Robin Milling

Awards

Avatar: The Way of Water Production Designers Ben Procter and Dylan Cole on Expanding the World of Pandora With Oceanic Landscapes & New Weapons

December 20, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

Creating the world of Avatar: The Way of Water was no doubt a formidable task. In fact, it required two Production Designers to fulfill the herculean vision of Director James Cameron, who began working on the sequel 13 years ago before the first film even hit theaters. Avatar featured never-before-seen characters created by transforming motion capture into performance capture, set against the brilliant colors and majesty of Pandora. The Way of Water […]

American Gigolo Set Decorator Dorit Hurst on Drawing Inspiration From a Character’s Backstory and Working With Jon Bernthal

October 26, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

In 1980, the film American Gigolo made its debut in cinemas featuring a young actor named Richard Gere in the title role of Julian, a male escort who set wealthy women’s hearts aflutter. Four decades later, Showtime has reimagined the steamy story for the small screen as an eight-episode original starring Jon Bernthal. The series finds Julian newly sprung from a 15-year stretch in prison after being wrongfully convicted of […]

Five Days at Memorial Production Designer Matthew Davies on Recreating the Hospital and Hurricane Katrina’s Wrath

September 22, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

On Aug. 23, 2005, the unimaginable watery wrath of Hurricane Katrina engulfed and devastated New Orleans. Five Days At Memorial, which is now streaming in full on Apple TV+, is the incredible true story of how caregivers handled the deterioration of their hospital and the chaos that ensued while trying to care for the sick under extreme circumstances and prevent further harm. Once a safe haven for housing residents during […]

Surface Composer Ólafur Arnalds on Writing Full Classical Pieces Vs. Scoring a TV Soundtrack

September 15, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

Ólafur Arnalds is one of Iceland’s foremost musicians and composers, but when he set out to write film and television scores, he hadn’t anticipated the fundamental difference between his career as a recording artist, writing songs for full-length albums, and breaking into the world of the two-minute song cue. Rather than get frustrated, Arnalds was excited to shift gears and learn a new set of musical parameters. His hard work […]

Surface Writer/Creator/EP Veronica West on How She Took Her “Unapologetically Feminine” Thriller From Script to Screen

August 26, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

What we see on the surface isn’t always what it appears to be, and the new Apple TV+ thriller Surface explores that very concept. The limited series stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a San Francisco socialite who starts to experience bouts of memory loss due to a traumatic head injury that she’s told is the result of a suicide attempt, the details of which remain fuzzy. As she attempts to put […]

The First Lady Costume Designer Signe Sejlund on Referencing Iconic White House Looks Through the Decades

August 17, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

Throughout history, the title of the First Lady of the United States has been none other than the “hostess of the White House.” As the wife of the President, her duties are varied — some involve political agendas and management of the White House and its staff, while others include championing social causes and standing by her man at official events and ceremonies. The First Ladies have each made their […]

Angelyne Prosthetic Designer Vincent Van Dyke & Makeup Dept. Head Kate Biscoe on Transforming Emmy Rossum Into LA’s Pink-Hued Princess

August 9, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

If you ever cruised along LA’s Sunset Boulevard during the 1980s, you surely noticed the 14×48 billboards featuring a buxom blonde woman dressed in hot pink with her signature “Angelyne” signed in cursive above her provocatively side-lying body. If you were extra lucky, you might even see her weaving through traffic in her novel pink Corvette. Oddly enough, nobody ever questioned who Angelyne was; she was just accepted as a […]

Emmy-Nominated Composer Nathan Barr on Scoring the Sadness, Romance, and Betrayal of A Very British Scandal, Plus His Wurlitzer

August 8, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

The story of Argyll v. Argyll wasn’t just a scandal in Britain, it became one of the most brutal legal cases of the 20th century. It sensationalized the highly public divorce between the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, which dominated the news of the day thanks to their alleged extramarital affairs. Written by Sarah Phelps, Amazon Prime Video’s limited series A Very British Scandal finds Paul Bettany and Claire Foy […]

Stranger Things 4 VFX Supervisor Justin Mitchell on Creating That Epic Helicopter Crash and the Attack on the Rainbow Room

August 4, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

Following a long COVID delay, Stranger Things 4 finally premiered in May nearly three years after Season 3, with two volumes, no less, to keep in suspense regarding the fate of Hawkins. On July 1, the Duffer brothers unleashed the explosive finale, which saw Eleven and her friends battling an onslaught of evil forces, including Vecna, who was dead set on destroying them limb by limb. Megafans of the supernatural […]

Emmy-Nominated Production Designer Bo Welch on Creating the Colorful and Fantastical World of Schmigadoon!

July 25, 2022 Robin Milling Comments Off

In the musical theater world, there is an age-old trope that insists a character must break out into song if they can no longer express themselves with words. Indeed, musicals have been entertaining audiences on stage and on film with elaborate song and dance numbers since the 1940s. Last July, Apple TV+ raised the curtain on Season 1 of Schmigadoon!, a six-episode ode to musicals that parodied the beloved genre. […]