Unveiling the Bene Gesserit’s Secrets With “Dune: Part Two” Costume Designer Jacqueline West

After just nine days in release, Denis Villeneuve’s much-anticipated sequel to his first Dune film has already scored $367 million in worldwide box office. The massive response to Dune: Part Two is due in no small part to costume designer Jacqueline West’s intricate designs that went beyond adding depth to the characters—they are integral in building a complex, harsh world thousands of years into the future.

After designing 2,000-plus costumes—including the bespoke stillsuits—for the first film,

“Iwájú” Visual Effects Supervisor Marlon West on Bringing Afrofuturism to Animation

Disney+ just released an exciting new 6-part animated series called Iwájú, representing the first collaboration with an outside studio in its partnership with Pan-African storytelling company Kugali Media. Kugali’s co-founders created a uniquely African story, which takes place in a futuristic Lagos, Nigeria. In fact, every single character that appears in Iwájú is Nigerian. 

The series is a coming-of-age tale centered on an idealistic 10-year-old girl named Tola. She lives in the rarified and protected environment her tech mogul father Tunde has created on the island,

Oscar-Worthy Plastic Fantastic! “Barbie” Designers Sarah Greenwood & Katie Spencer Share Their Dreamhouse Secrets

*Ahead of the 96th Academy Awards, we’re re-posting our interview with Barbie production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer, both of whom are nominated for Oscars. Barbie has eight nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Performance by an Actress and Actor in a Supporting Role, America Ferrera and Ryan Gosling, respectively.

“It was trying to find a solution to what makes a toy,” says production designer Sarah Greenwood about creating the charmed sets of Barbie alongside set decorator Katie Spencer.

Andes to Oscars: How Makeup Masters Turned “Society of the Snow” Actors Into Survivors

Director J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow, which recounts the experience of a Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972, is Spain’s Oscar entry for best international feature. But the film, which depicts the crash and subsequent survival of 16 out of 45 passengers in exquisitely painful detail, is also nominated in another category. The passengers break bones. They sustain face injuries. They starve. For their incredible work creating the visual reality of this suffering,

Christopher Nolan on Detonating Myths & Baring Humanity in “Oppenheimer”

*Ahead of the 96th Academy Awards, we’re re-posting our interview with Christopher Nolan. He’s nominated for three Oscars—Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. 

Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) stares wide-eyed into the pond spread out in front of him; his last conversation with Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) on the potential catalytic effects of the atomic bomb has rendered him speechless. The music swells as the screen fades to black — this is the final scene of Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-laden Oppenheimer,

Oscar-Nominated Editor Laurent Sénéchal’s High Wire Act in “Anatomy of a Fall”

After sweeping this awards season with trophies at the BAFTAs, France’s César Awards, Critics Choice, and the recent Spirit Awards, writer-director Justine Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari’s cerebral courtroom drama is headed for the home stretch, with five Academy Award nominations on the line. Anatomy of a Fall is a masterclass of filmmaking across the board, and that surely includes the surgical work done by editor Laurent Sénéchal (C’est ça l’amour,

Double Oscar Nominee Richard King Unveils the Aural Secrets of “Oppenheimer” and “Maestro”

Richard King, one of Hollywood’s most successful sound designers, is known for creating increasingly complex aural environments that help achieve a director’s vision, giving the movie its own rhythm and texture. Over the past two decades, he’s won four Academy Awards. And at this year’s Oscars, he’s nominated for two more for his contributions to Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, an R-rated historical drama about the first atomic bomb,

“Henry Sugar” Costume Designer Kasia Walicka Maimone on Weaving an Oscar-Worthy Story for Wes Anderson

When she was five years old, Kasia Walicka Maimone started making her own clothes. “Growing up in Poland, a lot of people had that skill,” she says. “My grandmother made clothes. My mother, a doctor, made clothes. And I did clothes for my musician friends without giving it a thought. I was like, ‘What’s the big deal?'”

As it turned out, Maimone’s talent for costuming became quite a big deal. After studying English in Warsaw,

Architect of Arrakis: “Dune: Part Two” Editor Joe Walker on Forging a Ferocious Masterpiece

There’s a scene in Dune: Part Two where Chani (Zendaya) tells Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), “You’ll never lose me as long as you stay who you are.” Editor Joe Walker, who won an Academy Award for his work on Dune: Part One, allowed the foretelling moment to breathe. “There’s quite a pause after that line,” he shares with The Credits about the tragedy to come.  The chemistry between Paul and Chani was just one of several storylines in the second installment of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune saga Walker navigated with ambition and care.

“Spaceman” Director Johan Renck on Guiding Adam Sandler Through the Cosmos

The vast expanse and harsh conditions of space can impose solitude or offer a fresh perspective. As astronaut Jakub Prochazka (Adam Sandler) is nearing the climax of a six-month interplanetary investigation, he sails farther from the problems he left behind on Earth in director Johan Renck’s Spaceman. With four young children, Renck understands the forces that pull at a working parent – especially a career that requires long stretches of separation.

