“Extreme situations where something super-difficult is going on and a level head is needed,” that’s how Adam Schomer, writer-producer of The Highest Pass, a documentary opening in Los Angeles this weekend, about riding motorcycles through India on a spiritual journey with his guru, described cinematographer Dean Mitchell’s métier. A longtime bike enthusiast, Mitchell owns... »

It’s been more than a decade since Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone debuted and now production designer Stuart Craig closes the eight-volume book on the series, an “octalogy,” in fact, having designed every movie in the series including 2011’s finale, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. »

I’ve read that growing up in the small town of Macerata, Italy, in the 1950s, Dante Ferretti spent a lot of time in movie theaters watching Ben Hur, Cleopatra and spaghetti Westerns. So it’s with visions of a Cinema Paradiso childhood that my first question for the master designer is, “When you were young…” “I’m still... »

For all the talk about how Moneyball is not really a baseball movie, rather, a character study, if we don’t buy the realism of the world of Major League Baseball, the movie’s foundation is suddenly shaky. Production designer Jess Gonchor knew this the first time he toured the Oakland Atheltics’ team facilities. He also... »

Talk about range. One year ago, Wally Pfister won the Oscar for best cinematography for Inception, a photographic spectacle of undulating streets and men in suits floating along the ceilings of hotel corridors. This year he’s a contender for shooting Brad Pitt in a pickup truck driving through Long Beach. »

When I ask production designer, Patrizia Von Brandenstein what her mindset is when she begins a period project she immediately answers, “Terror.” It needn’t be. Patrizia (she’s earned first-name treatment) is a legendary production designer who has demonstrated extreme comfort and dexterity working in any decade in any century in just about any place on... »

Even if you’re not prone to appreciating the nuances of cinematography, from the first, striking scenes of Pariah, you’re tempted to reach for your smartphone to look up the name of the DP. Instead of the predictable crane shot down into Brooklyn that finds Alike (pronounced Uh-LEE-kay), the 17 year-old, lesbian protagonist of this coming-of-age/coming... »

Talking or reading about the film, Pariah, you immediately learn the movie is about a 17 year-old lesbian. She hangs out at a lesbian nightclub, she has lesbian girlfriends, she has trouble with her parents when they suspect she’s a lesbian and she struggles inwardly with coming out as… a lesbian. Unless you are... »

The shorthand between a production designer and director who have previously worked together is an advantage in filmmaking that will likely come into play this awards season, three leading designers agreed. Rick Carter and Steven Spielberg, Dante Ferreti and Martin Scorcese, David Yates and Stuart Craig, Clint Eastwood and James Murakami, and Terrence Mallick... »

When Louisiana became the first state to pass entertainment industry tax incentives in 2002, no one could have known that in less than a decade the state would be the third most popular film and television location in the U.S. Indeed, Louisiana has a chance to log a record 150 filming applications this year... »