Local 44’s business agent Ed Brown and secretary-treasurer Anthony Pawluc recently invited Patrick Graham, owner of leading film industry publication Below the Line to Local 44's annual Holiday Retirees Luncheon, in order to negotiate final details for Local 44 members to take advantage of Below the Line’s popular Production Listings Discount Program. »

Ah, those digits. On computers tracking finances and trading commodity futures, they weaken the Euro, send gas prices higher, and create all manner of mischief. But in computers creating century-old Parisian landscapes, World Wars, and highly sympathetic revolutionary apes, among other imaginings, they create the very stuff of box office receipts and critical plaudits.... »

Generally, if Rob Legato’s been working on something, he emerges in the contender conversation – which seems to happen every other year or so. There were the special and visual effects for Scorcese’s The Aviator, followed by The Departed, after which he headed off to set up a pipeline for this new James Cameron... »

Tim Burke first boarded the Hogwarts Express for the second film in the Harry Potter series, The Chamber of Secrets, signing on as a VFX supervisor for post-house The Mill. Since then, he’s worked in supervisorial roles in all subsequent installments, rising to senior visual effects supervisor for the franchise’s two-part finale, Harry Potter... »

You might think that DP Jeff Cronenweth, having worked with director David Fincher on Fight Club, and garnering Oscar and ASC nods with the same director for his work on The Social Network was automatically set to shoot the American adaptation of The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo. »

So there we were, on a Thursday mid-morning – Below the Line’s big giant head, Patrick Graham, and truly yours – libations already in hand, a plate of turkey, gravy and fixin’s in our near future. We were guests of IA Local 44 – Hollywood’s property craftspersons – at their annual Christmas party... »

It was a home invasion of the best kind... On a recent cold and blustery December Saturday, members of IA Locals including 44, 729 and 700, Teamsters 399, retirees, producers, and kin of the above, all descended on the home of location manager George Herthel and his wife Pam Boroski. George had become... »

It may be a two-fer year for Joe Letteri: his work on the summer reboot of Fox’s Planet of the Apes franchise has generated considerable buzz about how poignant digits can be in the form of Andy Serkis’ mo-capped performance as Caesar – the chimp leader of the ape uprising against mankind. »

In an era where costumed superhero properties are sought after by studios as franchises, their seamless transfer from four-color comics pages to the big screen is taken for granted in the digital era. Whether the crusader is from Marvel or DC’s line, or somewhere else, the costumes, explosions, supervillain gear, et al are... »

The last time Below the Line caught up with Dan Glass, it was during his back-to-back “superhero” phase of supervising visual effects in Batman Begins and V for Vendetta. Now he’s in contention once again for his work on Terrence Malik’s The Tree of Life »