Hans Zimmer on Unearthing New Sounds for “Dune: Part Two”

If you’ve seen any notable film in the past 40-something years, chances are you’ve heard Hans Zimmer’s work. 

From his two Academy awards (The Lion King in 1994 and Dune: Part One in 2021) to his three Golden Globes, four Grammys, a BAFTA, and various other accolades — his resume extends beyond any category, label or genre and becomes almost a style all on its own. 

“Drive-Away Dolls” Production Designer Yong Ok Lee on Transforming Pittsburgh Into the Whole East Coast

Ethan Coen’s solo directorial debut, Drive-Away Dolls, stars Margaret Qualley as Jamie, an unhindered Texan attached at the hip to her best friend and human hand-brake, Marian, played by Geraldine Viswanathan. The only trait these two twenty-somethings seemingly share is that they are both lesbians, but when an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee turns into a game of cat and mouse involving a couple of hired goons, Arliss (Joey Slotnick) and Flint (C.J.

Director Alex Stapleton Gets Personal in HBO’s “God Save Texas”

Throughout her career, Emmy-winning documentarian Alex Stapleton has spotlighted such colorful characters as baseball legend Reggie Jackson and movie maverick Roger Corman. She’s examined the role athletes play in the cultural and political conversation in Shut up and Dribble and investigated the struggle for LGBTQ rights in Pride. But the HBO series God Save Texas presented Stapleton an opportunity to document a subject unlike any she had captured before — herself.

“The Creator” Oscar-Nominated Sound Team on Blending Retro-Futurism, Robot Monks, & the Didgeridoo

The Creator‘s Oscar-nominated supervising sound editors, Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn, had a dream experience creating the soundscape for director Gareth Edwards‘ vision of a nightmarish future. The timing of the film couldn’t have been better—The Creator is set at a point in human history where there’s an outright war between humanity and artificial intelligence, a classic sci-fi set-up that felt alarmingly less fictive given the rapid expansion of AI in our real world.

“Maestro” Oscar-Nominated Re-Recording Mixers on Building Emotion With & Without Music

In Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, the music is flipped. Tracking the arc of Leonard Bernstein’s career in tandem with his loving but complicated marriage to Chilean actress Felicia Monteleagre (Carey Mulligan), the film’s music is Bernstein’s music, playing as it did over the course of the composer’s life, whether that’s performed on stage or worked out in the studio at the family’s Fairfield country house. When we revisit emotionally charged, private moments from Bernstein’s life,

“To Kill a Tiger” Director Nisha Pahuja on her Eight-Year Journey to Make her Oscar-Nominated Doc

One of the year’s Oscar Cinderella stories is the best documentary nomination for director Nisha Pahuja’s To Kill a Tiger. It took Pahuja and her small crew eight years to complete their independent film about a father’s fight for justice after three men abducted his 13-year-old daughter and sexually assaulted her in a poor rural village in India. 

“It has not quite hit me yet,” says Pahuja of what will be her first-ever trip to the Oscar ceremony on March 10.

Co-Director Moses Bwayo on the Harrowing Journey to Capture the Oscar-Nominated Doc “Bobi Wine: The People’s President”

Imagine for a moment if a music icon like Beyoncé or Dolly Parton ran for United States President. Cool, right? But imagine, during their campaign, they were arrested, brutally beaten, and thrown in jail by the incumbent government while their supporters were detained, shot at, and killed. As Americans, would we simply look the other way? In Uganda, similar events actually took place leading up to the 2021 presidential election as Bobi Wine, a superstar musician,

How Pixar Director Peter Sohn Got Personal in His Oscar-nominated “Elemental”

How do you make fire feel endearing rather than scary? And how do you turn water into a gusher of emotions? Those were key questions faced by director Peter Sohn when he set forth to make Elemental. The Bronx-born animator previously helped anthropomorphize rats, robots, dolphins, and dinosaurs in Ratatouille, Finding Nemo, WALL•E, and The Little Dinosaur. But never before had he tried to put a human face on earth,

“The Holdovers” Oscar-Nominated Editor Kevin Tent on Creating a 70s Vibe With Timeless Performances

Kevin Tent, nominated for this year’s best editing Oscar for The Holdovers, considers himself  “the luckiest editor ever” thanks to his 28-year collaboration with director Alexander Payne. Tent has edited all nine of Payne’s films dating back to his feature directing debut Citizen Ruth (1996). It’s an impressive list that includes Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), Sideways (2004), Paris, Je T’aime (2006),

“Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin” Namesake & Co-Writer Robb Armstrong on His Peanuts Immortality

Robb Armstrong’s JumpStart is the most widely syndicated daily comic strip by an African American in the world. He was inspired to his career as a cartoonist, in part, by reading the Peanuts comics by Charles Schulz and started drawing images from the famed strip as a child. Of course, one major influence was Franklin, the first Black character in Peanuts, who was introduced in 1968. Early in his career,