Jennifer Garner Joining “Deadpool 3” Cast as Elektra Adds Yet More Star Power

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If you’ve been keeping up on your Deadpool 3 news, you’re already well aware that the biggest casting announcement was Hugh Jackman reprising his role as Wolverine. The excitement over Jackman joining forces with longtime buddy/social media sparring partner Ryan Reynolds is such that it qualifies as a major scoop when we find out Wolverine will be donning his classic yellow super-suit, or, say, what Jackman’s meal plan was in order to bulk up to Wolverine’s fighting weight.

Yet Jackman is not the only star to sign on to director Shawn Levy’s eagerly-anticipated film, the first in the Deadpool franchise to officially fall under the official Marvel Studios banner. News recently broke that Jennifer Garner has signed on to reprise her role as Elektra—after a nearly 20-year hiatus after first playing the Marvel assassin in 20th Century Fox’s 2003 film Daredevil. In that film, Garner played Elektra Natchios, the highly-trained assassin who clashes with Ben Affleck’s titular superhero. Garner returned to the role two years later in the spinoff Elektra, the rare comic book movie at the time centered on a female character.

Garner’s return to the role suggests that Jackman wasn’t kidding when he teased a potential multiverse thread—or threads, we should say—that allowed his Wolverine to appear. There are no concrete details about the plot yet, of course, and considering how consistently the Deadpool franchise has played with both expectations and comic book conventions, with zero qualms about poking fun at itself along the way, there’s a chance Garner’s return comes about in a more screwball fashion.

Garner, Reynolds, and Levy also have a shorthand together—they just worked on Netflix’s sci-fi romp The Adam Project, with Levy directing the two stars. Garner joins a growing roster of talented performers, including The Crown‘s Emma Corrin, Succession‘s Matthew MacFayden, and returning franchise stalwarts Morena Baccarin as Deadpool’s dearly departed love interest Vanessa (perhaps back in flashback, perhaps back in the multiverse), Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Rob Delaney as Peter, Shioli Kutsuna as Yukio, Karan Soni as Dopinder, Lesslie Uggams as Blind Al, and Stefan Kapic voicing Colossus.

Rest assured that the above is not the complete cast list—considering that Deadpool is finally an official member of the Marvel family (something he’s been kvetching about since the original film), you can likely expect a few famous cameos. Remember, Deadpool 2 featured a blink-and-you’d-miss-him cameo by Brad Pitt.

For more on Deadpool 3, check out these stories:

Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine Wears Iconic Yellow Suit in “Deadpool 3” Photo

Hugh Jackman Teases “Double Role” for Wolverine in “Deadpool 3”

“Deadpool 3” Release Date Moved Up Six Months

Ryan Reynolds Explains How Wolverine is Alive for “Deadpool 3” After Dying in “Logan”

Featured image: The Adam Project (L to R) Ryan Reynolds as Big Adam and Jennifer Garner as Ellie. Cr. Doane Gregory/Netflix © 2022

“Star Trek: Picard” VFX Supervisor Jason Zimmerman on Charting The Series’ Final Course

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The legacy of Star Trek lives on through an entertaining trio of shows. Star Trek: Discovery (2017), Star Trek: Picard (2020), and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2023) have brought new cosmic adventures for fans of the beloved franchise while tying back to the mega-narrative of the Star Trek universe, which has been taking viewers on voyages across space and time since 1966.

Discovery takes place a decade before the original series with William Shatner as Captain Kirk. Strange New Worlds is a spin-off of Discovery and follows Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) aboard the USS Enterprise as its crew explores new galaxies. Picard revitalizes one of the most beloved performers in the Star Trek pantheon, Sir Patrick Stewart, in his role as Jean-Luc Picard 20 years after Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). With each season of Picard, show creators dove deeper into the Jean-Luc character, exploring how the loss of Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner) and the planet Romulus weigh on him. Season 3 is its final chapter.

Patrick Stewart BTS “The Last Generation” Episode 310, Star Trek: Picard on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Trae Patton/Paramount+. ©2021 Viacom, International Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Overseeing the visual effects of Picard (as well as Discovery and Strange New Worlds) is VFX supervisor Jason Zimmerman and a team of artists. “The response has been overwhelming, and it’s great to see everyone enjoying it,” Zimmerman says about the final season of Picard. Season 3, in particular, will undoubtedly play a huge role in the legacy of Star Trek as we say goodbye to one of the most profoundly compelling characters in the franchise’s long history.

In creating the immersive visuals for Picard, the mindset was to start with something practical and then push the special effects as far as they could go before transitioning to visual effects. Here, Zimmerman talks about the approach to the Star Trek series and what it’s like to shepherd the massive franchise.

Having supervised Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds, you’re essentially the Kevin Feige of Star Trek’s VFX world. The entertaining part is all these series have unique looks. How did you want to approach them, especially Picard?

Wow, that’s a huge compliment, but it’s truly a team effort. Each show does have its own look and personality. With Picard, knowing that the subject matter was going to be so near and dear to the hearts of fans, we knew we had our work cut out for us. We always look back at cannon when we work to make sure we are getting things right. This one even more so because a lot of the ships, effects, characters, etcetera, had been seen before quite a bit. Then we do our best to use today’s VFX toolkit to make things look as real as we can and keep the audience in the story. Credit also to Terry Matalas for having a clear vision of the look he was going for from the start. 

Patrick Stewart as Picard and Ed Speleers as Jack Crusher in “The Last Generation” Episode 310, Star Trek: Picard on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Trae Patton/Paramount+. ©2021 Viacom, International Inc. All Rights Reserved.

With Season 3 of Picard being its last, what has changed the most in streamlining the workflow?

The VFX team has collectively done 10 seasons of Trek when you include the other shows, and each of those seasons teaches us a little bit more about how we need to work within the Trek universe. We’ve streamlined how we build the ship assets and established a visual language for each show that makes each unique. A lot of time is spent on integration and using lenses and real-world elements to make things look as real as we can. 

An overlooked part of the work is immersive outer space environments. Can you talk about how the team approaches them?

We start with the filmscapes from the art department, which give us a solid direction. From there, we start to develop things in CG and add all the little details and nuances you need to help things look realistic. Depth and scale are hugely important and a challenge in space with very few visual cues showing how big and how far away things can be. Our ships and how the shot is composed really help that aspect of the process. Lighting is so important. We take cues from the scenes that surround our shots. Our DPs did a great job of giving us a solid look to emulate. Dramatic lighting always helps bring CG to life. 

The USS Enterprise in “Star Trek: Picard.” Photo Credit: Paramount+. ©2021 Viacom, International Inc. All Rights Reserved.

With Star Trek being so closely followed and beloved, how big a part does accuracy play in the work?

It’s the most important part. We are fortunate to have a cannon to look back on, and we do it for every shot we can. We always try and make sure that the shots will pass scrutiny from the fans who have a great eye for VFX and know the cannon as well as anyone. Credit also to our other supervisor on the show, Brian Tatosky, who is as big a Trek fan as anyone and a phenomenal supervisor and artist. Having him gave us peace of mind. 

Jane Seymour as The Borg Queen in “The Last Generation” Episode 310, Star Trek: Picard on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Trae Patton/Paramount+. ©2021 Viacom, International Inc. All Rights Reserved.

There are a number of entertaining moments in Season 3 of Picard. Any standout for you?

Space Babies and the finale showdown were both very fun to work on. The Borg cube [the massive starship used by the Borg Collective in the 24th century] is always a challenge because it’s so massive we have to make sure we show the scale in the shots.

The Borg Cube. Courtesy Paramount+. ©2021 Viacom, International Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Strange New Worlds is your focus now, but is there anything you’ll miss about Picard?

It was a unique honor to visit this part of the Star Trek universe. I grew up with The Next Generation, so being able to play in that sandbox was something I never thought I’d get the chance to do.

Star Trek’s Discovery, Picard, and Strand New Worlds are available to stream on Paramount+.

 

 

Featured image: Joanthan Frakes as Will Riker, Patrick Stewart as Picard, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher and Ed Speleers as Jack Crusher in “No Win Scenario” Episode 304, Star Trek: Picard on Paramount+. Photo Credit: Trae Patton/Paramount+. ©2021 Viacom, International Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“The Last of Us” Cinematographer Ksenia Sereda on Shining a Light in the Darkness

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The Last of Us, HBO’s thrilling, best-in-class adaptation of Naughty Dog’s critically acclaimed video game, provided 2023’s first certifiable must-watch series. Co-created by the video game’s mastermind, Neil Druckmann, and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin, the series followed a pair of intrapersonally opposed survivors of a fungi-borne apocalypse as they picked their way across a devastated American landscape crawling with the terrifying permutations of the mindless infected and the almost equally dangerous humans who had, thus far, through means heroic and tyrannical, kept themselves contagion free. Joel (Pedro Pascal) is tasked with shepherding Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a mercurial 14-year-old girl mysteriously immune to the virus, to a band of survivors out west who think they can replicate her immunity population-wide. Things do not go as planned.

The Last Of Us is remarkable not only for the steadily intensifying chills it offers—Clickers, for instance, an iteration of the infected with faces exploded into livid fungal nightmares and who track their pray through echolocation—as well as for its restraint and its focus on character. From a beautiful bottle episode that focused on the decades-long love between two survivors to episode 7’s heartbreaking reveal of the night that made Ellie who she is, The Last of Us had the confidence in its storytelling to patiently explore its characters’ lives, offering the thrills—and many of the iconic sequences—lovers of the game would demand, but offering a rich, often harrowing and ultimately moving story for people new to the story, and perhaps, usually avoidant of the zombie genre entirely.

Cinematographer Ksenia Sereda is a big reason why the first season looked so ravishing and felt so visceral. Sereda was tasked with lensing the pilot, “When You’re Lost in the Darkness,” which sets the table (soon to be barren once the apocalypse begins), episode 2’s “Infected,” which revealed the Clickers, and the abovementioned flashback episode 7, “Left Behind,” which flashes back to the night Ellie was first bitten—twice, in fact—first by love, second by a zombie.

We spoke to Sereda about what it took to capture one of the year’s most satisfying dramas.

Walk me through your approach to the pilot and setting the table for the entire series.

It’s a lot of responsibility. It’s extra hard because the show is based on the video game, which is extremely successful, mostly because it’s extremely good. The game itself is very strong visually. It’s interesting because, for people who play video games, a big part is the interaction, right? You’ve got the gameplay, but you’ve also got the freedom of making choices. Yet as we know from the history of the film industry, the cinema gives us a lot of very powerful tools to provide an emotional experience. Of course, we had to think about preserving iconic things from the game, but also, for people who didn’t play the game, we needed to reveal this universe. What’s interesting about the game, it’s not only beautiful with unique creatures, it’s very character driven and centered. One of the most important things to build this strong connection to the character and follow their decisions and are very connected to their emotions.

Anna Torv and Pedro Pascal in "The Last of Us." Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
Anna Torv and Pedro Pascal in “The Last of Us.” Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

So how did you decide which iconic moments from the game had to be in the series?

Of course, this isn’t decided at a different level from cinematography, as you can imagine [laughs], but there aren’t enough good things I can say about creators Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin. They were so deeply into this material. They not only loved the game [Druckmann, of course, created it] and were passionate about it, but they built this excitement in the crew to make something very exceptional. They were deeply into every detail, and their guidance was so strong, in a good way. For people who did play the game, they did this incredible work of expanding the universe and the characters and going deeper so you really understand them. From a visual standpoint, what was important to build these connections, we did a lot of one-ers, these longer shots, which provides the viewer the opportunity to connect, in the same amount of time, to what the character is experiencing. We can see something from a character’s perspective as it’s happening on the screen.

Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

The series is noteworthy for how beautiful it is. Yes, it’s often terrifying or grotesque, but it’s so thoughtfully constructed and paced that it very often is a lush, gorgeous visual experience. How did you pull that off?

Longer shots build the tension, and what’s interesting about them is it sometimes gives us the beauty of observation as well as the suspense, and again, it’s all based on these strong connections it generates to the characters. What was very important for Craig and Neil was the feeling that everything is very real. Hand-held cameras give us the raw, pure feeling that what we’re watching is real and you can trust it. At the same time, and this is true in the game, too, all these creatures, like Clickers, for example, they’re very scary, but they’re also stunning. The color, the texture, the idea of something that cannot see but can hear everything. It’s this balance where terrifying things can also be beautiful, which maybe happens in life sometimes, too. You can get drawn to terrifying things.

 

One example of this is in the pilot when Joel’s daughter, Sarah (Nico Parker), is in the neighbor’s house just as the wheelchair-bound older woman is in the midst of being infected behind her. The old woman is out of focus, but you can see from her bodily contortions and the blurred but terrifying expression on her face she’s turning.

Even shooting that was pretty creepy [laughs.]

And that was just the actress making that terrifying face?

Yeah. It was a performance.

 

Episode two reveals the Clickers in that thrilling museum sequence. Can you take me through that?

