The Renaissance Executive: How Jason Harvey’s Multifaceted Background Powers BET+’s Streaming Success
There are many things Jason Harvey is. Currently, he’s the EVP and General Manager of BET+, a subscriber-based streaming service cultivated around Black entertainment. With that title, he oversees the programming strategy, business operations, and revenue growth, among other responsibilities. Previously, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer, worked with Google to expand its digital advertising in Latin America, and authored a children’s book about entrepreneurship. Oh, and he’s fluent in Spanish and Portuguese – all this while being a husband and a father of four.
“Sinners” Production Designer Hannah Beachler on Conjuring Ryan Coogler’s Supernatural Stunner
Warning: Contains spoilers
Ryan Coogler’s latest film, Sinners, made history with a second-weekend box office tally only six percent lower than its opening weekend. Just past its fourth weekend, it crossed the $200 million mark at the domestic box office. Both audiences and critics adore this Southern Gothic vampire thriller, starring Michael B. Jordan as identical twins Smoke and Stack. The pair has just returned to the Mississippi Delta after fighting in World War I and then getting involved with the Chicago mob,
Pinstripes and Blood Spatter: Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter on Making Dark Magic in “Sinners”
Two-time Oscar winner Ruth E. Carter takes us behind the seams of Ryan Coogler's horror masterpiece "Sinners," revealing how she brought the 1930s Mississippi Delta to life while dressing Michael B. Jordan's gangster twins.
“Dark Winds” Showrunner John Wirth on Building a Peabody-Winning Thriller with Native Voices at its Core
"Dark Winds" follows tribal cops Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon), Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten) as they solve crimes on their Navajo Nation turf.
Soul Transcendent: How DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw Captured Black Music’s Timeless Continuum in “Sinners”
In part one of our interview with Sinners cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, the groundbreaking DP discussed how she leveled up to frame Coogler’s soulful supernatural epic by learning to use the largest film format available. Coogler’s ambitions for his vampire thriller, starring Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, were massive. The brothers return to Clarksdale, Mississippi, after serving in World War I and then taking their talents to Chicago,
Not Playing Games: “Squid Game” Star Lee Jung-jae on Gi-hun’s Transformation in Final Seasons
Season 2 of Squid Game revealed protagonist Gi-hun’s desperate transformation from spirited and naïve recruit to traumatized and hardened champion. The iconic wide smile he flashed in his player photo has faded with the knowledge that more lives are on the line. Actor Lee Jung-jae appreciated the new depth his character has developed.
“I was really drawn to that personality of Gi-hun, where he is quite optimistic.
“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip” Director Marvin Lemus on a Family Adventure Through New Mexico
The title says it all: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip is a PG comedy that follows a rambunctious family on an RV trek through New Mexico. Their destination? A very old village in Mexico, home to an ancient stone idol. By returning the haunted talisman to its ancestral home, 11-year-old Alexander (newcomer Thom Nemer) thinks he can lift the curse bringing bad luck to his mother, father,
Producer Joseph Patel Explores Sly Stone’s Life & Legacy in “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)”
Prodigiously gifted songwriter/singer/arranger/producer/bandleader/keyboardist/guitarist Sly Stone gets his well-deserved close-up in documentary makers Joseph Patel and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson‘s SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius). After earning an Academy Award for Summer of Soul, producer Patel and director QuestLove decided to deep-dive into the life and music of the man whose multi-racial band once thrilled hippies and Black audiences alike with ingenious funk-pop anthems including “I Want to Take You Higher,”
How Director Mohammad Rasoulof Shot his Oscar-Nominated “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in Secret
Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof wanted to tell a big story — so he went small. The Seed of the Sacred Fig explores his country’s authoritarian rule, repressive justice, patriarchal dominance, and women’s rights through its impact on one family.
Taking place during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement, a nationwide protest sparked by the arrest of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman jailed for not wearing a hijab and beaten to death while in custody,
“Nickel Boys” Writer/Director RaMell Ross on Camera as Consciousness in His Oscar-Nominated Film
An introspective, promising teenager hitchhiking to college gets a ride in a car that turns out to be stolen. The driver is Black, and so is the boy. Deemed an accomplice despite his innocence, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is remanded to Nickel Academy, a segregated Florida reform school. Nickel Boys, the Oscar-nominated film based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys, follows the harrowing path Elwood is placed on by the Jim Crow South.
