Emmy Watch – Below the Line

The Consultant Production Designer Clarence Major III on His Vision for CompWare’s Sinister Offices and the Show’s Religious Allegories

March 21, 2023 Ian Spelling Comments Off

Back when Clarence Major III was designing raves, he didn’t harbor any major designs on a career as a Production Designer. Yet here we are decades later, and Major is a 25-year Hollywood veteran with credits spanning from Higher Ed and Mike Epps: Inappropriate Behavior to Amazon Prime Video’s new show The Consultant and the upcoming sci-fi feature War of the Worlds, not to mention countless commercials. He has also […]

Shrinking Casting Directors Debby Romano and Brett Benner on Their 20+ Year Partnership, Casting the Show’s Ensemble, and Landing Harrison Ford

March 9, 2023 Robin Milling Comments Off

Therapy is no laughing matter, but the Apple TV+ streaming series Shrinking manages to inject humor into the serious practice of baring your soul to a total stranger. Created by Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) along with Ted Lasso alums Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein, the comedy finds Segal playing a grieving therapist named Jimmy who, stuck in a rut, begins ignoring protocol with his own […]

Gaslit Music Supervisor Maggie Phillips on Testing Playlists, Working Within a Budget, and Researching the Sweet Sound of the ’70s

February 28, 2023 Scott Essman Comments Off

Last spring, to mark the 50th anniversary of the notorious Watergate break-in and cover-up, Starz released its star-studded limited series Gaslit, which featured Oscar winners Sean Penn and Julia Roberts as John and Martha Mitchell. Told from multiple points of view, Gaslit examined all of the key parties involved in the scandal, beginning with the planning and execution of the main event on June 17, 1972, and then following many […]

Wētā FX’s Guy Williams and Sidney Kombo-Kintombo on Transforming Tatiana Maslany Into She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

February 21, 2023 Edward Douglas Comments Off

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law stars Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) as Jennifer Walters, who, after getting into a car accident, is infected with the blood of her cousin, Bruce Banner, aka The Hulk (once again played by Mark Ruffalo), which turns her into a “She-Hulk.” Like all Marvel projects, She-Hulk required a boatload of visual effects to make Jennifer’s transformation as authentic as possible without the limitless budget of something like Avengers: […]

The White Lotus DP Xavier Grobet on Shooting in Sicily, Reteaming With Mike White, and Recreating Antonioni

February 8, 2023 Abe Friedtanzer Comments Off

Season 2 of HBO’s The White Lotus turned out to be just as popular as Season 1, picking up numerous awards and earning a quick, unsurprising renewal for a third installment. With the exception of Jennifer Coolidge and Jon Gries, Season 2 featured an all-new cast including Michael Imperioli, Aubrey Plaza, Theo James, and F. Murray Abraham, and it also introduced a new Director of Photography in Xavier Grobet. The […]

Tulsa King Stunt Coordinator Freddie Poole on Doubling Sylvester Stallone, Planning Car Chases, and Getting His Start With Chuck Norris

February 7, 2023 Abe Friedtanzer Comments Off

The Paramount+ series Tulsa King stars Sylvester Stallone as a mobster who is newly released from prison and summarily exiled from New York to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where violence quickly finds him. The crime drama required extensive stunt work for its many action sequences, and, fortunately, they had just the right man for the job, as Freddie Poole has been working as Stallone’s stunt double for the past decade and change […]

Oscar-Winning SFX Makeup Artist Howard Berger on Creating Blood, Bite Marks, and Beautiful Nails for Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire

February 6, 2023 Robin Milling Comments Off

The job of the special effects makeup artist is to make characters as gruesome and grotesque as possible, and Oscar-winner Howard Berger (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe) is a master at making such monsters and other otherworldly creatures for film and television. Berger’s 200+ credits date back to 1984 and include installments in the Nightmare on Elm Street and Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchises as […]

The English Cinematographer Arnau Valls Colomer on Shooting Spain for the Western Frontier and Emily Blunt’s Horse Riding Skills

January 31, 2023 Robin Milling Comments Off

When you think of the American frontier, images of the Wild West may come to mind — vast, sweeping landscapes as far as the eye can see, cowboys and Indians riding horses, often engaged in territorial wars. The English, a six-episode miniseries on Amazon Prime Video, offers a revisionist approach to the classic western, one in which the hero happens to be Native American. The show stars Emily Blunt as […]

Composer Siddhartha Khosla on Scoring Emmy Nods in Three Different Categories for Only Murders in the Building and This Is Us

August 17, 2022 Edward Douglas Comments Off

Musician, songwriter, and composer Siddhartha Khosla earned his fourth Emmy nomination for his work on NBC’s acclaimed drama This Is Us this past year, and he also picked up two additional Emmy nominations for his main theme and score for Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building. If you’ve watched either show, then you’re abundantly aware of Khosla’s contributions, particularly the songs he co-wrote with Taylor Goldsmith from the band Dawes […]

Below the Line’s 2022 Television Craft Awards Round-Up

August 15, 2022 Staff Comments Off

We are currently in the voting phase for this year’s Emmy Awards, which continues through August 22, and Below the Line wants to make sure all our readers that are also Emmy voters have a single page to quickly learn about a particular show or some of the crafts people they might want to learn more about before filling out their Emmy ballot. This year’s 74th Emmys will take place […]