It was another very exciting sequence to make; for people who didn’t play the game, it’s the first time we see a Clicker, and we need to explain what it means in this world. What’s interesting about the museum is that we go inside and it’s pretty dirty. There are not a lot of places with electricity, which is why in episode seven when we do come across electricity, it presents a whole new opportunity. But in general, mostly there’s no electricity. So a lot of things are lit with flashlights, and that provides not only an opportunity for characters to see something but for us as filmmakers to direct viewers’ attention. We created an atmosphere to have enough darkness to make the flashlights believable, and the tension is built again with longer shots, tracking these characters through these labyrinthine museum cases. Then with sound and editing, you really feel like every noise is important. You can feel the presence of the clicker around you without seeing it, you only see silhouettes. Then, when we do see it, it’s face-to-face, and it’s very tight and very scary.

A “clicker” hears Joel, Ellie, and Tess in episode 2. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
Samuel Hoeksema in “The Last Of Us.” Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

What was your approach to filming episode 7, which gave us Ellie’s poignant, tragic backstory with her friend Riley (Storm Reid) and was set primarily in an abandoned mall?

With that one, it was very exciting in a way that it’s one special night in the girl’s life in which you create this beautiful teenage dream with tools you didn’t use before. We introduced these neon lights and that absolutely stunning merry-go-round and all these dreamy elements which build the fairy tale aspect of the night for Ellie. It’s probably the only real joy she’s ever experienced in her life. And we get to know that this night with Riley is potentially a date or a farewell because Riley’s leaving. It was so exciting to make that because it was something completely different from what we saw before. From the visual side, we wanted to build what was the most full day of her entire life and how tragic it was.

Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO
Bella Ramsey, Storm Reid. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

It’s such a heartbreaking episode and crucial, not least of which is because it shows us the origin of Ellie’s immunity.

Yes, it is a very important and iconic moment because we tell the story of how Ellie got bit in the first place and how she gets the knowledge that she’s immune. And working in the mall that was beautifully dressed, everything the production design team did was so amazing. Most of those things were built practically, so you were in a real environment with real props where you can touch almost everything. It gives you a completely different feeling from working with a blue screen.

When you look back on season one, what was your sense of what you guys were creating?

It’s a good question because I think my main thought, I’m always very afraid to think about what happens after because really you never know, but how it felt inside was it was the most incredible experience in my entire career. People were so amazing, the crew was so amazing, and people were so passionate that I really had the feeling that it was the best thing I ever worked on. I spent almost a year on the show, and when you go to work every day and are just happy to be there and see all these people, and then when you come back on Monday and you realize you missed all these people during the weekend, that’s special. It was not only an amazing creative experience but also an amazing human being experience.

What can you tell me about season two?

Nothing. [Laughs.]

Fair!

For more on The Last Of Us, check out these stories:

“The Last of Us” Production Designer John Paino on Building a World in Ruins

“The Last of Us” Cinematographer Eben Bolter on Episode 4 & More

How “The Last Of Us” Episode 3 Departed From The Game in a Beautiful, Heartbreaking Way

Featured image: A “clicker” hears Joel, Ellie, and Tess in episode 2. Photograph by Liane Hentscher/HBO

Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine Wears Iconic Yellow Suit in “Deadpool 3” Photo

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It might have taken two decades to happen, but our national nightmare is over—Hugh Jackman will be wearing the iconic yellow Wolverine costume in director Shawn Levy’s upcoming Deadpool 3. The first look at Jackman in the beloved, bold super-suit was revealed by the Deadpool Twitter account, showing Jackman in the costume that Wolverine wore in the comics, which became cemented as a piece of pop culture couture history in the animated series from the ’90s.

The yellow costume was also a running joke during Jackman’s years of playing Wolverine in the X-Men films. In his very first turn as Logan/Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men, Jackman’s gruff mutant complains about the leather suits the X-Men have to wear. Cyclops (James Marsden), his rival for the affections of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), turns the spotlight back on Logan and asks, “What would you prefer, yellow spandex?” Burn.

Then there was a deleted scene from James Mangold’s 2013 film The Wolverine in which Wolverine opens a briefcase revealing the yellow suit. Still, we never saw him actually wear the thing—until now.

Now, thanks to not just the Deadpool Twitter account but also Instagram stories from Reynolds and Jackman, fans are finally assured that Wolverine will finally wear his true color:

It’s fitting that it took a Deadpool movie, one of the most irreverent franchises in the entire superhero cinematic universe, to get Jackman’s Wolvy back in yellow. As The Hollywood Reporter noted, X-Men producer Ralph Winter said that they weren’t trying to irritate fans of the comics and cartoons with Cyclops’ quip in the original X-Men movie; they were simply nodding at something they felt they couldn’t do:

“There’s a joke in the movie about yellow spandex, which was directed at the fans. It wasn’t to [irritate] them but to say, ‘Hey, we hear you. We understand what you want,’” he told SyFy Wire. “‘We understand you’d rather have everybody in the traditional garb. But we also have to make a movie that reaches a wide audience to justify the budget.’”

What makes this even more poignant is Jackman is finally wearing the yellow suit after coming out of Wolvy retirement to play the role, once more, for his buddy Reynolds. The duo did appear together in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but that was a totally different iteration of Reynolds’ Deadpool. In fact, that version didn’t speak as his mouth was sewn shut. Compare that to Reynolds’ current incarnation of the character—excessively talkative, irreverent, playful, raunchy—and you can see why both he and Jackman thought a fresh pairing would work. Unleashing the constantly keyed up Deadpool on the taciturn, no-nonsense Wolverine is rich with possibility. And Shawn Levy has already promised fans of the first two Deadpool films that even though the franchise is now officially under the Marvel Studios banner, Deadpool 3 will remain as hardcore as ever.

Deadpool 3 is slated for a May 3, 2024 release.

For more on Deadpool 3, check out these stories:

“Deadpool 3” Release Date Moved Up Six Months

“Deadpool 3” Adds “Succession” Star Matthew Macfadyen

Hugh Jackman Reveals his Meal Plan for Bulking Up to Play Wolverine in “Deadpool 3”

Hugh Jackman Teases “Double Role” for Wolverine in “Deadpool 3”

Featured image: L-r: Ryan Reynolds is Wade Wilson/Deadpool and Hugh Jackman is Logan/Wolverine in “Deadpool 3.” Courtesy Ryan Reynolds/Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Studios

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Reviews: Cruise & Co. Have Done It Again

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Once the review embargo for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One was been lifted, the mission was clear for fans of the franchise—could they read the reviews about Dead Reckoning Part One without spoiling the film’s biggest thrills and without having their hopes for another action masterpiece deflated? We’ve done the review reading for you, and like Ethan Hunt driving his motorcycle off a cliff only to deploy a parachute and turn certain death into a BASE jump, M:I fans will be floating to safety on the strength of these overwhelmingly positive reviews.

“A two-hour-plus session of cinematic self-care, wherein the chases, fights, mayhem, exegetical speeches and jaw-dropping derring-do knit together to form a comforting weighted blanket of pure escapism and reassurance” is how the Washington Post‘s Ann Hornaday puts it. “The seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise shows why this might be the greatest action series ever,” writes Collider‘s Ross Bonaime. “The film is a mirror image of its star – a muscular, extravagant, thoroughly old-school work of ingenuity and craft,” writes the Independent‘s Clarisse Loughrey.

The first part of a two-part epic, Dead Reckoning Part One finds Tom Cruise’s super agent Ethan Hunt and his trusty IMF team dealing with a new kind of weapon, one that is even more dangerous than whatever means of mass destruction Sean Harris’s Solomon Lane tried getting his hands on in previous installments. This time around, Ethan, Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and their on-again/off-again partner Isla Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), a roving MI6 operative and all-around bad-ass who has been mixing it up with Ethan and the fellas since 2015’s Rogue Nation, are trying to corral a digital weapon. AI isn’t just coming for our jobs in Dead Reckoning—it has the capacity to bring the entire world to heel.

The cast also includes Vanessa Kirby, Pom Klementieff, Esai Morales, Greg Tarzan Davis, Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigam, Rob Delaney, Cary Elwes, Indira Varma, Mark Gatiss, and Charles Parnell.

Let’s have a peek at what the critics are saying. Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One hits theaters on July 12:

For more on Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, check out these stories:

New “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Images Include Closer Look at Tom Cruise’s Craziest Stunt

Why Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Motorcycle Stunt Was Filmed Day One

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Early Reactions Marvel at Jaw-Dropping Action Epic

Featured image: Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” Trailer Reveals Joaquin Phoenix as the French Conquerer

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At last, the first trailer for Ridley Scott’s highly-anticipated historical epic Napoleon has just charged into view. Scott’s sweeping look at the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix), one of the most iconic, singular conquerors and emperors the world has ever known, comes bearing the legendary director’s skills at old-school, large-scale filmmaking. As he did in Gladiator (2000), which featured Russell Crowe’s valiant general-turned-slave-turned-gladiator Maxiums seeking revenge against the cruel and petty tyrant-turned-emperor Commodus (played by none other than Joaquin Phoenix), Scott’s take on Napoleon and his colossal impact on the world will not stint on action.

The trailer reveals the scope of Scott’s ambition, and in Phoenix, he’s deployed one of cinema’s most consistently inventive performers, someone with the ability to melt into a role completely, even one as outsized as the legendary Frenchman. We open in France in 1793 in the midst of a period of intense, bloody turmoil as the Jacobins have seized control of the National Convention and are instituting a series of radical measures. An example must be made, an as of yet relatively unknown Napoleon Bonaparte is told, “or France will fall.” Bonaparte is given a fresh assignment to defend the nation at all costs, and in turn, his ruthlessness serves him well. We see the makings of the French general who will go on to wage some of history’s most infamous battles, using his almost supernatural strategic gifts to mount what seems like an unbeatable army. As his victories mount and his acclaim rises, the General will eventually seize the throne for himself.

Napoleon features a starry cast, which includes Vanessa Kirby as Josephine, Napoleon’s lover and future Empress, the woman he was devoted to above all else, save, perhaps, his thirst to dominate the world. Joining Phoenix and Kirby are Tahar Rahim as Paul Barras, Ben Miles as Caulaincourt, Ludivine Sagnier as Theresa Cabarrus, Matthew Needham as Lucien Bonaparte, Youssef Kerkour as Marshal Davout, Phil Cornwell as Sanson ‘The Bourreau,’ Edouard Philipponnat as Tsar Alexander, Paul Rhys as Talleyrand, John Hollingworth as Marshall Ney, Gavin Spokes as Moulins and Mark Bonnar as Jean-Andoche Junot.

“I’m the first to admit when I made a mistake,” Napoleon says at the end of the trailer, “I simply never do.” History proved the conqueror wrong, but Scott aims to deliver the most visceral cinematic look yet at a man who really did believe himself flawless until, of course, his flaws undid him.

Check out the trailer below. Napoleon conquers theaters on Thanksgiving:

Here’s the official synopsis from Sony Pictures:

Napoleon is a spectacle-filled action epic that details the checkered rise and fall of the iconic French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, played by Oscar®-winner Joaquin Phoenix. Against a stunning backdrop of large-scale filmmaking orchestrated by legendary director Ridley Scott, the film captures Bonaparte’s relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his one true love, Josephine, showcasing his visionary military and political tactics against some of the most dynamic practical battle sequences ever filmed.

For more upcoming films from Sony Pictures, check out these stories:

The First “Dumb Money” Trailer Reveals the GameStop Stock Movie We Need Right Now

“Kraven the Hunter” Trailer Reveals Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Wild Spider-Man Villain on a Rampage

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Look of Picture Supervisor Bret St. Clair on Spider-Punk, Mumbattan & More

Gina Prince-Bythewood, MPA Creator Award Recipient, Tells Her Story

Featured image: “Napoleon” one sheet. Courtesy Sony Pictures.

“Joy Ride” Screenwriters Cherry Chevapravatdumrong & Teresa Hsiao Embrace the Raunch

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Adele Lim’s feature directorial debut Joy Ride cruised into theaters this past weekend, boasting critical raves. The laughs come early and often in Lim’s ensemble film, thanks in large part to screenwriters and producers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao. The talented duo began writing the script for Joy Ride on spec, and that sense of freedom and play is on full display.

The screenwriters both met in the writer’s room in Seth MacFarlane’s joke-a-second animated raunch-fest Family Guy and in Joy Ride, they take full control, telling the story of four friends on a trip gone wildly wrong but also imperfectly, beautifully right. When Audrey (Ashley Park) goes to China for a work trip, she’s joined by her college roommate, Kat (Stephanie Hsu), and her childhood best friend, Lolo (Sherry Cola), whose delightful cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), tags along. It’s a story about having a good time while learning to deal with the bad times, and it also explores questions about identity and friendship.

Recently, Chevapravatdumrong and Hsiao – who share an undeniable rapport on and off the page – recently took us behind the scenes of crafting the feel-good comedy of the summer.

 

What was the initial vision for Joy Ride? 

Cherry Chevapravatdumrong: Well, very R-rated, very raunchy. We always knew that that’s what we wanted. The original title of the movie was Joy F**k Club for a reason. At no point during the writing did we ever think it was a cute PG-13 romp. Philosophy-wise, oftentimes on the set, on the day, there are things that seem very funny. But one of the reasons that we made sure to shoot alts for a lot of the jokes is because later, when you’re actually putting it together, and you’re actually having an audience watch it for the first time, sometimes something that everyone thought was very funny on the set on that day may not resonate as well with an audience of 200 people. Just making sure you have options. Just make sure you do as much as you can so that later on in the game, you have puzzle pieces to play with.

