“Cocaine Bear” VFX Supervisor Robin Hollander on Creating an Ursine Junkie
Cocaine Bear began snorting up viral eyeballs last fall, boosted by a madcap trailer that racked up 18 million views. Now boasting a $28 million opening weekend, second only to M3GAN as 2023’s biggest non-franchise hit, it’s based on the true story of a black bear who discovered a duffel bag of cocaine in the ...
“Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” Composer Christophe Beck on Kang, the Langs, & Depeche Mode
Christophe Beck is one of the most prominent composers in the Marvel sandbox. He not only scored all three Ant-Man films but co-composed Hawkeye and, to great acclaim, WandaVision. After eight years of collaborating with the Marvel team, Beck is well-versed in the MCU’s sonic landscape. The composer’s first collaboration with director Peyton Reed was ...
“Sharper” Star Briana Middleton on Finding Her Edge in Apple TV’s New Thriller
Filled with plot twists, double-crosses and characters who never seem to be who they are, Sharper is designed to keep you guessing right to the end. But one thing is for certain; with a razor-sharp cast that includes Julianne Moore, Briana Middleton, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith and John Lithgow, the Apple TV+ original film delivers ...
Harpo Films Director of Development & Production Lauren Tuck Wants Her Creators to Flourish
Harpo Films and OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network has been leading the pack in Hollywood in terms of diversity and inclusion for years. From the very beginning of OWN’s drama series Queen Sugar, creator Ava DuVernay envisioned using all female directors for the series, and both OWN and Harpo Films were 100% behind that. DuVernay’s show ...
“The Last of Us” Production Designer John Paino on Building a World in Ruins
“I’ve noticed an uptick in mushroom articles,” production designer John Paino jokes. So have I, actually, but it might be a case of being suddenly aware of the ubiquity and centrality of fungi to the living world ever since HBO’s The Last of Us premiered. The series, based on the critically acclaimed video game by ...
Director Haifaa Al-Mansour on Casting a Spell in “Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches”
Though Haifaa Al-Mansour is known as the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia by virtue of her award-winning 2012 feature Wadjda, she has since become a go-to director inside and outside Hollywood through both features and projects on the small screen. The writer/director’s releases Mary Shelley and The Perfect Candidate were lauded by critics and audiences, and her artistic contributions ...
“Knock at the Cabin” VFX Supervisor Tommy Tran on Creating an Unnervingly Believable Apocalypse
Seeing is believing. At least, the four prophets preaching the end of the world in M. Night Shyamalan‘s Knock at the Cabin hope that is the case. The quartet predict a series of plagues that will bring about the end of humanity unless a sacrifice is made, but will the sacrifice buy their story in ...
“Fight the Power” Producer Helen Bart on Exploring Hip Hop’s Explosive Power With Chuck D
Nearly fifty years ago in the Bronx, on August 11, 1973, Jamaican American DJ Kool Herc used two turntables to spin funky drum breaks at his sister’s back-to-school party. The event turned out to be hip hop’s big bang moment. In the decades that followed, the music became a politically charged platform empowering Black America ...
“Sick” Production Designer Jenny Möller Builds the Lake House From Hell in Peacock’s Peak Pandemic Slasher
Slashers don’t take sick days, even during a lockdown. Leave it to Scream writer Kevin Williamson to give us more to fear than the virus in Peacock’s Sick, which takes us back to the peak of the COVID pandemic. Best friends Parker (Gideon Adlon) and Miri (Bethlehem Million) quarantine together at a luxury lake house, ...
“Descendant” Co-Writer & Producer Dr. Kern Jackson on Uncovering Living History in Mobile, Alabama
The documentary Descendant is about many things, but mostly it’s about storytelling — how oral histories, passed down from generation to generation, inform identity and community and connect the living to their ancestors. History can’t be erased or denied as long as stories are still being told. Descendant, which won the US Documentary Special Jury ...
Stunt Coordinator Freddie Poole Trades Jabs with Sylvester Stallone in “Tulsa King”
Stunt coordinator Freddie Poole has worked long enough with Sylvester Stallone that, although he may not be able to finish the actor’s sentences, he can sure finish his punches. So when the call came to oversee the action on the Paramount+ series Tulsa King, Poole didn’t hesitate. Stallone stars as Dwight “The General” Manfredi, an ...
Documentarian Sam Pollard on Courting an Icon in “Bill Russell: Legend”
This week, LeBron James broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time NBA scoring record, but one superstar stat seems unlikely to be eclipsed any time soon: the late Bill Russell’s collection of 11 NBA Championship rings. One of the league’s first Black players, Russell led the Boston Celtics from 1957 through the sixties. The team’s reign culminated in ...
Taking a Magical Tour With Becky Cline, Director of The Walt Disney Archives
Becky Cline knows a thing or two about wearing multiple hats in her long, successful career at Disney. In fact, as the Director of the Walt Disney Archives, Cline is responsible for one of the most iconic hats of all time (belonging to a certain magical British nanny—more on her later), and a treasure trove of ...
“The Last of Us” Cinematographer Eben Bolter on Episode 4 & More
It took a decade to get there, but The Last of Us’ migration from video game to television paid off big time last month when the post-apocalyptic thriller enjoyed the largest viewership jump in HBO history. Audience numbers increased 22 percent to 5.7 million viewers for the show’s second episode in the wake of its ...
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” Producer Jonathan Wang on Making an Oscar Juggernaut
It might seem as if Everything Everywhere All at Once came out of nowhere to dominate this year’s Oscar voting with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and two Best Supporting Actress nods for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and Jamie Lee Curtis respectively. But in fact, producer Jonathan ...
“Alice, Darling” Director Mary Nighy on Her Chilling, Emotionally Resonant Feature Debut
Alice, Darling, Mary Nighy’s feature film directorial debut explores an insidious form of emotional and psychological abuse: coercive control. In its stirring portrait of Alice, a young woman in denial about her partner’s manipulative and oppressive behavior — played with dazzling depth by Anna Kendrick — the film takes an honest look at the unsettling ...
Sundance 2023: Filmmaker Razelle Benally on Her Showtime Doc Series “Murder in Big Horn”
The Sundance staff and execs have always believed it essential to honor Indigenous people as part of their film festival and institute, as exampled by their Native Lab and Indigenous Program. This year, there is an even greater focus on Native cultures, both inside and outside the cinemas, with 11 Indigenous films as part of ...
Writer/Director Elegance Bratton on His Breakout Film “The Inspection”
Writer/director Elegance Bratton’s autobiographical The Inspection is one of the year’s breakout films. Bratton stuck with the project for years because it most reflected who he is: a gay Black man who was homeless as a teenager, a Marine Corps veteran, and a Columbia University and NYU-educated filmmaker. Bratton’s struggles began practically at birth with ...
“Emancipation” Hair Department Head Andrea Bowman on Her Oscar-Shortlisted Work
Andrea Mona Bowman knew that Emancipation was going to be special. Based on a true story, Emancipation stars Will Smith as Peter, a Southern slave who breaks free from his Confederate captors and escapes into the Louisiana swaps. Chased for days, Peter makes his way to Baton Rouge, where he joins the Union army to ...
“Babylon” Composer Justin Hurwitz Deconstructs His Oscar-Shortlisted Score
“I’m very obsessive, and I can only do one thing at a time, so when Damien has a movie to work on, I go all in.” That’s composer Justin Hurwitz talking about his ongoing collaboration with filmmaker Damien Chazelle, and clearly, the laser vision has paid off. Hurwitz started working on his Oscar short-listed score ...
