How They Pulled Off that Insane Airplane Fight in Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man: Homecoming featured some crazy stunts and effects that made it one of the most exciting films of the year. Last week, VFX Supervisor Theo Bilaik walked us through replicating Tom Holland’s movements to fill the stunt gaps with CGI. Now, Bialik is back with an inside look at that iconic show down between Spider-Man and Vulture on the surface of a speeding jet.
Turns out this battle wasn’t any kind of green screen tussle.
Seeing Double: Meet Jumanji’s Real Ruby Roundhouse—Stunt Performer Jahnel Curfman
The second Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle trailer dropped around a month ago, showcasing an action-packed sequel to the beloved 1995 original. From what we can tell, audiences can expect crazy chases, fight scenes, and impressive visual effects. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle sees four teenagers discover an old video game console (much like how the kids in the original found an old board game) and are literally drawn into the game’s jungle setting becoming the adult avatars they choose.The use of video game avatar characters amplifies the intensity of the action this time around,
Disembodied: From Her to Ghost in the Shell, Scarlett Johansson’s Astonishing Disappearing Act
She’s spent much of her early career playing idealized, beautiful ingenues: from Woody Allen’s neurotic and effortless Nola Rice in Match Point to Joseph Gordon Levitt’s hoop-earringed “dime” in Don Jon, but Scarlett Johansson has never been totally comfortable being typecast as the gorgeous leading lady: “I’ve been able to use [my looks] to my advantage in some ways. In other ways, it can be very frustrating… I’ve always thought of myself as being a character actor,
Creature Feature: The Shape of Water‘s Guillermo del Toro is the King of Complicated Monsters
Director Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming film The Shape of Water, his most anticipated work since Pan’s Labyrinth, is a romantic horror fairy tale that won the Golden Lion at the 74th Venice Film Festival earlier this year. The story of lonely, mute janitor Elisa (Sally Hawkins), who befriends and then falls in love with “the Asset,” an amphibious creature-resident of the high-security government laboratory which she cleans by night,
Hellboy Cast Grows with Some Huge Talent
The red-skinned demon investigator, Hellboy, is planned to head back to the big screen in 2018. The much-anticipated reboot of the Guillermo del Toro and Rob Perlman 2003 classic announced the addition of three new members to the Osiris Club, Deadline reports. The Dark comic’s inspired film will feature cast members Sophie Okonedo, Brian Gleeson and Alistair Petrie to star alongside the dark hero and titular character played by Stranger Things actor, David Harbour.
Costume Designer Sandy Powell on her Gorgeous Period Pieces in Wonderstruck
Opening this week is Todd Hayne’s film adaptation of the illustrated novel Wonderstruck, the seemingly separate dual tales of two different children who make their way to New York, each taking refuge in the Museum of Natural History, in 1927 and 1977. The book’s author, Brian Selznick, is regarded as a master of magic in a particular written realm that transcends the border between children and adults’ literature; he first met acclaim for the work “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,”
Director Shapes Long Lost 16 Millimeter Footage to Shed Fresh Light on Jane Goodall
Shortly after documentary maker Brett Morgen finished Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck in 2015, National Geographic sent him half-a-century old footage taken in the wilds of Tanzania along with an invitation to profile chimpanzee-loving naturalist Jane Goodall. Morgen, who previously documented subversive mavericks including movie producer Robert Evans (The Kid Stays in the Picture), hippie radicals (The Chicago Ten) and the early Rolling Stones (Crossfire Hurricane),
How Wonderstruck DP Edward Lachman Channeled The French Connection for Kids Adventure
Director Todd Haynes’ longtime cinematographer Edward Lachman renders contrasting visions of New York City in their latest collaboration Wonderstruck (opening Friday.) Based on Brian Selznick’s children’s book, the story follows two kids, separated by fifty years, who run away to Manhattan in search of a missing parent and wind up forging an unexpected bond. The twist: one story’s shot in black and white as an homage to the silent movie era, while the parallel tale draws on The French Connection as inspiration for its hyper-colorful street scenes.
7 Mainstream Hollywood Films That Spoke to me as a Young Gay Man—and Still Do
Before the 1990s, movies with LGBT themes were rare. Oh, sure, LGBT characters had always been included in movies, but not as fully human beings. We held down all of the silly sissy and homicidal maniacs roles. (If you’ve never seen the highly entertaining documentary adaptation of Vito Russo’s book The Celluloid Closet, check it out for more on that subject). Nonetheless, many iconic Hollywood films have spoken if not directly, then metaphorically,
Writer/Director Rebecca Daly on Exploring a Community on the Edge in Good Favour
For her third feature Good Favour director Rebecca Daly, working with co-writer Glenn Montgomery, left her native Ireland, where her first two films were set, for Belgium. She also centered her story more on an ensemble, in this case a remote religious community that’s upended when a young, mysterious man appears out of nowhere and joins them, rather than the more intimate stories anchored by female heroines of her first two films.