What about you, Teresa?

Teresa Hsiao: Anytime I watch any comedy, I always want it to be joke-heavy, but at the same time, I want to care about the characters too. In the best movies that I’ve seen, you feel deeply for the characters. It’s not just someone out there spouting a joke a minute; it’s funnier because someone said it that you care about. I think going into this movie, we wanted to create four full-fledged characters who had their own stories, had their own arcs that, hopefully, by the end of the movie, you feel deeply for each and every one of them.

Joy Ride. Photo Credit: Ed Araquel

Usually, in ensembles, somebody is left on the sidelines, but that’s not the case with Joy Ride. How’d you manage to give every character their due?

Chevapravatdumrong: We had charts. We literally had charts.

Hsiao: We’re insane because we actually had a grid. We had all the names at the top, and then we had their names down on the vertical axis, too. It’s a chart like, how does Audrey affect Lolo’s life? How does Lolo affect Audrey’s life? How does Audrey affect Deadeye? So much that isn’t in the movie, but it was about knowing each one of them. What are their backgrounds? How do they move forward after the movie?

Chevapravatdumrong: We nerded out big time. Data helps character. Is that a sound bite? That Excel spreadsheets help character?

 

When writing friendships, for both of you, what are the little things that make them believable?

Hsiao: I think they came from such a natural place. I grew up in an incredibly homogenous town, and I had one friend growing up who was also Asian and her name was Lisa. People got us mixed up all the time because we had rhyming names, even though we didn’t look anything alike, and we were immediately best friends. She ended up moving away when I was in middle school, and it was very sad for me. My parents were always like, “Now we’re the only ones.” I always remember thinking back to her and wondering if we were friends because we actually had a lot in common or if we were just friends because we were both two Asian girls in a really white town. I think so much of the characters’ personalities are based on real-life friends that we have. These characters kind of come from our own lives, obviously fictionalized versions, so it made it a little easier to write.

You were both on set as well. As both writers and producers, how’d the script evolve from a creative and practical standpoint?

Chevapravatdumrong: There were some checkpoints along the way that we always knew were gonna happen in this story. We always knew that Audrey was going to have this adoption thing, this identity thing. We always knew that they were going to wind up in Korea and have a K-pop sequence. We always knew they were going to run into a basketball player and ACB basketball team. Within all of those set pieces, things definitely changed along the way. The train sequence was a car chase at some point but then went back to a train sequence. Even the club sequence was bigger with multi-levels and karaoke. There were a lot of changes. All of us and Point Gray, our producers who are very experienced in making movie comedies like this, we’re always pushing ourselves for, what’s funnier, what could play bigger, and what could be most exciting to watch in the theater.

Stephanie Hsu as Kat, Sherry Cola as Lolo, Ashley Park as Audrey, and Sabrina Wu as Deadeye in Joy Ride. Photo Credit: Ed Araquel

You also had to make cuts since the film originally was even raunchier. What did you have to lose?

Hsiao: The first iteration of it was rated NC 17. There was a deleted scene that is no longer in the movie that involved another [vagina] tattoo. It was gonna be a post-credit scene, basically [laughs]. I’ll let you play with your imagination in terms of who [else] got a tattoo. Basically, Kat is not the only one in the couple who got a tattoo. But that scene, along with other pieces of the montage, made it apparently a little too scandalous.

Sabrina Wu as Deadeye, Ashley Park as Audrey, Sherry Cola as Lolo, and Stephanie Hsu as Kat in Joy Ride. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lionsgate

So, Joy Ride reminds me of the R-rated movies you’d sneak into as a teenager.

Hsiao: I hope people sneak into the movie but also pay for it [laughs].

At one point, there’s a beautiful message expressed to Deadeye about them being original and to embrace what makes them unique. Knowing that this is the kind of R-rated movie teens will probably watch, is there anything you wanted the movie to say or speak to for younger audiences?

Hsiao: Yes. I definitely think we want people, especially people who are not feeling themselves as much, to see it. Not only representation in terms of seeing yourself on screen, but in terms of having a non-binary character and having that moment where they really feel like they’re part of the group, but not having it be like, “Hey, we’re teaching you this moment.” It’s not a coming-out moment in any sort of way. Because again, in this movie, Deadeye’s story is something totally different. I do think, for a lot of people, hopefully, this is the first time that they are able to see themselves on screen. They’re able to see themselves, in a way, that you don’t have to be the perfect person, you know? You can be messy, you can be raunchy, and you can be crazy, and it’s all okay.

Sabrina Wu as Deadeye, Ashley Park as Audrey, Stephanie Hsu as Kat and Sherry Cola as Lolo in Joy Ride. Photo Credit: Ed Araquel

Featured image: Stephanie Hsu as Kat, Sabrina Wu as Deadeye, Ashley Park as Audrey, and Sherry Cola as Lolo in Joy Ride. Photo Credit: Ed Araquel

 

 

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” VFX Artists on De-Aging Indy

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Brad Pitt did it. Robert DeNiro did it. Samuel Jackson, Jeff Bridges, and Will Smith did it, too. Now, 80-year-old Harrison Ford has embraced digital de-aging in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (in theaters now) so he can fight Nazis looking like a 37-year-old version of his iconic action hero. Ford’s cinematic rejuvenation owes a considerable debt to ILM’s VFX artist lead Robert Weaver (Star Trek Into Darkness, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) and Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Andrew Whitehurst (Skyfall, Ex Machina). Working with director James Mangold, they shaped the film’s 25-minute “prologue” featuring Harrison’s whip-wielding archaeologist as he appeared in the 1981-1989 Indiana Jones trilogy.

Speaking from separate offices, Weaver and Whitehurst pulled back the curtain on “Face Finder,” machine learning, and the “ground truth” that inspired Dial of Destiny‘s VFX achievement.

 

Most of the movie takes place in 1969, but the first twenty-five minutes of this movie happen during World War II with Harrison Ford as a much younger man. How the heck did you do that?

Andrew Whitehurst: We used every trick at our disposal. The two key components were one, having Harrison Ford drive the performance. And the other is having artists who were furnished with the [right] tools.

How do you organize these tools?

Whitehurst: We have an overall system, which is Face Off. It’s a variety of technologies that allow the artist to pick components from each of them to combine for a single unified result.

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

What visual assets were available to the Face Off system?

Whitehurst: We had the first three Indy movies from Lucasfilm that we leaned into very heavily. It was high res, high-quality material, so we scanned all of that and pulled from it. Lucasfilm also has some amazing eight-by-ten still portraits done for Raiders that enabled us to get accurate references for pore-level detail. From 80s movies, you just don’t get [that detail] from cinematography because it just ain’t there. We used that for reference as much as we could because any time we can refer back to a “ground truth,” that’s always useful.

Ground truth?

Whitehurst: Yes. Material of what Harrison Ford actually looked like at the age he’s supposed to be in the film — that’s what we refer to as our ground truth.

Robert Weaver: We have a tool we call Face Finder, which takes every frame of the current shot and pulls from a repository the best likeness and performance for that individual frame.

 

How does Face Finder do that?

Weaver: It finds similar angles and lighting and, most importantly, the facial performance that matches most closely to the shot. The artists then have this perfect palette so they can say, “Okay, I think this [reference] works best for when Indiana Jones has a wry smile, with the way the muscles are moving.” It’s incredibly helpful.

Whitehurst: It’s also incredibly useful to have this reference material when you’re talking to Jim [Mangold] or Robert about the shot because rather than trying to describe Indy’s nose or the way that this part of his cheek has a little bit more of a crease in it, we can actually [see it and] know that we’re literally talking about the same thing. Honestly, half the battle in doing visual effects is the communications side of it. You want everybody to understand what they’re looking at.

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

So you have this “ground truth” of stills and scanned film imagery from the old Indiana Jones movies on one side of the equation. The other side would be current footage of 80-year Harrison Ford. Where did they film the de-aged chapter of the story?

Whitehurst: They shot on location at the [Bamburgh] Castle [in northern England] and filmed on blue screen and sound stages at Pinewood [Studios.]

And how did that footage get processed?

Whitehurst: We had additional cameras attached to the main camera, which gave us extra angles on the face. That [footage] was very useful for constructing 3D models of Harrison’s face. We also did lighting reference photography after every setup and scanned every set, so we had a 3D representation of every single take and every single environment. That was passed to ILM so they could then start working up the shots.

(L-R): Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

SPOILER ALERT: Young Indiana Jones jumps onto a train, kills a Nazi officer, changes into his uniform, and walks into the car full of German soldiers, his youthful face front and center the whole time. Just to be clear, Harrison Ford is the foundation for all that?

Whitehurst: Well, he’s the foundation for absolutely everything. The physicality is Harrison. He’s in amazing shape. He can just do it. The facial performance is entirely his. We are basically figuring out how to take what Harrison has done and then make that into something that is 1944-era Indiana Jones.

When the film leaps ahead to 1969, Harrison Ford’s tromping around in his boxers, looking closer to his actual age. It’s quite a contrast to his earlier “self.”

Weaver: I think that’s a credit to Harrison’s acting ability. He was able to change performance and spruce himself up for the younger version. We were very fortunate in that regard.

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Circling back to Indiana Jones’ de-aged face, can you elaborate on some of the tools you used to shave 40 years off Harrison Ford’s appearance?  

Weaver: Well, it starts with building a CG asset and capturing his facial performance as it goes through extreme emotions. Artists then do in-between blend-shapes to transition from one [raw footage shot] to the other [CG asset]. That’s the present day. Then we attempt to make a younger version of that.

Whitehurst: What goes along with building that CG asset is heaps and heaps of very talented artists who inject textural qualities and figure out how the face moves in ways that are very idiosyncratic to Indy. Additionally, we have advances in machine learning that help drive the performance level.

Weaver: We got into keyframe animation as well.

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Can you give an example of how machine learning aided the process?

Whitehurst: Machine learning enabled us to do a first pass low-resolution face swap on the dailies so that when [editor] Mike McCusker could cut that [low-res sequence] rather than having to start off the raw photography. Using face-swapped footage, albeit in a rudimentary way, allowed us to get great notes from Jim and Mike.

So the machine learning enabled a sort of rough draft that saves you time?

Whitehurst: I’m not sure if it saves you time. It enables you to make better decisions about the direction you want to go in. The amount of labor involved is enormous, so being able to have conversations during the early edit about performance with something concrete is much better than having to rely on imagination until they see a first pass later on down the line. So machine learning is not a time-saving tool. It’s a helping-us-make-better-choices tool.

You guys spent three years creating visual effects for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. What did you feel when you saw the finished cut?

Weaver: A tremendous sense of pride

Whitehurst: I would second that. It was a privilege to work with such talented people in the service of a film featuring a character we’ve loved for decades, a character who’s inspired such deep passion and fondness. When you say “Indiana Jones,” people’s faces light up — my face lights up — so to be involved in this was an absolute treat.

 

 

 

For more on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, check out these stories:

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” Production Designer Adam Stockhausen on That Thrilling Opening Sequence

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” DP Phedon Papamichael on Capturing That Iconic Indy Look

Featured image: Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s IJ5. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. TM. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

“Godfather of Harlem” Production Designer Patrick Howe on Handling History in Season 3

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The story of gangster Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker) continues to unfold with the third season of Godfather of Harlem, from creators Chris Brancato and Paul Eckstein. This prequel series to Ridley Scott‘s 2007 feature American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, cleverly intertwines a kinetic group of characters in a period crime drama well worth watching.

This season, Bumpy faces no shortage of challenges—the CIA, FBI, and the Italian mob—while uncovering an assassination plot against Malcolm X, charismatically portrayed by Jason Alan Carvell. Tasked with bringing the bygone era of New York to the fold was production designer Patrick Howe (Only Murders in the Building), who sat down with The Credits to share how the series has evolved and what went into recreating Malcolm X’s final hours.

 

When took over production design duties starting in season two, how did you tackle the design process considering the look of the show had been established?  

The workflow approach remained very similar, but I hand-picked a new art department of colleagues I had previously worked with on other projects but who were new to Godfather of Harlem. Fortunately, I was able to retain the same construction and scenic team, both of whom are very strong, and I had a fresh start with a decorator, art director, graphic designers, etcetera. I was able to research the time period and the historic storylines I anticipated would be written during the shutdown, which gave me a jump to our actual start of prep in September 2020.

I imagine a period piece like this requires a daunting amount of research?

All period shows warrant an unending amount of research of the historic characters and their personalities, as well as architectural, interior design, and fashion styles of the time, and researching at least two generations prior. Fortunately, I worked on most of the first season and liked the style and tone in general established by the original designer Dan Leigh. So my adjustments to the returning sets were minimal and subtle touches to further enhance their strengths. Such as; adding more light sources (windows and practical fixtures) and logistical alterations like more camera ports or camera access. With new sets, there were opportunities to continue textures and character color palettes stemming from some original sets as well as establish new ones.

Godfather of Harlem Season 3 Episode 301: The Negro In White America. Courtesy Scott McDermott/MGM+

Season three has Bumpy taking back Harlem from the Italians. In terms of look and feel, how did you want to approach creating separation to their mainstay locations?

