The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited 397 artists and executives to join the organization. These are all individuals who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures. Membership selection is based on professional qualifications, with an ongoing commitment to representation, inclusion, and equity remaining a priority. The 2022... »
Growing up, Elie Smolkin loved movies. He and his family shared a routine, wherein Elie, his brother, and their mother would drop by their local Blockbuster, and each got to pick one new movie from the expensive aisle and four from the 99-cent aisle. On weekends, they’d sit and watch all the movies. “We... »
Interviewing Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman is almost as entertaining as their current projects, Showtime’s The Man Who Fell to Earth and the Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Lumet and Kurtzman are longtime friends and frequent collaborators who serve as both writers and producers on the two shows. Kurtzman, of course, is... »
Season 2 of Hacks just finished streaming on HBO Max last month, and once again, creators Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky, and Paul W. Downs have outdone themselves regarding what happens with the relationship between Jean Smart’s aging stand-up veteran Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbinder’s younger and more idealistic comedy writer Ava. Over the course... »
Keri Smith is living in the past, and she loves it. The veteran Costume Designer has worked on contemporary shows and movies, including I Hate My 30’s, My Boys, Answers to Nothing, and Happy Endings, but she’s spent the better part of the last decade happily ensconced in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s thanks... »
Composer Daniel Pemberton has been exceedingly busy the past few years despite the world being fully immersed in a pandemic for the last two. Since 1994, Pemberton has been one of Hollywood’s go-to composers for film and television, and in 2021, he was nominated for his first Oscar — not for one of his... »
Betsy Paterson has been working in visual effects for over 25 years, but she has found a niche for herself of late as VFX Supervisor for television shows like Marco Polo and Carnival Row. After finishing last year’s movie, The Suicide Squad, filmmaker James Gunn decided to spin-off John Cena’s Peacemaker character into his... »
Hacks stars Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder get a lot of credit for the success of the HBO Max show along with its multi-hyphenate creators, Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky — and rightfully so. But Hacks would not have earned 15 Emmy nominations its first time out of the gate had “JPL”... »
Breton Vivian had worked with Brian Tyler for a number of years as a composer’s assistant, but now he’s working with Tyler as an equal for a pair of Taylor Sheridan series — Yellowstone and 1883. Yellowstone is Paramount’s flagship streaming series and one of many that Sheridan has either on the air or... »
When Cinematographer Carl Herse found out about the Apple TV+ series The Afterparty, he immediately sent an email to executive producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, having previously worked with the directing duo behind the 21 Jump Street movies. Created by Miller, The Afterparty is a comedy series that doubles as a murder mystery.... »
This year’s Emmy Awards nomination period takes place between June 10 and June 27, and Below the Line wants to make sure our Emmy voter readers have a single page they can bookmark in order to quickly learn about a particular show or some of the crafts people they might want to learn more about before... »
The sexual affair between White House intern Monica Lewinsky and former President Bill Clinton may seem like old news, but in FX’s limited series Impeachment: American Crime Story, executive producer/director Ryan Murphy breathed new life into the torrid scandal of 1998. The 10-episode series debuted last fall and starred Beanie Feldstein as Lewinsky and Clive... »
