“The Perfect Find” Director Numa Perrier on Creating Space For Romance With Gabrielle Union
The Perfect Find (now streaming on Netflix) begins with Gabrielle Union’s New York City fashionista Jenna recovering from a bad breakup at her mother’s house. What makes matter most is this is happening in the wake of the humiliating collapse of her high-profile career. But Jenna’s not the type to pout, so she stages a ...
“The Blackening” Cinematographer Todd A. Dos Reis on Lensing a Horror-Comedy Romp
It’s almost hard to believe The Blackening is cinematographer Todd A. Dos Reis’ first feature film. He’s been in the business for decades, having shot a variety of television shows, including Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Bosch: Legacy, and Entourage. Before becoming a cinematographer for a long list of hit shows and music videos, he even worked on ...
“What We Do in the Shadows” Costume Designer Laura Montgomery on Dressing Vampires in Flux
The undead roommates of What We Do in the Shadows embarked on journeys of rebirth in season 4 – some more literally than others – that included remodeling, reincarnating, and remarrying. All these new endeavors gave Emmy-winning costume designer Laura Montgomery an opportunity to redefine the rules of vampire fashion. For hundreds of years, Nadja ...
“Atlanta” and “P-Valley” Costume Designer Tiffany Hasbourne’s Singular Style
Costume designer Tiffany Hasbourne began her journey as a stylist to some of the biggest names in music, including Missy Elliott, 50 Cent, French Montana, and Busta Rhymes. She got the attention of gatekeepers in Hollywood by styling the cast of High School Musical, and then rose to prominence by designing costumes for shows like Shooter, ...
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” Composer Jongnic Bontemps Lets the Emotion Ride
Paramount’s Transformers franchise was conceived by Michael Bay as a maximalist epic of crunching, crashing, morphing metal beasts and the humans caught in the metallic whirlwind of their drama. With director Steven Caple Jr. in the director’s chair for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, the series now strives to balance the character and the spectacle ...
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” Director Steven Caple Jr. on Getting Gritty With It
Director Steven Caple Jr. steps into a large, alien robot-strewn sandbox with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts for his biggest feature yet. For decades, the Autobots and Decepticons have captured fans’ imaginations in Michael Bay’s franchise. To keep the series alive and well, Caple Jr. wanted to ground the famous robot characters, including Optimus Prime ...
“Flamin’ Hot” Screenwriter Linda Yvette Chávez Serves Up a Story Straight From the Heart
Linda Yvette Chávez tells the story of Flamin’ Hot with faith, passion, and romance. The co-creator of the Netflix series Gentefied saw herself in the true story of Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia), the Frito Lay janitor who dreamed of a snack that connected with his Mexican American community. With his great coach and partner in ...
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Look of Picture Supervisor Bret St. Clair on Spider-Punk, Mumbattan & More
Not bad for a sequel. Following on its 2018 Oscar-winning predecessor, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ranks as the best-reviewed wide-release movie of the year, boasting a 96 percent approved rating on Rotten Tomatoes while grossing $390 million worldwide since its release earlier this month (at the time of publication). Critics have hailed the film’s ability ...
Gina Prince-Bythewood, MPA Creator Award Recipient, Tells Her Story
An elite force of female soldiers, the Agojie, is all that stands between the African Kingdom of Dahomey and the combined forces of the Oyo Empire and Mahi people. The Oyo and Mahi plan to raid Dahomey villages and sell their captives to European slavers. We open on a Mahi village where raiders heat their ...
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” Ciara Whaley on Recreating That Strong 90s Style
With the latest installment of the Transformers franchise, director Steven Caple Jr. wanted to evoke the experience of growing up a kid in the 90s. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts begins in Brooklyn in 1994, and from the settings to the costumes and the era-defining hip-hop, everything evokes the style and sensibilities of the period. ...
How the “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Visual Team Created a Mesmerizing Multiverse
When Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was released five years ago, its web of 2D and 3D animation became a box office hit and went on to win the Oscar for best animated feature. Incredibly, the return of Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) in Across the Spider-Verse has lived up to the hype, earning over $270 ...
“Arnold” DP Logan Schneider on Shooting Schwarzenegger
What more can be said about Arnold Schwarzenegger that hasn’t already been said? Plenty, as it turns out. Arnold, the three-part documentary (streaming now on Netflix), includes loads of archival footage, plus interviews with famous collaborators like Jamie Lee Curtis and James Cameron, but the core story comes directly from the world-famous bodybuilder-turned-movie star-turned-California governor. ...
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Composer Daniel Pemberton Reveals a Few Score Secrets
Daniel Pemberton knows how to create energy. The composer, who’s frequently worked with filmmakers Aaron Sorkin, Danny Boyle, and Guy Ritchie, is a musician with an ear for the eclectic and electric. For proof, look and listen no further than his lush score for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Pemberton scores different universes, Spider-Men and Spider-Women—and ...
“Flamin’ Hot” Editor Kayla Emter Spices Up Eva Longoria’s Tasty Biopic
If you’re craving a feel-good underdog story with a kick, bite into Flamin’ Hot. The spicy Cheetos flavoring that has become a pop culture icon started with the passion of Mexican-American Frito-Lay janitor Richard Montañez (Jesse Garcia). Told from his sizzling perspective, Eva Longoria’s directorial debut is technically a biopic but has the DNA of ...
“Never Have I Ever” Star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan on the Final Season & Devi’s Send Off
“I’m dealing with cramps.” That’s the first thing 21-year-old Maitreyi Ramakrishnan tells me when she hops on our Zoom. It’s wholly indicative of her character — an actress plucked out of obscurity at 17, grounded, down-to-earth, unapologetically herself no matter the circumstance. It’s something she says she’s never had to think about — being herself ...
“Poker Face” Editor Shaheed Qaasim on Cutting Rian Johnson’s Ambitiously Clever Crime Drama
In the Peacock murder mystery series Poker Face, star Natasha Lyonne drifts across the country as Charlie Cale, an itinerant human lie detector who unexpectedly solves a new homicide each week. No single Poker Face story is like any other. And provoked by malice, rage, or envy, neither are the murders. “We really treated each ...
“The Other Two” Cinematographer / Director Charlie Gruet on the Show’s Signature Absurdity
Millennials have been the target of some harsh criticism from all sides, but no other generation has become technologically obsolete quite so quickly. Older generations think we’re whizzes on the computer, but there’s a difference between spending your middle school years figuring out how to instant message your crush and being trained to write code. ...
“The Little Mermaid” Hair Designer Camille Friend on Creating Ariel’s Locks From Halle Bailey’s Natural Hair
When director Rob Marshall cast Halle Bailey to play Ariel in the new live-action film The Little Mermaid, he knew it was important to both bring mermaid energy and believability to everything about this updated version of the character, and that included Halle’s hair. Of all the memorable aspects of Ariel from the 1989 animated feature, her ...
“American Born Chinese” Production Design Team Cindy Chao & Michele Yu’s Dazzling Details
It’s rare enough to see a production design team and rarer still to see a team of two female Asian American designers, but Cindy Chao and Michele Yu have been collaborating together successfully on both the large and small screens for over a decade. Recently they got a Primetime Emmy nomination for their work on ...
“You Hurt My Feelings” Cinematographer Jeffrey Waldron on Re-Teaming With Nicole Holofcener
When is it ok to hide the truth from your partner? That’s what writer-director Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said) examines in her latest film, You Hurt My Feelings. The Sundance premiere was scooped up by A24 and reconnects Holofcener with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Beth, a novelist writing her latest book who overhears her husband Don (Tobias ...