Season three presented several exciting opportunities because we were introducing new characters of different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, each with different motivations and goals, some political, others financial or of imperious nature. Therefore, the settings could break out in style, patterns, and colors to support the characters causing a natural separation from the previous hero sets. I am always looking for as much contrast as possible when cutting from one scene to the next to induce more visual interest and impact the pacing.

Godfather of Harlem Season 3 Episode 308: Homeland or Death. Courtesy Scott McDermott/MGM+

Can you talk about what went into detailing Bamonte’s, the iconic New York Italian restaurant?

I think season three has more scenes in Bamonte’s than the other two seasons combined. At this point, it is clearly established as the go-to Italian mob meeting place. A lot of plot development evolves here. Sometimes we luck out and find a location that is very close to the right tone just as it is. Few adjustments were made at this restaurant, as it had all the correct bones for our storytelling. We made a few alterations to help dramatize the story points of these characters in their “working office.” Primarily in artwork, lighting fixtures, tabletop dressing, and furniture editing. The large kitchen in the background only needed steam, cool color temperature lighting, and some cooks to compliment the warm, dim, romantic lighting of the dining area, preserved as a peaceful food temple and harsh deal-making workplace.

Godfather of Harlem Season 3 Episode 301: The Negro In White America. Courtesy Scott McDermott/MGM+
Godfather of Harlem Season 3 Episode 301: The Negro In White America. Courtesy Scott McDermott/MGM+

How has virtual production, if at all, influenced the decisions into your production design on the show?

For Godfather of Harlem, as produced in NYC at this time, virtual production is primarily still a tool of the future. We have discussed the possibilities of introducing elements like LED video walls which could greatly enhance backings outside windows (the Cairo Hotel) or driving scenes in general. But logistically, the traditional tool of green screen meets most of our needs. The use of visual effects continues to grow as the technology develops. This is very helpful to us for building period plate shots, essentially digital matte paintings, as well as effectively helping with the practical use of weapons (gunfire, rocket launchers), explosions, and more.

Shooting a period piece in New York is not easy. When it comes to new locations, what is the early collaboration with the location manager to get it moving in the right direction?

A close and compatible relationship with the location manager is essential, and fortunately, I have that. A lot of teamwork is required to prioritize locations versus stage sets. There are many scripts where a scene could take place in either an actual location or choose to build a set. Period exterior locations in New York are particularly are getting harder and harder to find. The ones we settle on require more and more alterations to eradicate all the modern technologies present in the streetscapes, from internet power kiosks to security cameras, to Wi-Fi antennas, to all modes of transportation, streetlamps, traffic signals, LED signage, the list is almost infinite.

Vincent D’Onofrio and Forest Whitaker. Courtesy Scott McDermott/MGM+.

What about for interiors?

Fortunately, there is more inventory of interior locations to choose from than exterior. The bigger challenge becomes the combination of access to them and their geographic location in relationship to our tight filming schedule. If we strike out in this area, often the default solution is building a set.

Godfather of Harlem Season 3 Episode 301: The Negro In White America. Courtesy MGM+.

The finale of season three was poignant, with truly remarkable storytelling. Can you talk about what went into creating Malcolm X’s (Jason Alan Carvell) final day?

I found it impactful too. The credit goes to creator and showrunner Chris Brancato, and a question more eloquently answered by him. That said, Malcolm X is one of the most complex individuals in recent history. Historians are still peeling back layers to the life and psychology of Malcolm. So much has been shown in film about the life of Malcolm, (we all know how it ends), so it was important to Chris to stylize the details in a way that gave focus to the relationship that our audience had with Malcolm and our other characters.

Jason Alan Carvell is Malcolm X. Courtesy MGM+ Courtesy Scott McDermott/MGM+.

How did production want to approach Malcolm X’s story?

We created a timeline of Malcolm’s last twenty-four hours, showing the interactions with our characters that were closest to his day-to-day life helped heighten the intimacy and importance of their relationships. The Godfather of Harlem story is revealed through its canvas of characters’ relationships with each other. The tensions, conflicts, devotions, passions, and intimacies are the Godfather of Harlem oeuvre.

How did the timeline aid in the set creation?

For the settings for Malcolm’s last twenty-four hours, I was mindful of creating sets that all tied together in a peaceful and calming way. We had established his time was limited. In the story, he was staying in a hotel, having lost the house to a firebombing. I designed this to be an attractive serene setting for him and Betty to visit. Likewise, his office set at the Hotel Theresa I designed was light in tone, cheery, tidy, and an organized workplace, and at the point of this episode, almost empty of volunteers, which helped suggest another sense of respite and retreat quality.

What went into recreating the Audubon Ballroom, the theater where Malcolm was assassinated during his speech?

We chose a location to modify for the Audubon Ballroom that suited our filming size, the number of extras, and an area where I could create the look of the stage background, evidenced by research photos. I developed this in neutral tones and softer textures that saved focus for Malcolm and the cruelty we were about to witness.

Did you aim to modify an existing location for the White House sets too?

Yes, it was the same situation with LBJ’s White House office set, a tranquil, organized space in both decor and lighting that offers a contrast to the chaos at the ballroom. I was seeking the same control and effect with the morgue (and others) as well. I think it worked; all the settings collaged together in the order they appeared, the colorways, tones, and overall mood of each environment, to support the intimacy of our character’s experiences of witnessing Malcolm’s tragic demise.

Godfather of Harlem is available to stream on MGM+.

Featured image: Season 3 Episode 308: “Homeland or Death.” Courtesy MGM+.

 

 

“Fatal Attraction” Production Designer Nina Ruscio on Creating Design With an Edge

Posted on by babrams

The famed 1987 film Fatal Attraction, starring Michael Douglas and Glenn Close, made its way to the small screen with Joshua Jackson and Lizzy Caplan as the unfaithful couple tearing each other’s lives apart. Reinvigorated by Alexandra Cunningham (Physical), the psychological thriller unravels over eight gripping episodes, taking place 15 years after Dan (Jackson) is paroled from prison for the murder of Alex (Caplan). The story dips between the past and present as Dan tries to prove his innocence and reconnect with his family and wife, Beth (Amanda Peet). Its slow burn shares similar erotic tones to the original but weaves in modern commentary on privilege, mental health, and family dynamics.

In creating the visual style, production designer Nina Ruscio (Animal Kingdom, The Flight Attendant) curated a tantalizing look that paired moody tones and contemporary offerings which subliminal subdue you into the story. Here, the production designer talks about what went into detailing the visual flair with show creators, director Silver Tree (ep 1-5), and cinematographer Cort Fey (The Flight Attendant).  

 

For any new series, establishing the look is always the challenge. What were the conversations early on with show creators in creating the palette?

I have had the honor and privilege of working with Silver Tree on three different series, and collaborating with Cort Fey is a joy.  The palette of the series was born from our goal to differentiate the past, 2005, from the present, 2023. We felt it was essential to navigate time subtly with a palette change rather than a cinematically aggressive applied technique. For 2008, we chose a palette inspired by the seventies – golds, greens, chocolates, khakis, creams, and butter yellow, with pops of teal and red sparingly used to heighten emotional beats. Audiences are predisposed to think of these colors as the past. For 2023, we used cooler tones of blue, grey, neutrals, mushroom, and aquas with careful orchestration of pink and yellow to pop visual moments. It was marvelous to have this aesthetic spine to make choices together.

L-r: Joshua Jackson, Amanda Peet, and Lizzy Caplan in “Fatal Attraction.” Courtesy Paramount Plus.

There is the original film’s source material, but the series has its own look. I’m curious if you hinted at any motifs in the series based on the 1987 thriller?

The series stands on its own, and yet, I hope that the design Easter Eggs pay homage to the original film. Alex’s personal space, the loft, is a seminal thread that connects the film and series. Placing her in a downtown loft echoes the film’s original choice of the meat market area of NYC. The seedy hallways and elevator we built resonate in a timeless, noir-like way. Using a blanched palette, 50 shades of white, felt like a tribute and also a metaphor for her psychological state – moving from Seattle to present her life as a world she has under control, a clean slate. By juxtaposition, placing her in a space of romance and escapist fantasy above a downtown Los Angeles movie theater expresses the heartbreak of this character. She tries and always fails to succeed emotionally. Also, I could not resist a clawfoot tub in her bathroom as a subtextual specter of the horror of the original film.  

Did you have a guiding light in how you approached the series?

It felt very important to understand the differences and similarities between Dan and Alex’s lives. Their lives are both at powerful moments of promise. We root for Alex to start fresh in a promising new world for her to grow out and away from the bitter aspects and traps of her past. Dan’s life is on an upswing. As king of the hill, he presumes the judgeship is his. The family is upgrading from a starter home to an idyllic forever home. A few terribly wrong choices set off an avalanche of tragic events that ruins both of their lives.

 

Dan and Beth’s home is this safe haven until it’s not. Was there any thought in changing its look as the story progresses into its darker themes?

The moments of collapse are far more poignant when everything is cloaked in the idealism and perfection of an aspirational life.  Setting Dan, Beth, and Ellen in the beautiful life becomes contrapuntal to what really happens. Even the pool – a playful symbol of the good life – becomes the larger bathtub of horror.

Can you talk about how the design of the courtroom?

Many people don’t know that the courtroom, court hallways, and elevators were all a full build. It’s a sprawling set with a lot of real estate, and we wanted to make it from scratch to control blocking geographies and upgrade the look. It was essential to set Dan within the grandeur and normalcy of the municipal world. The timeless midcentury aesthetic was to feel both universal in its appeal and groundingly common. We created hallways of marble and a frieze throughout all the court corridors embedded with tiles in the palette defining our 2008 world. You’ve been in this world, and it should feel familiar. When Dan risks all—jeopardizing his work, his life, and his family—starting from such a high place intensifies the tragic downward spiral.

Joshua Jackson and Lizzy Caplan in “Fatal Attraction.” Courtesy Paramount Plus.
Joshua Jackson and Lizzy Caplan in “Fatal Attraction.” Courtesy Paramount Plus.

Another set that carries a unique style is the deposition room that opens the pilot. It casts a striking bluish-gray monotone color palette. Was there any intention behind it? 

The color was extremely intentional. It becomes the flagship for the colder palette shift we plant in everyone’s mind for 2023. Dan and his dishonest confession are the most important elements in the room. It is an institutional, municipal world void of the colors and mid-century warmth of the court world we associate with the younger Dan.   

Can you talk about distinguishing the design of Alex’s home from the rest of the series?

I spoke of many of the hyper-real aspects of Alex’s world. She lives in romanticized perfection with a space reflecting her inner state of mind. The backdrop has an amazing view of downtown Los Angeles—the city of dreamers—that sets her in the optimistic future of her life. It would have been the coolest place anyone could live in those affordable days of the resuscitation of this city’s heart. Toggling between noir cinematic romanticism and gritty realism, every choice in that full build was made to evoke in the viewer a sense of place and her psychological state.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6oeYGVB3H0

In the episode Medial Woman (S1E5), Alex and Dan have an intense altercation. During it, the surroundings subliminal immerse further into the moment. How did you DP Julio Macat collaborate to get the most out of that scene?

After Dan’s ultimatum at night, in the light of day, there is a pan that lyrically explores the loft space in a quiet, unsettling way—beginning on the bathtub with the psychic weight of the 1987 film echoing, moving to views of the city of dreams, through the kitchen and bedroom with nothing out of place, and the camera finally rests on the disturbing specter on the steps. No Alex. Design-wise, this moment is the epitome of horror and the disease of the series. One small harrowing stain, a tragically rotten center of uncertainty surrounded by what could have been a great life for everyone.

You’ve worked on a number of films and great television shows. For those entering your field, or even your peers, what’s something you’ve learned to never leave home without?

An inquisitive mind and a willingness to see, really see, everything you are looking at. Every moment of your life is a learning opportunity to enrich the library of your mind. From the seediest of dive bar bathrooms to the glory of the most exquisite cathedral to the experience of how a natural environment makes you feel—all of these are resources for you to draw upon in your future when you are designing.  Life is a constant feast. I want all the authenticity, details, oddities, beauties, and uglies at my mind’s disposal at all times. To set anything in place, into a world that visually evokes what is happening for the characters and the story, is my unique privilege as a production designer.

Fatal Attraction is available to stream on Paramount+.

For more films and series from Paramount and Paramount+, check out these stories:

New “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Images Include Closer Look at Tom Cruise’s Craziest Stunt

Why Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Motorcycle Stunt Was Filmed Day One

“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” Director Steven Caple Jr. on Getting Gritty With It

Featured image: Joshua Jackson and Lizzy Caplan in “Fatal Attraction.” Courtesy Paramount Plus.

“Beef” Production Designer Grace Yun on Mixing Real & Surreal Into a Simmering Style

Posted on by babrams

Beef creator Lee Sung Jin (Dave, Undone), who goes by Sonny Lee, reached out to production designer Grace Yun (Past Lives, Ramy, Hereditary) to share his vision of the series that pins Danny Cho (Steven Yeun), a failing contractor, and Amy Lau (Ali Wong), a self-made entrepreneur, against one other following a heated parking lot altercation. “I was impressed from the start, and our exchange felt really fun and effortless,” Yun shares with The Credits.

The dark comedy unravels through ten episodes and asks the question: How far are you willing to go to ruin the life of a complete stranger? For Danny and Amy, there are no limits. In conjuring the visual style of the Netflix show, Yun was inspired by the duality of characters, drawing from their inner struggles and public personalities, a motif costume designer Helen Huang pulled from as well.