Daly’s debut feature was the thriller The Other Side of Sleep,
The VFX Magic Behind Spider-Man: Homecoming
Spider-Man: Homecoming star Tom Holland trained tirelessly to do as many of his own stunts as possible, but some of them were just too epic to do live. In stepped the team at Imageworks VFX, who just released an incredible video giving us a glimpse at the film’s incredible CGI.
Holland was charmingly awkward as the young Peter Parker, and his homemade super suit gave his character more realism. VFX Supervisor Theo Bialik described how the artists made a photorealistic version of Holland that could act out the most dangerous stunts.
The New Mutants is a Haunting Spin-Off of the X-Men
The upcoming Marvel Comics motion picture, The New Mutants, introduces a thrilling and dark take on the traditional superhero series. Similar to Deadpool and Logan, the X-Men series spin-off seems to promise a fresh twist on the well-known story of this younger generation of mutant heroes. Unlike its X-Men predecessors, the trailer carries an eerie and haunting tone throughout that leaves you on the edge of your seat in suspense.
Oscar-Nominated Jesus Camp Directors Back With Searing new Netflix Doc One of Us
Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady earned an Oscar nomination for their 2006 documentary Jesus Camp, a searing expose of children being indoctrinated at an evangelical Christian summer camp called Kids on Fire. Now, for their sixth feature length collaboration, the documentarians explore another aspect of a strict religious sect and its effect on vulnerable members in One of Us. The film, a Netflix original documentary launching globally on October 20,
Mr. Robot‘s Production Designer on Designing Disintegration in Season 3
From the outset, Mr. Robot and hacker Elliot (Rami Malek) have been barreling toward a doomsday scenario, so fans of the USA Network show, which began Season 3 Wednesday at 10/9 pm, will be happy to see that things are only getting worse. “The theme for Season 3 is ‘Disintegration,'” says production designer Anastasia White, who teamed with show creator Sam Esmail to implement his vision of a chaotic New York City beset by a power outage.
Talking With the Editor of the Cannes Palme d’Or-Winning The Square: Part II
In part 2 of our interview with Jacob Secher Schulsinger, who edited The Square (you can read part one here), this year’s winner of the top prize at Cannes, talked about some of the movie’s most provocative scenes and the changes in technology that have given him “a new range of creative possibilities.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKDPrpJEGBY
There’s a scene where a man sitting in the audience repeatedly disrupts a presentation.
Talking With the Editor of the Cannes Palme d’Or-Winning The Square
This year’s Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival was the sharp, provocative satire The Square, written and directed by Ruben Östlund. It is the story of a museum curator surrounded by ultra-modern art who creates personal and professional chaos with some impulsive decisions. In part one of a two-part interview, the film’s editor Jacob Secher Schulsinger talked about his work in shaping the film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKDPrpJEGBY
How did Ruben Östlund describe the film to you?
Why Building This one Wight was Harder Than Making 10,000 of Them
HBO has delivered the final installment of their Game of Thrones behind-the-scene series “The Game Revealed” with a fantastic look at the most consequential Wight in the show’s history. We’re talking about the one Jon and the gang risked life and limb to bring back in “Beyond the Wall,” and dumped on Cersei’s doorstep in King’s Landing.
The scene in question, during season seven’s finale “The Dragon and the Wolf,” was a piece of almost perfect television,
Goodbye Christopher Robin Production Designer on Recreating the World of Winnie-the-Pooh
Seemingly all the world knows A.A. Milne as the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, a bear whose escapades with his coterie of animal friends in the 100 Acre Wood were made up to entertain Milne’s little son, Christopher Robin. Not always known is the fact that Milne suffered from PTSD from his time fighting in World War I, and the 100 Acre Wood is the real life Ashdown Forest, which abuts the property for which the Milne family left behind a glamorous London life,
Production Designer Serves up History in Battle of the Sexes
Oscar-nominated for her production design on American Hustle, which takes place in 1978, Judy Becker also designed The Fighter (set in 1976), Feud (1962) and Hitchcock (1960). Now she’s brought her retro touch to Battle of the Sexes, focused on Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) as she discovers her own sexuality in the run-up to her historic 1973 tennis match against self declared “male chauvinist”
The Walking Dead Super-Producer Gale Anne Hurd on Putting Women Front & Center
Few producers have been as involved in fandom as long as Gale Anne Hurd. A producer of The Terminator, Aliens and now The Walking Dead — all projects that amassed a cult following — she turned fans into collaborators by partially crowdsourcing her new documentary project Mankiller.
“With the resources that I have in terms of being able to reach out to the actors on the TV series [The Walking Dead] and friends of mine like Felicia Day and ask them to help,