Issa Rae on the Importance of Filming “One Of Them Days” on the Streets of Los Angeles
In its opening weekend, One of Them Days earned back nearly all of its $14 million dollar budget, cementing its status as a comedy hit, the number two spot at the box office, and led many on social media in a rallying cry for more Black, female-led comedies. One of Them Days is centered on friends and roommates Dreux (Keke Palmer) and Alyssa (SZA), who find out that Alyssa’s boyfriend has blown their rent money,
Oscar-Nominated Makeup Artist Julia Floch-Carbonel on the Beauty of Transformation in “Emilia Pérez”
Emilia Pérez made history by casting Karla Sofía Gascón, the first transgendered woman to be nominated for a best actress Academy Award. The musical melodrama from director Jacques Audiard centers on Gascón’s portrayal of Mexican cartel boss Manitas, who undergoes surgery to begin a new life as Emilia. Nominated for an astonishing 13 Oscars, the film, co-starring Zoe Saldaña (also nominated for best supporting actress), Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz,
Making Macondo: How the “One Hundred Years of Solitude” Cinematographers Brought Gabriel García Márquez’s Epic to Netflix
Directors Alex García López and Laura Mora have undertaken the historic feat of adapting Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez’s 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, into a sixteen-part Netflix series, the first half of which was released on December 11. Unlike the book, which moves back and forth in time across seven generations of the Buendía family, the show is chronological (and it was shot chronologically, too), but beyond the change in timing,
Best of 2024: “Shōgun” Editors Aika Miyake and Maria Gonzales on Cutting Mariko’s Heroic Path
*This interview was selected by measures having nothing to do with science as one of our standouts from 2024. Miyake and Gonzales unpack how they helped the story of Anna Sawai’s incredible Lady Mariko.
The first season of Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo’s masterful Shōgun was an expertly paced slow-burn drama that plunged viewers into 17th-century Japan with a passionate obsession with the rigors and wonders of the period and location.
Best of 2024: MPA Creator Award Recipient Writer/Director JA Bayona’s Epic Journey
J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow, a reimagining of the real-life 1972 Uruguayan plane crash in the Andes Mountains that caught the world’s attention, is a viscerally astonishing feat of empathetic filmmaking. It was nominated for two Oscars: Best International Feature for Spain and Best Makeup and Hairstyling (Ana López-Puigcerver, David Martí, and Montse Ribé), a sweet coda for a filmmaker who returned to his home country of Spain for the majority of the film’s production.
From “Kill Bill” to Martin Scorsese to “Shōgun”: Producer Eriko Miyagawa on Her Hero’s Journey
A lucky break followed by a realization that the road ahead still won’t be a smooth march toward success is a pattern recognizable by many in the entertainment industry and beyond. The fortuitous happenstance for Eriko Miyagawa came in the form of an email saying that Quentin Tarantino was shooting in Beijing and looking for someone fluent in English and Japanese. This felt like an emphatically good turn of fortune for the smart, ambitious Miyawaga.
“The Wild Robot” Composer Kris Bowers on Accessing a Robot’s Humanity Through Music
Emmy and Oscar-winning composer Kris Bowers has become one of the go-to composers in Hollywood. Known for his work on films and TV shows like King Richard, The Color Purple, The Last Repair Shop, and Bridgerton, he has created well-known scores for a wide diversity of genres. For writer/director Chris Sanders‘ The Wild Robot, Bowers has added feature animation to his list of credits.
“Saturday Night” Star Lamorne Morris on Lighting Up the Screen as “SNL” Legend Garrett Morris
The camera follows Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) as he walks backstage through a line of camera crews, flickering lights, shouting cast members, costume racks, and one very random llama.
Ninety minutes until air time. Ninety minutes until the first-ever Saturday Night Live.
This is the opening sequence for Jason Reitman’s latest film, Saturday Night, about the creation of a legendary form of comedic television, but more specifically,
“Casting Director Jennifer Venditti’s Intuitive Touch in “The Sympathizer”
Casting director Jennifer Venditti had one of Hollywood’s great chameleons to work with when she was putting together the pieces for HBO’s limited series The Sympathizer. Robert Downey Jr. plays a quartet of characters in Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar’s adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel as the Oscar-winning performer is in a constant swirl of dramatic action among performers less well-known but all of them entirely game.
The Streaming Innovation Alliance’s Mission Continues
The Streaming Innovation Alliance turns a year old today. If you haven’t heard of SIA, you’ve certainly been impacted by its commitment to giving streamers a unified voice so they can keep creating the films and television series you love – and delivering them to audiences when, where, and how they choose to watch. Once viewed as an upstart to traditional entertainment, streamers have become a beloved part of the visual storytelling landscape. As the advent and deployment of digital film capabilities upended but did not replace the use of film on film and TV sets,