Below, Yun shares how each of their character attributes played into designing the homes of Danny and Amy.

The material of Beef is deliciously chaotic yet also beautiful in its own way. Was there anything you and Sonny referenced in terms of creating the overall visual style?

Sonny sent me his “holy grail” formula: Thirty-five percent Sopranos/Paul Thomas Anderson flawed character comedy, plus thirty-five percent Netflix binge-ability/White Lotus water cooler moments, plus thirty percent Ingmar Bergman/Hirokazu Koreeda warm melancholic pathos.

Fantastic.

I thought it was highly ambitious but wanted to help go for it! Visually, we wanted to ground the story in a world that felt real and believable but with moments that veered surreal as the narrative progressed. It was also important for the world to feel like Los Angeles. We shot the majority of the show in LA locations, but Danny’s apartment and Amy’s house were stage builds. Cinematographer Larkin Seiple and I worked together to create a parched, sunbaked color palette to reference the unrelenting Los Angeles sun.

Beef. Ali Wong as Amy in episode 101 of Beef. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2023

Was there anything else you and Larkin Seiple discussed to guide the visual style?

Beyond our sun-baked look, we talked pretty much every day about upcoming scenes, especially if we were planning to do something extra for a tonal shift. Episode ten was a fun experience, it was the last week of shooting almost all exteriors in a park, and the challenge was to hide all the walking paths and signage with overgrown greens at a moment’s notice. We had to work closely together to create those compositions that hopefully don’t read like a public park.

Beef. (L to R) Steven Yeun as Danny, Ali Wong as Amy in episode 110 of Beef. Cr. Andrew Cooper/Netflix © 2023

Amy’s home has a Le Corbusier vibe to it. Modern, bespoke with a monochrome palette. Was there a driving force behind its look that connected it to her character?

Sonny described Amy as someone who works incredibly hard for her ambitions but at the cost of being honestly herself. So we wanted her home to represent the great effort she puts into her presentational side, yet still have the darker mood of her inner self. Her curated aesthetic needed to touch almost every element in her home and Koyohaus [her business]. We talked about her house being a cage of her own making, so we leaned into that motif with the floor plan, wood slats, and concrete-colored walls. Another important feature was restricting views of the sky. 

Beef. (L to R) Ali Wong as Amy, Joseph Lee as George in episode 103 of Beef. Cr. Andrew Cooper/Netflix © 2023

On the flip side, Amy’s workplace has its unique feel. How did you want to separate her business from her home life through design?

Koyohaus is all about Amy being successful in business, so we wanted it to feel brighter and more vibrant than her home space. The light wood motif is there but in a grid wall pattern with pink desert images on a white wall backdrop. The design approached Koyohaus as Amy’s version of a gallery space for plants. She’s drawing from the trend of taking care of plants as if they are beloved pets. The setup she has is trying to sell a millennial minimalist bespoke lifestyle; each plant is like a unique sculpture in a wabi-sabi pot of the client’s choosing (within 4 colors and 4 shapes). Accessories like hand-woven brooms and blown glass bottles with plant nutrient elixirs add to the aesthetic lifestyle branding. 

Beef. Ali Wong as Amy in episode 101 of Beef. Cr. Andrew Cooper/Netflix © 2023

Danny’s apartment he shares with his brother Paul (Young Mazino) has such a stripped-down, lived-in vibe. Did Sonny have any specific thoughts about the appearance?

Sonny reminisced that Danny’s apartment felt like his first apartment in Los Angeles, and that became the early inspiration. From here, there were many layers we wanted to convey in terms of mood and lifestyle. We wanted the apartment to look like Danny’s DIY attempt to convert the space into a two-bedroom but with an unfinished look to represent his lack of motivation to complete his goals. Other layers hope to show his resourceful mentality of saving construction supplies, sentimentality like the Korean folding table and older mismatched furniture that give it a collected, frugal feel. It’s been a while since he had enough to spend on new furnishings.

Beef. (L to R) Steven Yeun as Danny, Young Mazino as Paul in episode 106 of Beef. Cr. Andrew Cooper/Netflix © 2023

When establishing the look of a television series versus a film, are there different things you have to consider from the start?

Mostly it’s in how we prep. TV is usually a much shorter prep time, juggling many episode timelines in one shooting block, and often we don’t have all the scripts written. So you have to stay adaptable and ready to pivot at any moment. Creatively, I find having strong themes and concepts that carry through the entire season is helpful to keep the look in bounds. 

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

“The Perfect Find” Director Numa Perrier on Creating Space For Romance With Gabrielle Union

“Extraction 2” Review Round-Up: Chris Hemsworth-led Action Film Punches Even Harder in Sequel

“Arnold” DP Logan Schneider on Shooting Schwarzenegger

Featured image: Beef. (L to R) Ali Wong as Amy, Steven Yeun as Danny in episode 110 of Beef. Cr. Andrew Cooper/Netflix © 2023

 

 

How “Stranger Things” Editor Dean Zimmerman Cut Eddie’s Epic Guitar Solo & That Wild Season 4 Finale

Posted on by babrams

“Divide and conquer while keeping our heads above water was how we approached episode nine,” says editor Dean Zimmerman, who has been on the juggernaut Netflix series Stranger Things since the beginning. Season four sees its beloved characters continue their fight against Vecna, a mind-controlling arch-villain wreaking havoc on the town of Hawkins.

It was the biggest, boldest season of the series yet, and Zimmerman was a key component in keeping the epic finale as tight as a snare drum. Zimmerman, along with editors Katherine Naranjo and Casey Cichocki, took on the challenge of putting together the harrowing finale that clocks in at over two hours, the longest episode of Stranger Things to date.

Zimmerman tells The Credits it was “a massive team effort,” and for him, a “once in a lifetime experience.” “This show has been such an incredible part of my career, and I am so grateful that I get to be a small part of it.”

Here, the editor details what went into creating the epic finale.

The Season 4 finale is essentially a feature-length film. How did the editing team start tackling the challenge?

“The Piggyback” was a very daunting script. I attacked it with the help of Katherine Naranjo and Casey Cichocki, who helped edit that episode. Because of how we had to shoot it, we were cutting as the scenes came in. Once we had it all built, we went back through and did our tightening passes, making sure the pace, story, and character arcs were as they needed to be. We were also very pressed to get the visual effects underway first, so all the moments that required digital work were the first ones we attacked, purely based on delivering the episode on time. It definitely was one of our biggest challenges in the series, but the end result was very rewarding and a huge success.

Speaking of VFX, the episode has around 1200 shots. When you’re waiting for finished effects, how do you approach the emotional beats and arc of the story?

You hit the nail on the head. Without the previs/temps and the help of our amazing visual effects team, we wouldn’t have been able to shape our characters’ performances the way we needed to. Working hand-in-hand with all departments – visual effects, music, and sound – is vital in being able to deliver the quality the Duffer Brothers require and what audiences deserve. Without the team that we surrounded ourselves with, we would’ve never made the incredibly ambitious schedule we were under.

One plot point is the salt bath sequence where Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) can travel into memories. What was the approach to make those moments clear?

The Duffers write such incredible scripts that laid the foundation for the story to unfold and be understood even in an inception moment. I think the scene that truly highlights how amazing they are at storytelling because it doesn’t feel like exposition when they’re at the gas station. Eleven explains how she’s going to go into the sensory deprivation tank and piggyback on a memory by drawing it out for the guys on the dirty car window…that was such a brilliant way of explaining it to the audience, and, it was completely character appropriate.

STRANGER THINGS. (L to R) Charile Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Eduardo Franco as Argye, and Noah Schnapp as Will Byers in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

As the episode continues, our heroes work together to help take down Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). One of those moments is when Eddie (Joseph Quinn) delivers an epic guitar solo to Metallica’s Master of Puppets. Can you talk about its creation?

This is one of my favorite questions to answer because it’s one of the most gratifying sequences I’ve ever had the privilege to work on. Growing up, listening to Metallica as a young man, Master of Puppets was always a staple. Being able to cut a music video within the body of Stranger Things was a dream come true. The dream quickly turned into one of the most challenging obsessions of my career. Musicals are always a bit of an editing challenge with the choreography, hitting certain moments within the song, balancing the pace, and determining the sustainability of a particular act.

How’d you pull it off?

The way the Duffers wrote Metallica into Stranger Things had very specific beats to hit not only from a song perspective but from a story as well. Putting together a sequence of that magnitude with computer-generated characters, such as our demo bats, became particularly challenging from the visual effect side because they had to work within a box that I determined based on nothing. They would be given the length of a shot and asked to fit animation within that length. The determining factor of that was me pretending I was a bat flying from a rooftop overhead in my mind as I edited to determine the length.  

What had to be done sonically to make the guitar scene work?

The integration of sound music and visual effects had to be in perfect harmony for that sequence to turn out the way it did. Relying on our music editor Dave Klotz, who masterfully helped push and pull the music in directions that were needed to hit specific story bits that were scripted. The visual effects team had to work within parameters that were framed accurately and locked to specific beats, which was not only one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever faced but also the most gratifying when we completely nailed it.

How long did that take?

That sequence was put together over several days and then finalized several months later once we received all the visual effects. That monumental feat was achieved by the perfect unison of all of us working towards making the most epic rock video ever to be put on screen, in my humble opinion. 

Another part of the story was the simmering connection between Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Steve (Joe Keery).  What types of performances are you looking for to bring those moments to screen? 

Everything I cut is based purely on grounded performance. I truly believe when you can cut a performance that is organic and grounded, you can tap into an audience’s emotions. Steve and Nancy have always been one of my favorite duets to cut because of the tension between them both. They make such an amazing couple, and to never have that intersection cross in these past seasons – I feel it has only made their friendship stronger. The little moments of emotional reconnection surrounded by complete chaos are one of their unique superpowers. As a fan, first and foremost, of Stranger Things, I’m excited to see what the result will be for this particular storyline.

 

Jim Hopper (David Harbour) has a fantastic hero moment facing a Demogorgon. How did you want to approach that larger-than-life sequence?

That Braveheart moment of Hopper yielding that sword and taking down the Demogorgon was scripted from the start. What we did in the edit was much more inner cutting between the rest of the battles that were going on. Hopper is the patriarch of Stranger Things, and nothing is more deserving than giving him a four-foot sword and having him decapitate the enemy. Would you want it any other way?

STRANGER THINGS. David Harbour as Jim Hopper in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

During the climactic fight between Vecna and Eleven, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) saves Eleven by confessing his love to her. How did you want to approach the two sides of that fight?

The way we approached Mike and Eleven always comes from a place of hopeless romanticism. Everyone wants to be loved and needs to be loved, and we all have that burning desire to hear it and have it expressed. We wanted both to feel such desperation that they’re forced to say the things that are sometimes very difficult for people to say. That’s how we approached Mike and Eleven’s performances.

STRANGER THINGS. (L to R) Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven and Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

It’s very moving. 

I’ve always been known to wear my heart on my sleeve, and with performance-driven drama, I tend to flex that muscle more than most people would. For me, being a hopeless romantic myself, I wanted both of them to feel the same anguish and strength when things are bad, and you need encouragement. For me, a simple three words can give you the ability to move mountains. That’s how I approached the scene. Mike saying, “I love you,” reminded Eleven that she has the strength to move mountains. 

Stranger Things is available to stream on Netflix.

 

For more on Stranger Things, check out these stories:

“Stranger Things 4”: Watch Jamie Campbell Bower Become Vecna

“Tentacles Squelching Wetly”: Meet the “Stranger Things 4” Subtitle Writers

“Stranger Things 4” Music Editor Lena Glikson on Cutting Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”

 

Featured image: STRANGER THINGS. (L to R) Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven and Jamie Campbell Bower as Vecna in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2022

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” DP Phedon Papamichael on Capturing That Iconic Indy Look

Posted on by babrams

Days before the theatrical release of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, its director James Mangold and cinematographer Phedon Papamichael watched the final version of the film with original franchise helmer Steven Spielberg and his long-time cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who lensed Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Afterward, there was nothing but praise. “Hearing how great it was from them and them being generous about it was a really good feeling,” says Papamichael during a phone call with The Credits.  

Dial of Destiny is Harrison Ford’s final go as the adventure-seeking archeologist first introduced to us in 1981 with Raiders of the Lost Ark. What became so likable about Indy in Raiders and the eventual sequels is that he wasn’t simply a pure action star. He’s humorous, sensitive, vulnerable, charming, funny, and very quotable. This last chapter gives audiences everything we know and love about Indy but with a little more salt and pepper in the iconic character’s hair.

The story picks up in the late 1960s during America’s moon landing. Indy is nearing retirement from his teaching gig at New York’s Hunter College when his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) drops in for a visit. Not for a cup of tea, mind you, but to steal a precious time-altering artifact he has in his possession – Archimedes’ Dial. There’s just one problem. Former Nazi Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) also wants it—really, really badly. And, as a Nazi is wont to do, will stop at nothing to get it. Cue the adventure!

