Bautista, most well known as the lovable brute Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise),

How the I, Tonya Composer Helped Recast an Infamous Villain as a Tragic Character

When the news hit in 1994 that Olympic ice skater Nancy Kerrigan had been struck in the knee just before a performance, viewers were gripped. As the sensational story unfolded and the assailant became tied to rival Tonya Harding, America thought it would never forget the event. Nearly 25 years later, it turns out that the details have grown fuzzy – some even remembering Tonya swinging the baton herself. Three-time Oscar nominated I, Tonya returned to the scene of the crime and uncovered fresh perspectives on the infamous event.

Baby Driver‘s Oscar-Nominated Editor Paul Machliss on Marrying Music to Mayhem

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, while publishing new interviews throughout the week. Paul Machliss is nominated in the Film Editing category, alongside his co-editor Jonathan Amos. They join fellow nominees Lee Smith (Dunkirk), Tatiana S. Riegel (I, Tonya), Sidney Wolinsky (The Shape of Water) and Jon Gregory (Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri).  

Of all the masterly edited films of 2017,

Marrowbone Director Sergio G. Sanchez on Finding the Light in the Darkness

After writing the scripts for two international successes, The Orphanage (2007) and The Impossible (2012), both directed by fellow Spanish filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona, Sergio G. Sanchez knew he was ready to direct one of his scripts. Marrowbone marks his fitting directing debut; it will be familiar to fans of the gothic The Orphanage, yet it stretches the filmmaker by ambitiously working on the level of both ghost story and family drama.

Chatting With Call Me By Your Name‘s Legendary Screenwriter James Ivory

As part of our Oscars week coverage, we’re re-posting our conversations with some of this year’s Oscar-nominees, as well as publishing brand new interviews with nominees. James Ivory is nominated for Writing (Adapted Screenplay), alongside The Disaster Artist’s Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber; Logan’s Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green; Molly’s Game Aaron Sorkin; and Mudbound’s Virgil Williams and Dee Rees.

How Jackie Chan, Ancient Sparta and Zulu Spear-Fighting Inspired Black Panther‘s Stunt Coordinator

Given his pedigree as the guy who helped stage fights for two of the century’s most audacious action epics John Wick and The Bourne Ultimatum, stunt choreographer Jonathan Eusebio arrived on the Black Panther set in Atlanta, Georgia well qualified for the gig. Still, he faced a considerable challenge. In the space of just six weeks, Eusebui had to unite the actresses portraying Wakanda’s all-female Dora Milaje militia into a precision-tooled fighting machine.