From Script to Scream: Stephanie Allain on Producing Blumhouse’s Latest Nightmare, “The Woman in the Yard”
Stephanie Allain is a trailblazing producer. She was the Senior Vice President of Production at Columbia Pictures, where she oversaw films such as Boyz N The Hood and Desperado. From there, she became the President of Henson Pictures and eventually launched her production company, Homegrown Films. Homegrown Films is behind Hustle & Flow, Beyond the Lights, and Exhibiting Forgiveness, a film Allain is deeply proud of.
Devil Went Down to Georgia: How Erik Oleson Crafted Kevin Bacon’s Undead Demon Hunter in “The Bondsman”
Writer/producer Erik Oleson definitely knows a thing or two about characters chasing personal demons. He was the head writer on The Man in the High Castle, and went on to be showrunner and executive producer for seasons of both Marvel’s Daredevil and Amazon’s Carnival Row. It makes perfect sense, then, for him to take on Amazon’s new horror-comedy series The Bondsman.
In it,
Unreliable Narrators: Liz Garbus on Directing Hulu’s Chilling Adoption Mystery “Good American Family”
Good American Family rolled into living rooms last month like a TV Trojan Horse, appearing at first to be a domestic drama peppered with garden-variety stress. Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo plays super-mom Kristine Barnett, acclaimed author of “The Spark,” about her autistic son who gained early admission to Princeton University thanks to her nurturing ways and the loving support of husband Michael (Mark Duplass). Everything changes when the Indiana couple adopts Ukrainian orphan Natalia Grace,
“Daredevil: Born Again” DPs Hillary Fyfe Spera & Pedro Gómez Millán on Lensing NYC’s Mean Streets
Daredevil built a fierce fandom when the show first appeared in 2015, introducing Charlie Cox as visually impaired lawyer Matt Murdock, whose alter ego roamed the streets of New York at night as Daredevil, a superhero with heightened senses and lethally honed fighting skills. After nearly a decade, Cox reprises his role in Daredevil: Born Again, and in the first of two already planned seasons, doesn’t disappoint.
With the tagline,
“Daredevil: Born Again’s” Stunt Coordinator & Second Unit Director Philip Silvera on Big City Brawling
At the beginning of Season 1 of the Disney+ revival of the Daredevil storyline, Daredevil: Born Again, Marvel vigilante Matt Murdock/Daredevil is operating more or less as a yuppie. Matt has hung up his superhero suit to keep his heroics to the courthouse, working as a defense attorney and taking on clients pro bono when he believes in their innocence, but they can’t afford him. But with the murder of his friend and colleague,
The Architecture of Espionage: Maria Djurkovic on Designing Rami Malek’s Revenge in “The Amateur”
Bohemian Rhapsody Oscar winner Rami Malik switches it up in The Amateur to play buttoned-down CIA analyst-turned-warrior Charlie Heller, who goes rogue in Europe to hunt down the terrorists responsible for the murder of his wife (Rachel Brosnahan). Tough-as-nails CIA handler (Laurence Fishburne) spearheads the Agency’s efforts to squash Charlie’s self-appointed mission, but he soon learns he’s dealing with a determined, lethally intelligent, and remarkably savvy operator who isn’t above blackmailing his own agency to get the revenge he seeks.
Calculated Frames: DP Martin Ruhe on Capturing “The Amateur’s” Deadly Chess Game
In the first part of our conversation with cinematographer Martin Ruhe about his latest film, The Amateur, he discussed director James Hawes’ grounded approach to Rami Malek’s CIA analyst-turned-vigilante by focusing on how his character’s humanity and intelligence were the keys to his playing a deadly game with trained spies and assassins. He’s able to do this not only because of his superior intelligence, but also because he blackmails his superiors (who have been ordering unsanctioned black ops) who know more than he does about the specifics of spycraft,
Forging Feudal Japan: Emmy-Winning Production Designer Helen Jarvis Bringing “Shōgun” to Stunning Life
The ride is nearly complete. Four years ago, Helen Jarvis, who resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her husband, actor Robin Mossley, took on her first project as a production designer on the historical drama Shōgun, set in 1600 feudal Japan. The series went on to become a cultural phenomenon, breaking Emmy records for its intimate character-driven storyline, visual beauty, and moving performances, which gave us the phrases “Why tell a dead man the future,” “Flowers are only flowers because they fall,”
Lethal Intelligence: How DP Martin Ruhe Shot a Decoder’s Revenge in “The Amateur”
Tapping into nostalgia for ‘90s spy thrillers of late, 20th Century Studios’ globe-trotting espionage revenge thriller features Rami Malek’s quietly ingenious CIA decryption analyst as the everyman reluctant hero. “He’s not a killer, he’s not trained with weapons, he probably wouldn’t survive in a fist fight. So, he has to be smarter than everybody else,” says German cinematographer Martin Ruhe (Showtime series The Agency, The Tender Bar) of Malek’s Charlie Heller.