 

For the globe-trotting saga, Papamichael says they strived for a familiar visual tone. “We wanted to connect with the tradition and the historic aspect of the franchise, which is a challenge, of course,” he says. “For me, it was about not applying what I normally do, which is thinking about natural light and not trying to stylize things. But to embrace more atmospheric smoke, backlights, beams of light, hard light, shadows, colors, patterns… saturation. All that was fun to do.”

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Papamichael drew inspiration from cinematographer Douglas Slocombe who preceded him on Raiders, Temple of Doom (1984), and The Last Crusade (1989), looking for opportunities to create the iconic silhouettes, dark shadows, and highlights on character’s faces. “Jim and I always loved Steven’s work, so it wasn’t a big stretch for us to continue this style of filmmaking,” he adds.

 

The opening sequence, which serves as the setup for how Indy became in possession of the dial, is a shining example. Here, we see a younger Indian Jones at the end of World War II, attempting to rescue his friend Basil (Toby Jones) aboard a speeding train filled with Nazis. It’s a classic Indy action scene, one that’s pulled off using a digitally de-aged Harrison Ford – a technique that scans images of the actor from every Lucasfilm to reproduce the younger Indy. The suspenseful affair has Jones face-to-face with Voller for the first time, and the two fight over the mysterious artifact. “We very much wanted it to feel like lost footage. Like something Spielberg shot on Raiders that didn’t make the cut,” Papamichael admits.  

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s IJ5. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
(L-R): Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), Doctor Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) and Basil (Toby Jones) in Lucasfilm’s IJ5. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

The action in Dial of Destiny doesn’t stop. We’re either running, on trains, on horseback, going underwater, on planes, or zipping through the streets on a tuk-tuk. “Although people are on the move, it’s always about connecting with the characters,” notes Papamichael. “Jim is very focused on what the characters are feeling and what they are experiencing. That’s what’s making all the action really emotional and effective.”

(L-R): Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

It was important for the cinematographer to capture character moments in the spirit of an Indian Jones adventure. “Hopefully, the audience will embrace the movie. Everyone will have their own way of thinking about what this last installment should be, but it’s an Indy movie. You should have fun with it. I think we captured some great Harrison Ford moments, and the villains are great. I think we continued the tradition with great pride.” Or, to quote Indy: “Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.”

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is in theaters now.

Featured image: Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

 

Mission: Must Watchable – 10 of the Biggest Remaining Summer Films

Posted on by babrams

Now that June has given way to July, it is clear that summer is finally upon us. The sun is shining, bright, hot, and heavy. Birds are singing. Bees are buzzing. Dads around the country are grilling hot dogs for late-evening barbecues. And last but not least, the slate of this season’s upcoming films has given viewers much to look forward to.  

For movie lovers wishing to avoid the summer heat — either by hiding away in a theater for a few hours or by simply streaming at home — be sure to tune in to the films listed below. From original horror flicks to reimagining familiar characters, these ten films are sure to keep you occupied until autumn comes back around. 

 

Insidious: The Red Door   

 

Release date: July 7 

Directed by: Patrick Wilson (making his directorial debut). 

Starring: Ty Simpkins, Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye. 

Quick Peek: Horror fanatics and lovers of things Insidious will get their kicks with the final chapter of the popular franchise. The film follows the Lamberts ten years after the last installment, where Dalton is now heading off to college. Unfortunately for the young undergraduate, the dark forces that once plagued his family emerge again, forcing the group to face the evils of their past once and for all. 

Where to watch: In theaters. 

 

Joy Ride 

 

Release date: July 7 

Directed by: Adele Lim (making her feature directorial debut). 

Starring: Ashley Park, Stephanie Hsu, Sherry Cola, and Sabrina Wu. 

Quick Peek: High energy, undoubtedly explicit, and truly hilarious, Joy Ride is an epic of identity and chaos. Four Asian-American friends — Audrey, Lolo, Kat, and Deadeye — journey through Asia to find one of their birth mothers, as well as themselves, along the way. 

Where to watch: In theaters. 

 

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One 

 

Release date: July 10 

Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie. 

Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Kirby. 

Quick Peek: As with all Mission: Impossible films, this film promises action, adventure, and Tom Cruise doing ludicrously dangerous stunts. The film brings back Ethan Hunt and the IMF team as they attempt to complete their most thrilling mission yet — tracking down an incredibly dangerous artificial intelligence-based weapon before it falls into the wrong hands. 

Where to watch: In theaters. 

 

Theater Camp 

 

Release date: July 14 

Directed by: Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman (making their directorial debuts). 

Starring: Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, Ayo Edibiri. 

Quick Peek: Hamilton-vinyl buyers, Glee re-watchers, and former theater kids of any creed — this novel mockumentary is calling your names. This film follows the eccentric — and sometimes insufferable — staff of a theater camp in upstate New York as they are forced to come together when their beloved founder falls into a coma. 

Where to watch: In theaters. 

 

Barbie 

 

Release date: July 21 

Directed by: Greta Gerwig. 

Starring: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, Emma Mackey. 

Quick Peek: Barbie isn’t just a doll—she’s also a flawed and curious woman, as director Greta Gerwig reveals in her latest film. This highly anticipated movie has Barbie and Ken living their perfect, pink lives in Barbie Land — until they get a chance to peer into the real world. While being around actual people, they must contemplate the triumphs, perils, and often harrowing truths of human life. Oh, and Barbie gets arrested.  

Where to watch: In theaters. 

 

Oppenheimer 

 

Release date: July 21 

Directed by: Christopher Nolan. 

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon. 

Quick Peek: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” This quote from the Bhavad-Gita was thought of by the real J. Robert Oppenheimer after witnessing the Trinity Test, the first-ever detonation of a nuclear weapon, one which he helped create. Oppenheimer tells the story of the titular physicist and his leading role in the Manhattan Project — as well as the inner turmoil he faced throughout the process. 

Where to watch: In theaters. 

 

Talk to Me 

 

Release date: July 28 

Directed by: Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou (making their feature directorial debuts). 

Starring: Sophie Wilde, Joe Bird, Alexandra Jensen, Otis Dhanji, Miranda Otto. 

Quick Peek: Horror is blossoming this summer, as this buzzy, original A24 flick proves that you don’t have to wait until it’s dark and dreary outside to drop some seriously disturbed stories. Talk to Me follows a group of friends who learn how to conjure spirits with the help of an embalmed hand and soon get hooked on the thrill and possibilities of this power. However, things turn sour when one of them unleashes terrifying supernatural forces that nobody can control. 

Where to watch: In theaters. 

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 

 

Release date: August 2 

Directed by: Jeff Rowe (in his feature directorial debut) and Kyler Spears. 

Starring: Seth Rogen, Jackie Chan, Ayo Edebiri, Nicholas Cantu. 

Quick Peek: If Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse wasn’t enough to satisfy your animation fix, then tune into this exciting, gritty take on every kid’s favorite sewer turtles. This time, the gang wants to be accepted as normal teens in New York, but a criminal syndicate and an army of mutants may force the group to take on different plans.   

Where to watch: In theaters. 

Blue Beetle 

 

Release date: August 18 

Directed by: Angel Manuel Soto. 

Starring: Xolo Maridueña, Bruna Marquezine, George Lopez, Raoul Trujillo. 

Quick Peek: The perpetual superhero craze is always moving between Marvel to the DC Universe (now the domain of James Gunn and Peter Safran), and Blue Beetle is the second-to-last film from the previous DC Studios brain trust (the other is Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom), and focuses on the story of Jaime Reyes, a teenager who is chosen by an alien relic called the Scarab to be its new host, leading him to extraordinary yet uncertain powers.  

Where to watch: In theaters. 

 

Bottoms 

 

Release date: August 25 

Directed by: Emma Seligman. 

Starring: Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edibiri, Havana Rose Liu, Marshawn Lynch. 

 Quick Peek: Irreverent humor is always welcome, especially in the dog days of summer. So are stories about unpopular teens trying to make the most of high school before graduation. So are queer stories. All this — and more — make up Bottoms. The film follows two queer social outcasts who create a “fight club” to lose their virginities before school is out, but things go awry when all the most popular girls in school start beating people up in self-defense. 

Where to watch: In theaters. 

Featured image: L-r: Caption: MARGOT ROBBIE as Barbie in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “BARBIE,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures; “Oppenheimer” movie poster. Courtesy Universal Pictures.

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” Production Designer Adam Stockhausen on That Thrilling Opening Sequence

Posted on by babrams

“There is a lot to draw from, but there’s also a very high bar in terms of how visually exciting these films have been,” says production designer Adam Stockhausen (The Grand Budapest Hotel) of the Indiana Jones franchise.

The four previous films – Raider of the Lost Ark (1981), Temple of Doom (1984), Last Crusade (1989), and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) – were all helmed by Steven Spielberg, but for Dial of Destiny, which is the final chapter for Harrison Ford as the rugged, snake-fearing, Nazi-hating archeologist, director James Mangold (Ford v Ferrari, Logan) blends a visual style that acknowledges the existing material while layering a nuanced look for this latest continent-skipping thrill ride.  

It’s 1969, and Indiana Jones (Ford) is on the verge of retirement from teaching at New York’s Hunter College until an unexpected visit from his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) upends his plans for packing it. Helena is in search of a mysterious dial her father, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), obsesses over. Still in possession of it, Helena steals it from Indy, and the two become intertwined when an old Nazi foe, Dr. Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), wants it for his own evildoing. 

To set up the sought-after artifact, in this case, Archimedes’ Dial, which may have the power to turn back time, the film opens with a suspenseful, action-packed prologue akin to Indy’s hunt for the Golden Idol in Raiders. The scene picks up in 1944, near the end of WWII, with Nazi scum loading a train with antiquities. It’s here a 37-year-old Indy attempts to rescue his captured friend Basil aboard a moving train and, in doing so, becomes in possession of the mysterious dial.

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm's IJ5. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s IJ5. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

Stockhausen was tasked with turning back the clock and, through reference material, designed a locomotive inspired by Hitler’s personal wartime train, the Führersonderzug. “What Hitler had didn’t look exactly like ours,” he says. “We borrowed from all over the place, but the basic starting point came from the real thing.”

To pull off the sequence that sees Indy elude Nazi soldiers in order to save Basil, Stockhausen designed multiple train cars to shoot on stage at Pinewood Studios in the UK. Custom cars were built for the front commander’s office, the treasure carriage holding the stash of artifacts, and a cafeteria car where Indy cleverly dresses like a Nazi soldier in order to blend in. Interiors had wood paneling, period fixtures, and the creamy colors of the era. “Martin Foley, our supervising art director, and the whole team did such an amazing job drawing, painting, building, and dressing each one. They were all jewel boxes,” says Stockhausen.

Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s IJ5. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

With such tight quarters, Stockhausen collaborated closely with cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (Ford v Ferrari) to spark a moody tone. “There are a ton of practicals embedded throughout lighting the train,” says Stockhausen. “We never took the roof off to light through.” The challenge in placing the fixtures was twofold. There had to be enough to provide a certain level of light but not too much to overexpose the colors of the walls and ceiling. “We did our first go at it, and we had to paint them again darker for the sake of getting the right balance of light,” he notes.

 

For the exterior work, the train starts its trek at a railway station nearby a castle which Stockhausen combined two different locations: England’s Bamburgh Castle and North Yorkshire Moors Railway station. The interiors of the medieval castle were beautifully dressed by set decorator Anna Pinnock (Tenet) to recreate the time period, while visual effects supervisor Andrew Whitehurst (Ex Machina) and the VFX team stepped in for when the train is in motion and when Indy comes face to face with Voller atop the speeding train.

(L-R): Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), Doctor Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) and Basil (Toby Jones) in Lucasfilm’s IJ5. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
(Clockwise from right): Colonel Weber (Thomas Kretschmann) and Doctor Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) in Lucasfilm’s IJ5. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

In finding the exterior locations, Stockhausen looked to a new scouting technique during the peak isolation period of the pandemic. “Normally, you would hop on a plane and go look at all these places, but we weren’t able to do that,” he says. “There was an innovative remote scouting system that we used where we were able to have someone with a camera walk around places and send a high-quality broadcast to Jim [Mangold] in Los Angeles and me in New York. We were able to discuss the locations live while we were looking at them. That’s how we chose the castle, but then, of course, when we could, we went there and made sure we liked it. The technique was especially good for this film. Lockdown aside, Indy travels the world, and this was a really good way to check things out.”

(L-R): Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and Teddy (Ethann Isidore) in Lucasfilm’s INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

In creating the opening train sequence, Stockhausen says they wanted to capture the magic of an Indiana Jones adventure. “I am answering a little bit for Jim, but I know he’ll say from a story point of view, from a filmmaking point of view, and certainly from a design point of view, we were definitely trying to acknowledge the legacy and history of the existing material and films.”

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is in theaters now.

 

For more on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, check out these stories:

New “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” Teaser & Photos Hype Harrison Ford’s Final Indy Adventure

Many of the Best Stunts in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” Are Practical

Featured image: Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm’s IJ5. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

“Extraction 2” Director Sam Hargrave on Lighting Chris Hemsworth on Fire, That Helicopter Scene & More

Posted on by babrams

Extraction 2 is one of the most relentlessly action-packed movies of the summer, with the excitement of an 80s action epic paired with explosive, cutting-edge stunts that rival the thrills of Mission: Impossible and John Wick. In the second installment of the smash hit Netflix franchise, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is back from the brink of death and lets his emotions lead him into another dangerous covert operation. The movie’s immersive style and never previously attempted stunts were led by director Sam Hargrave once again. Somehow, Hargrave upped his game from the first film.

