Interview

Director, Producer

Writer/Director/Producer Rosemary Rodriguez Continues on Continuing her Scorching TV Career With NBC’s Rise

Rosemary Rodriguez, the award-winning writer/director of the feature films Acts of Worship and Silver Skies, has been directing on the small screen for over a decade.  She has helmed episodes on some of the best TV shows currently or recently part of the cultural conversation, including The Good Wife, Rescue Me, Law & Order, Empire, The Walking Dead, and Jessica Jones.

By Leslie Combemale  |  March 12, 2018

Interview

Producer

A Wrinkle in Time‘s Producer on her 55-Year Journey to Bring This Film to Life

Since its publication in 1962, Madeleine L’Engle’s novel “A Wrinkle in Time” has earned the affection of millions of fans. In fact, many of the people who worked on Disney’s new cinematic adaptation have loved the book for years.

It seems impossible though that any of them have loved the book as much as producer Catherine Hand, who wanted to make it a feature film when she first read it in 1963.

By John Hanlon  |  March 12, 2018

Interview

Special/Visual Effects

Watch This Incredibly Impressive & Very Gory VFX Reel for Fear the Walking Dead

A major disclaimer before you watch the fascinating VFX reel for Fear the Walking Dead below—do it before lunch. Or don’t do it at all if you’re not a fan of gore. This look at the very impressive visual effects, created by Goodbye Kansas Studios, is not for the squeamish. Then again, neither is the show (or its progenitor, The Walking Dead), so if you’re curious how they turn actors into slobbering,

By The Credits  |  March 7, 2018

Interview

Actor

The Looming Tower‘s Stars on Tackling Terror, Real People, & Recent History on TV

The Looming Tower is a new Hulu series based on Lawrence Wright’s non-fiction book about the events leading up to the attack on the United States on 9/11. The focus is on the heads of the CIA and FBI operations investigating Al-Qaeda, played by Peter Sarsgaard and Jeff Daniels, and how their often-petty animosity and territoriality prevented the sharing of critical information that could have prevented the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

By Nell Minow  |  March 7, 2018

Interview

Composer

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.

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 6, 2018

Interview

Director

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,

By Leslie Combemale  |  March 6, 2018

Interview

Hair/Makeup

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,

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 5, 2018

Interview

Producer

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 &

By Hugh Hart  |  March 5, 2018

Interview

Actor

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.

By Kelle Long  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Hair/Makeup

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.

By Kelle Long  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Hair/Makeup, Special/Visual Effects

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,

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Sound Designer

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),

By Kelle Long  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Editor

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,

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Special/Visual Effects

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,

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Special/Visual Effects

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.

By Aubrey Page  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Special/Visual Effects

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,

By Aubrey Page  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Sound Designer

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),

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Sound Designer

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),

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Sound Designer

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),

By Bryan Abrams  |  March 2, 2018

Interview

Composer

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.

By Kelle Long  |  March 1, 2018