“Connecticut’s Cinema Secret: How Dillon Bentlage’s “Watching Mr. Pearson” Found Its Perfect Location
Dementia was part of writer-director Dillon Bentlage’s family, his grandmother struggling with its early stages before passing away from cancer. Watching Mr. Pearson is a love letter to those living with symptoms and the people around them wanting to give them their best life. The feature stars Hugo Armstrong as Robert Pearson, a former Hollywood legend battling mental decline. When one of his caregivers, Caroline (Dominika Zawada), finds out that performing scenes from his film work gives him new life,
“Snow White” Cinematographer Mandy Walker on Casting a Visual Spell Through Past & Present
Nestled between a dental office and a local tavern in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Atwater Village is Tam O’Shanter, a Scottish restaurant inside a storybook style Tudor cottage, its interior a blend of rustic elegance and historical charm, a vestige of “Old Hollywood.” In the corner of the dimly lit room is Table 31, a regular spot of Walt Disney when the studio was located on Hyperion Avenue in the 1920s. It’s rumored the restaurant partially inspired Disney’s first feature-length animated film,
“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip” Director Marvin Lemus on a Family Adventure Through New Mexico
The title says it all: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip is a PG comedy that follows a rambunctious family on an RV trek through New Mexico. Their destination? A very old village in Mexico, home to an ancient stone idol. By returning the haunted talisman to its ancestral home, 11-year-old Alexander (newcomer Thom Nemer) thinks he can lift the curse bringing bad luck to his mother, father,
Producer Hsinyi Liu on Forging a Path From Taiwan to “Fleabag” & “The Ballad of Wallis Island”
Moving halfway around the world to live and work in a different culture and language presents inevitable challenges, but there is also a wealth of opportunities available to those who leave the familiar behind and immerse themselves abroad. This was the case for Taiwan-born and raised producer Hsinyi Liu, who learned the joys available to those willing to make the leap when she relocated to London more than two decades ago.
In an attempt at a compromise between her family’s expectations of a financially stable career and her own creative impulses,
Reel Returns: Connecticut’s Film Investment Fuels Economic Growth in a Competitive State of Play
The evening before my conversation with Jonathan Black, a co-founder of the Connecticut Film and TV Alliance (CTFTVA), he was attending a hearing in Hartford. The Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee was listening to public testimony on Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont’s proposed film tax credit cut from 30% to 25%, a move that could strike a devastating blow to the state’s film and television community.
Black, a Georgia native, has roots in Hollywood,
Inside “The Residence”: Creator Paul William Davies on Crafting a White House Whodunit
The Residence, produced by Shondaland for Netflix, is the much-anticipated whodunnit that is Shonda Rhimes’ second show set in the White House. The first, of course, was another beloved, Kerry Washington-led Scandal, which dealt in the shadowy world of Washington’s Olivia Pope, the queen of fixers. Now Rhimes and her collaborator Paul William Davies return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to follow Uzo Aduba’s Cordelia Cupp, a world-famous detective and obsessive birder,
How “Severance” Cinematographer David Lanzenberg Captured a Chilling Corporate Nightmare
Severance earned 14 Emmy nominations the first time around, and after a three-year hiatus, the show has reignited fan frenzy as it builds toward the Season 2 finale streaming Friday [March 21] on Apple TV +. Again, bifurcated employees and their bosses (Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Zach Cherry, Tramell Tillman and Christopher Walken) navigate the tortuously fascistic world of Lumon Industries, which severs employees from their civilian selves — but now,
“Mickey 17” Production Designer Fiona Crombie Creates a Playful Pattinson-Verse for Bong Joon Ho’s Black Comedy Space Epic
The underdog hero of Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 is sweetly naive everyman Mickey (Robert Pattinson), a failed macaron shop owner on the run from a bloodthirsty creditor in the year 2054. Mickey finds a way out of his predicament, but it’s bleak—he signs up as an Expendable, a human test subject for a space mission whose sole purpose is to die in not one but many gruesome experiments, having turned over the rights to his DNA to be infinitely reprinted for any and all of the mission’s needs.
SXSW 2025: Tapping Into Texas’s Vast Potential to Become the Next Cinematic Frontier
This year’s SXSW film festival in Austin blew into town with a considerable tailwind of enthusiasm for the Lone Star state’s film and TV future. Every state in the union can claim unique cultures, geographies, and mythologies, but there’s no disputing that Texas looms very large in our collective cultural imagination. It’s a state that takes very seriously the notion that it’s really a country.
Texas’s hold on our imagination is evident in how many great films and TV series are set there (whether they’re actually filmed there or not—we’ll get to that in a second),
No Cuts, Pure Tension: “Adolescence” Director Philip Barantini on Crafting Netflix Thriller in Unbroken Single Takes
British actor Stephen Graham is so reliably intense he played Al Capone for Martin Scorsese in Boardwalk Empire, stared down Al Pacino in The Irishman, executive producer and co-starred in the bare knuckle boxing drama A Thousand Blows, and earned the prestigious Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) award for his contributions to UK television. Now he’s co-written the acutely tense Adolescence (streaming on Netflix on March 13),
From Wings to Stars: Costume Designer Gersha Phillips on Redesigning Captain America
Gersha Phillips is no stranger to the kind of immediately recognizable costumes that tell a viewer immediately what world she’s in, like the intergalactic looks and Starfleet designs she crafted for the recent Star Trek feature Section 31 and the Star Trek series Discovery and Strange New Worlds. Skewing to the realism side of the closet, Phillips has designed the duds for My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 and director Gina Prince-Bythewood’s historical epic The Woman King.