In the first act alone, Hemsworth takes on a prison yard of attackers, catches fire, and keeps fighting. The actor was game to do the sequence as a practical effect rather than CGI. “I will take that as part of my legacy. The person who lit Chris Hemsworth on fire,” Hargrave said. He added with a laugh, “The first person to light him on fire.”

The eye-catching moment happens during a large-scale fight early in the film. Both the feat itself and the cinematic effect of the scene draw viewers in.

Extraction 2. Chris Hemsworth as Tyler Rake in Extraction 2. Cr. Jasin Boland/Netflix © 2023

“I wanted to mix elements together on camera. It’s snowing, it’s nighttime, and then the contrast to that to get people excited, I thought, light him on fire,” Hargrave said. “CGI fires wouldn’t have the same reality. There are great companies that do some great work, and there are times that it would be really good, but for this, we needed it to be practical to work. Yeah, so—we lit him on fire. Now he can go down in the history of the action genre as an actor who lit himself on fire.”

Extraction 2. Chris Hemsworth as Tyler Rake in Extraction 2. Cr. Jasin Boland/Netflix © 2023

The camera plunges audiences into a hostile Georgian prison for a first-person view of Rake helping a young mother and her two children escape. The rescue attempts – or extractions – are a signature of the franchise. They’re also more graphic in a hard R-rated style. As Tyler Rake fights his way through the prison to secure the safety of his two new charges, anyone who gets in his way is treated much the same way a mama bear treats someone who attempts to get between her and her cubs. 

The race to safety unfolds in a seemingly continuous shot, which makes for peak exhilaration. “We designed the oner to be experienced as one shot, to provide an intense, immersive experience for the audience. For logistical and technical reasons, we chose not to actually do the sequence in one shot but rather hide seamless edits at certain points to allow us to focus our energy and resources on the many challenging segments and then edit them together to appear like one continuous shot,” Hargrave revealed.

The stakes escalate as the foot race gives way to a car chase. The camera swoops between vehicles for a thrilling and dangerous feel. The cuts are truly invisible, but they were necessary for logistics, Hargrave said. Shots are firing, cars are crashing, and actors are delivering dialogue. All that has to be seen and heard clearly.

“For the car chase portion specifically, we used a variety of different methods to achieve the dynamic shots I wanted,” he explained. “We used handheld cameras on the front and back of a UTV, the operator – often me – strapped in for safety. We would pass cameras from one operator to another through the windows of cars. We used a tool we termed ‘The Magic Scepter,’ which was a small, RED Monstro camera on a stabilized head, attached to the end of a carbon fiber pole with a remote operator responsible for pan and tilt of the camera, giving us the hand-held feel that we wanted to maintain for the sequence. It was pretty awesome. It allowed us to get the camera into places a traditional camera car arm could not go, especially weaving in and out of the trees in the dense forest location.”

EXTRACTION 2: Director Sam Hargrave on the set of Extraction 2. Cr. Jasin Boland/Netflix © 2023

The most unbelievable and daring moment is so impressive that it doesn’t even look physically possible. In fact, the stunt team wasn’t sure that it was, but they were willing to try. Helicopter pilot Fred North, who Hargrave said is ‘probably the best pilot in the world,’ was eager to push the bounds of the craft with something new and unscripted.

“It was Fred’s idea to land the chopper on the moving train,” Hargrave credited. “In the script, the helicopter was meant to hover over the train and the bad guys ‘fast rope’ down onto the roof of the train. Still, a tricky thing to do. But when Fred came in to talk about that sequence, he pitched me the idea of landing the chopper on the train instead. I looked at him, eyes wide, and said, ‘Can you do that?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I can, and how awesome would that be?!’ He was absolutely right. It was totally awesome!”

Hargrave had a front-row view of the once-in-a-lifetime event. “To capture that shot, I was operating the camera and had to walk right past the chopper as it landed on the train. I was 4 feet away from the body of the chopper as it landed. I could have reached out and hi-fived Fred as he landed, which I totally wanted to do. It was such an awesome shot. We saved the hi-fives for after we were safely back at base camp.”

Impressing Hargrave with a novel stunt would be a challenge. Before making his feature film directorial debut with Extraction, he sharpened his action skills as an award-winning stuntman, stunt coordinator, second unit director, and actor. Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War, and Atomic Blonde all appear on his lengthy resume.

“From a stunt perspective, there’s a unique understanding of action,” Hargrave said of ascending to the directors’ chair. “Just being on a film crew, you have exposure. I think it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert. The more you do it, the more you’re around it, the more you become an expert in that field.”

The influence of action and stunts in cinema is profound. Hargrave noted that it even appears in our everyday lexicon. “We say ‘cut to the chase.’ Get to why we’re here. Get to the part people came to see, which is the action. Stunts are vital to this art form.”

Vital and historic. Action sequences pre-date talking pictures. Yet, the contributions that stunts make to film are often appreciated more at the box office than during award season.

“Action in movies has a long legacy that started way back before sound was recorded. People were doing action to entertain audiences,” Hargrave explained. “Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Douglas Fairbanks. It’s really wild when you think about it, not to wax political, but the Oscar category. To have a facet of the filmmaking process — action or stunts — not be recognized when it’s older than sound and also digital effects, which has a category. It’s wild to have something so vital to the storytelling process and integral to cinema, and to have it not be recognized is quite interesting. The percentages of films in theaters or even on streaming services that have action in them, whether or not it’s all-around action, that’s what brings people to the film.”

For all the incredible set pieces in Extraction 2, Tyler Rake is driven by his emotions. There are some tear-jerking moments between the punches and firefights. In the end, Hargrave just wanted to make a great movie.

“I think that action is really only as good as the connection you have to the characters,” he said. “The more story and the more heart, you’re learning something about the characters through the action. I really started when I was younger, I was interested in film as an art form, and even before I went to film school, I was making short little videos with my friends. It was that overall desire to create a story for people. It took a lot to get there and go through the stunt world, but that was always the goal.”

Now in a professional capacity, Hargrave still credits his entire team for his successes. “Filmmaking is the most elaborate art form that I know of. You’re working with so many people. It takes so many creative minds to make something like this viable.”

 

Extraction 2 is now streaming on Netflix.

 

 

For more on big titles on Netflix, check these out:

“The Perfect Find” Director Numa Perrier on Creating Space For Romance With Gabrielle Union

“Extraction 2” Review Round-Up: Chris Hemsworth-led Action Film Punches Even Harder in Sequel

“Arnold” DP Logan Schneider on Shooting Schwarzenegger

Featured image: Extraction 2. Chris Hemsworth as Tyler Rake in Extraction 2. Cr. Jasin Boland/Netflix © 2023

 

Provincetown International Film Festival Honors the Great Billy Porter

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The irrepressible Billy Porter, actor, singer, and style maven, fit in perfectly with the quirky but sophisticated vibe of the Provincetown International Film Festival, which celebrated its 25th year June 14-18.

The Emmy, Tony, and Grammy award winner was this year’s Excellence in Acting Honoree at PIFF. Audiences also got an early look at his latest film, director Bill Oliver’s indie drama Our Son. Porter and Luke Evans portray husbands going through a divorce and fighting over the custody of their 8-year-old son.

To accept his award and engage in a conversation with author and film scholar B. Ruby Rich, Porter strode onto the stage at Town Hall wearing a long white linen tunic over black pants and adorned with chunky jewelry.

“I’ve always been a fashion person, always loved pushing the envelope,” Porter told the crowd. “I observed in this business what worked and what didn’t for people. Women get to play with looks and fashion and switch things up; men have to show up one way, or people question their masculinity which affects their paycheck. I took myself out of the masculinity game around 2005; it was not working for me. I thought, ‘I’ll never be masculine enough, so I’m going to the lane that is unoccupied and waiting until the world is ready.’”

L-r: Ruby Rich and Billy Porter. Courtesy Provincetown Film Festival.

Porter first grabbed attention as a Tony Award winner for the Broadway musical Kinky Boots. But his popular culture breakthrough came with his performance as Pray Tell in the FX series Pose, which earned him an Emmy in 2019. Porter recently appeared alongside Camila Cabello in director Kay Cannon’s Cinderella remake, playing the fairy Godmother. He’s also featured in the year’s hit comedy 80 For Brady.

 

Porter cited three disparate films that were major influences on him growing up in Pittsburgh: Spike Lee’s School Daze; Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple; and Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet.

“I saw School Daze while I was in high school, and I’d never seen anything like it before. I was mesmerized. And it was a musical, low key but for real,” said Porter. “The Color Purple is Out of Africa for Black people. It’s epic even though it is trauma porn — Alice Walker, no shade — but what Spielberg was able to do was honor the history of the people. I love Baz Luhrmann! As a musical theater person, as a flamboyant person, he moves me with his unapologetic flamboyance. I trained [at Carnegie Mellon University] in the classics in the 1980s …. but what I love about Romeo + Juliet is it cracks open that classic text and puts it in a contemporary world so everyone on the planet could understand it.”

Porter traced his origins as an entertainer, now an Oscar away from EGOT status, to singing as a five-year-old in the church. He acknowledged his immediate and extended family for putting him on a path to success in show business. “I am grateful for the angels in my life early on who swept in and showed me different perspectives. Often, for Black underprivileged kids, it’s sports, but for me, it was the arts. They put me on the right road and taught me how to dream beyond my circumstance,” he said.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 25: Actor Billy Porter participates in the annual Pride March on June 25, 2023 in New York City. Heritage of Pride organizes the event and supports equal rights for diverse communities without discrimination. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

But, he added, “There was nothing that looked like me. By the time I got into Carnegie Mellon University for acting, they were putting stents on my wrists to make sure I would be perceived as masculine enough. It was 1987; they were trying to teach me to how to get work. The only [role models] were James Earl Jones, Denzel Washington, and Eddie Murphy — all straight and very often violently so. For the first 25 years of my career, I spent time trying to create space for something I’d never seen.”

Porter discussed his much-buzzed-about new project, a biopic of the renowned writer and intellectual James Baldwin. Porter will star as Baldwin and co-write the film with Dan McCabe, based on the 1994 book James Baldwin: A Biography by David Leeming.

“I was pitching a Sammy Davis, Jr. project to Byron Allen [of Allen Media Group Motion Pictures], and he said, ‘No. You have to do James Baldwin.’ That’s how it happened,” said Porter. “I was [recently] at a party talking to a professor in Toronto, and he didn’t know who James Baldwin was. That is unacceptable.”

The cadence of Porter’s speech and his measured but passionate response to Rich’s question about his youth in the church indicated what he might bring to a portrait of the fierce orator Baldwin.

“I grew up in the Pentecostal church, a space that was as dangerous as it was inspiring,” said Porter. “The fashion part, the love-your-neighbor part, there were so many things I got. But religion is man-made; spirituality is divine. God and the Bible have been weaponized … for the purpose of the power structure,” he said. “I am a survivor of sexual abuse from age seven to 12, and you are preaching from the pulpit that I’m the problem? Don’t get me wrong; this is not about bashing religion. It is about understanding how together we can hold the religious community responsible and build a different infrastructure spiritually.”

Featured image: L to R John Waters, Bully Porter, Andrew Peterson, PIFF’s programming director.

 

“Dune: Part Two” Trailer Reveals Love, War, & Christoper Walken’s Emperor Shaddam IV

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The official trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is as magisterial and majestic as you’d expect, yet it also hints at what so many of the folks involved in the final film—we’re looking at you, Dave Bautista—have said about the second installment—it’s an absolutely ripping adventure.

The trailer opens with Timotheé Chalamet’s Paul Atreides in the desert of Arrakis, the vast, dangerous dune fields where he and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), escaped after House Harkonnen’s brutal assault and slaughter of so many members of House Atreides in Part One. Paul and Lady Jessica were able to escape thanks to Chani (Zendaya), a member of the Fremen community who lives in the desert and who have called Arrakis home for generations. Yet Paul wasn’t looking to simply escape—he went into the desert with the hopes of leading the Fremen to a victory over House Harkonnen, the longstanding despotic overlords of the Spice-rich planet who have brutalized the Fremen, murdered his father, and killed so many of their friends. Unlike his father, Duke Atreides (Oscar Isaac), Paul believes in and actively seeks revenge. Part Two will track Paul’s struggle with his growing powers, his role as a prophet, and the powers aligning against him.

The official trailer reveals a lot of the new faces that will play such crucial roles in the final installment. Those include Austin Butler’s Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, a young, brutal warrior whose destiny is intertwined with Paul’s (their fight is one of the most iconic moments in Frank Herbert’s book). There’s also Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan Corrino, Léa Seydoux’s Lady Margot, and Christopher Walken’s Emperor Shaddam IV, the prime mover in the galactic empire, who is glimpsed for the first time here.

The trailer also reveals the return of one of Paul’s allies, Josh Brolin’s Gurney Halleck, a key ally going forward. While Part One was a brilliant piece of filmmaking and an incredible table-setter, the official trailer for Part Two reveals just how much of the most thrilling parts of Herbert’s story Villeneuve and his co-writer Jon Spaihts saved for last.

Check out the official trailer below. Dune: Part Two hits theaters on November 3.

For more on Dune: Part Two, check out these stories:

Warner Bros. Unveils Stunning “Dune: Part Two” Trailer at CinemaCon

Dave Bautista Says “Dune: Part Two” is More Cutthroat & Amped Up

Denis Villeneuve Adds Tim Blake Nelson to “Dune: Part Two”

“Dune: Part Two” Wraps Filming

Featured image: Caption: (L-r) TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET as Paul Atreides and ZENDAYA as Chani in Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures’ action adventure “DUNE: PART TWO,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Credit: Niko Tavernise

“Swagger” Creator Reggie Rock Bythewood on Soaring to New Narrative Heights in Season 2

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When looking for their next favorite series, fans of engaging drama—bonus points if you’re a lover of basketball—should look no further than creator and director Reggie Rock Bythewood’s series Swagger, which just premiered its second season on Apple TV+.

Based on the youth basketball experience of NBA superstar Kevin Durant, the story is centered around the Maryland-based team “Swagger DMV,” coached by Ike Edwards (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), a man committed to making both great ballers and world citizens of his team, led by star player Jace Carson (Isaiah Hill). Jace and his teammates are close both on and off the court. He also gets support from his mom, Jenna (Shinelle Azoroh), a woman sacrificing to make his son’s dream a reality, and his best friend Crystal (Quvenzhané Wallis), who is, herself, a player ranked among the best in the country. 

At the start of the first season, Jace is 14. The second season moves into the future, with most members of Swagger DMV in their junior or senior year in high school. Coach Ike and nearly his whole team have moved to an elite, mostly white private school, where he must work with strong-willed athletic director Dr. Emory Lawson (Orlando Jones). Jace and Crystal are moving beyond their friendship into romantic territory, and Jace’s teammates Nick (Jason Rivera), Phil (Solomon Irama), Royale (Ozie Nzeribe), and Musa (Caleel Harris) are all dealing with their own growing pains and challenges. 

Though Swagger is, first and foremost, a show about basketball, Bythewood interweaves these well-developed characters and their experiences into stories that speak to the most pressing issues of social justice happening today. The Credits spoke to Reggie Rock Bythewood about that balance, his inspiration for the look and feel of the show, and a riveting basketball game at mid-season that is shot all in one take. 

 

Swagger deploys mazes as a strong motif, which runs through both seasons of the series. It’s in the opening titles, the first scene of the series, and shows up both in the visual language and as part of the storyline. 

The opening image of Swagger is Jace being given a hand-drawn maze by his father. It becomes a metaphor for life because life is not a straight line. There are twists, turns, obstacles, and opportunities, and when we tap into the maze as a societal position, you can think of the civil rights movement, reconstruction, and the events of 2020 as part of this maze we’re all in. We either choose to move out, or we choose to stay stuck. Because that’s so much a part of our storytelling, it didn’t feel right to just call our shows episodes, so we called them mazes. Then the maze became a part of our cinematic approach. Even the way we film basketball feels like we’re a part of the action and have everybody all in the same maze. Playwright Edward Albee once said, “Sometimes you’ve got to go a long distance out of your way to come back a short distance correctly.” It really made sense for us and everyone else crazy enough to embrace this idea.

Isaiah Hill and Torshawn Roland  in Episode 205 “Are We Free” of Swagger ( (photo courtesy of Apple)

The opening titles for the show were done by artist Lisa Whittington, and her painting “Emmett Till: How She Sent Him and How She Got Him Back” was a big inspiration for the series. Explain the impact the art had on the visual color story and story arcs of Swagger. 

The first season began with Jace at 14, so I thought about the most famous 14-year-old in American history, Emmett Till. I started to look at paintings and imagery of him, wondering if I would pull a color palette from there, and then I came across Lisa Whittington’s painting of Emmet. Inside it, there were what I came to call Emmett Blue, Emmett Yellow, and Emmett Red. All of these colors symbolize something for us, and they have a strong influence on the color palette of the first season. In the second season, we didn’t go away from those colors completely, but the color palette matured and grew up a little bit to reflect that the characters are older. 

Both seasons have color stories in which the colors get muted in the middle and spring back to life or brighten at the end of the season. 

Sometimes when you do something like this, you don’t necessarily expect an audience to realize that, but you think sometimes subconsciously, it’ll filter in, and some might pick up on it. We do give the color an arc and the wardrobe an arc. They’re telling their own story. 

L-r: O’Seah Jackson Jr. and Isaiah Hill in “Swagger.” Courtesy Apple.

There’s a show in the second season, “Are We Free,” where Team Swagger plays at a juvenile detention center, and the entire basketball game is filmed in one shot. It was inspired by what cinematographer Roger Deakins did in 1917.

Cinematically, 1917 is such a beautifully shot film, and it looks like it’s all in this one shot, but obviously, they hid cuts, and originally, that was going to be our approach. “Why don’t we find a way to compose this basketball game where we can hide cuts, but it still feels seamless, like it’s one shot?”  Then we were in rehearsal and getting closer, and I just kept feeling like we could pull it off.  No hiding cuts; let’s just do it. And so I huddled with cinematographer Cliff Charles and cameraman John Lyke, who we call Roller Red because he’s on rollerblades while he’s shooting the camerawork. The other thing is we just had great help from our cast, who worked really hard in achieving the choreography. We would do speed changes, so it’d be fast, then slow motion, and then back to 24 frames, but within all that, we never cut. I think it put us into the game in a way we haven’t been inside of one before. 

Cast of Swagger in Episode 205 “Are We Free” of Swagger (photo courtesy of Apple.)

And there’s meaning that goes beyond the basketball itself. 

Right. There’s also the social element of it, with them feeling confined to this one space. They’re playing on a basketball court with a chain link fence all the way around it, so it’s almost like its own little incarcerated game. And the question of, “Are we free?” just permeates the story throughout that entire hour of the show.

Was it all choreographed? 

There was very specific choreography, but it’s basketball, so sometimes we don’t make our shots. If somebody’s making a basket, we don’t use visual effects for that. We don’t lower the rim; it’s at 10 feet, so because it’s basketball, somebody might shoot and miss it. When that happened, we kept going. We actually have another version of the game where the team that loses in this show wins, as opposed to the team that won when we shot. So the choreography was specific, but all the sorts of things that were mistakes ended up becoming great mistakes, and there’s a documentary-esque quality to that scene that came through, I think. 

Episodio 2. Jordan Rice, Isaiah Hill, and Shinelle Azoroh in “Swagger.” Courtesy Apple.

In Swagger, there are women in front of and behind the camera, in the writing, editing, producing, and everywhere below the line. You even had Jordan Rice, who plays Jace’s sister Jackie, and is an aspiring director, shadow you. Can you speak to that? 

Well, taking it outside of any political correctness, it just feels very organic to me to have a diverse set and to work with very talented women. I don’t do it because it’s the right thing to do, which it is; I do it because it makes the product better. The women that work on the show have raised the level of Swagger, and so it’s just me being smart. I’m surrounded on my set by really smart, creative people who just happen to be women.  In particular, for 205,  “Are We Free,” I really enjoyed my collaboration with Racquel Baker, who wrote the script with me. She’s on the rise, and I just know we’re going to be hearing from her a lot. Also, Angela Latimer, I think, is one of the best editors I’ve ever worked with. I’m fortunate to have so many talented people on this show. 

Supervising producer E. Monique Floyd, Reggie Rock Bythewood, and John Carlos on the set of Episode 205 “Are We Free” of Swagger ( (photo courtesy of Apple TV+) 

Next, you’re working on Genius: MLK/X, about Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Your Swagger episode “Are We Free” features John Carlos, who raised his fist at the 1968 Olympics. Why are projects that have a social justice component important to you? 

I think it’s really important to do storytelling from a lens that aspires to hold a mirror up to society to challenge perspectives and give humanity to real-life people and fictional characters that haven’t been out there and just give voice to our culture.

 

New episodes of Swagger Season Two stream every Friday on Apple TV+.

 

 

 

 

For more stories on Apple TV series and films, check these out:

“Stephen Curry: Underrated” Trailer Shows how an NBA Legend Was Made

Watch Dinosaurs Protect Their Eggs in “Prehistoric Planet 2” Clip With Sir David Attenborough

“Killers of the Flower Moon” Trailer Unveils Martin Scorsese’s Star-Studded Epic

Featured image: Isaiah Hill in “Swagger.” (photo courtesy of Apple) 

 

How “Kandahar” Location Manager Félix Rosell Mapped Out Gerard Butler’s Afghan Escape

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The road to filming Kandahar had to be built, literally. Directed by Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen, Greenland), the espionage thriller stars Gerard Butler as CIA operative Tom Harris turned Afghanistan’s Most Wanted after his operation is exposed by a whistleblower. Though the movie title references the Afghan city, it was Saudi Arabia that stood in for the picturesque landscapes seen in the film.

The production found footing in Al’Ula, located in the Medina province of the Middle East country, to film its striking desert sequences, many of which required supporting infrastructure to be built prior to shooting. “I can construct any road, anywhere now,” says Félix Rosell, a Spain-based supervising location manager whose work includes Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and King, Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049, and the Emmy-winning Netflix series Black Mirror. It’s in these arid vistas that Tom Harris, alongside his Afghan translator Mo (Navid Negahbhan), are hunted by outside forces, including a motorcycle-riding deadly assassin named Kahil (Ali Fazal).

Ali Fazal stars as Kahil Nazir in director Ric Roman Waugh’s KANDAHAR, an Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment release.
Credit: Hopper Stone, SMPSP | Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment

The screenplay comes from Mitchell LaFortune, a former defense officer who served in Afghanistan. In writing the story, LaFortune created the characters of Tom and Mo from people he met during deployment. “Mo is based on a real person: He was a translator that I worked extensively with in 2011 and 2013. He was a man I really wanted to write something great for — I thought that the sacrifices he made as an individual to keep us all safe was so inspirational,” LaFortune says in the production notes.

Navid Negahban stars as Mohammad “Mo” Doud and Gerard Butler as Tom Harris in director Ric Roman Waugh’s KANDAHAR, an Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment release.
Credit: Hopper Stone, SMPSP | Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment

Rife with hair-raising action, it’s the budding relationship between Tom and Mo that roots the harrowing narrative – one that layers humanity’s deepest questions about a war-torn country. In mapping out their escape, Rosell was tasked with finding locations in and around Al’Ula to backdrop the Afghan setting. The Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah (approx. an eight-hour drive south) filled in for the livelier urban sequences.

Travis Fimmel stars as Roman Chalmers in director Ric Roman Waugh’s KANDAHAR, an Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment release. Credit: Hopper Stone, SMPSP | Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment

One hurdle for the production takes place inside a Tajik Militia Camp in the Farah province of Afghanistan. It’s here Tom and Mo are imprisoned while heavily armed forces attack from the outside. Juxtaposing the adobe-style buildings and desert blue sky is a large area of lush crops that lead up to the barrier walls. Rosell found a nearby farm to stand in for the militia camp, which was reimagined by production designer Vincent Reynaud. “We had to create an irrigation system and plant the crops a few months before shooting just to make it green,” he says. Because the scene has military forces ascending from all sides, roads were built not only for the vehicles in the sequence but for the production equipment filming the action.

(l-r) Navid Negahban stars as Mohammad “Mo” Doud, Gerard Butler as Tom Harris and Travis Fimmel as Roman Chalmers in director Ric Roman Waugh’s KANDAHAR, an Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment release. Credit: Hopper Stone, SMPSP | Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment

A key consideration to location scouting was logistics. “You cannot go too far away from the main cities because when you go in the middle of the desert, it can be a nightmare,” says Rosell.  “The good thing for us is that Al’Ula has many different types of landscapes, and we were able to find everything within an hour from our base.”

Another colossal sequence takes place adjacent to an active airport, a scene that has a number of explosions. Roads were created to the remote location, and the action choreography was meticulously planned. “The sequence was tricky because the fence that you can see in the scene belonged to the Al’Ula airport,” says Rosell. “We had a few days that were quite tense because of the flights that were coming in and going out. We couldn’t have anything exploding, and we had personnel inside the airport at all times to relay any emergency so we could stop.”

Gerard Butler stars as Tom Harris in director Ric Roman Waugh’s KANDAHAR, an Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment release.
Credit: Hopper Stone, SMPSP | Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment

A similar moment of contention was a bustling escape sequence that was shot in Al’Ula’s city center. “There’s an explosion of a car in the middle of the town, so we had to talk to 250 shops and vendors doing business on those streets and made an agreement with them to make it work,” says Rosell. “Having the support of all the shops and the people makes you proud to do all the work because it is such an important part of the film.”

Rosell’s guiding principle was to find locations that visually worked for the story, but at the same time, they had to be close in proximity. “We would have to do things the same day. One minute, we’re shooting a scene of explosions, and then we would be shooting in secret houses. All of it had to be nearby but look like another place in another city,” he says. The success of the production, Rosell says, started from the top. “Ric is a good director because he makes it clear what he wants. It makes it quite easy to work with him.”

 

Featured image: Gerard Butler stars as Tom Harris in director Ric Roman Waugh’s KANDAHAR, an Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment release. Credit: Hopper Stone, SMPSP | Open Road Films / Briarcliff Entertainment