March 29, 2023
According to production designer Judy Becker, director Todd Haynes, “Comes to the table with a concept of what he wants the movie to look like. He brings a book of images that represent how he sees the world of the film. That begins our discussion.”
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The lines between genius and madness blur inside the mind of Brian Wilson as he’s portrayed in director Bill Pohlad’s Beach Boys biopic Love & Mercy, distributed by Roadside Attractions. Using sound, the film paints a beautiful and discordant picture of what Wilson hears in his head – the music and mania that make the man. Love & Mercy splits Wilson’s life into two distinct parts, the young Brian of the ’60s (played by Paul Dano) in the time surrounding the “Pet Sounds” album, and the middle-aged Brian of the ’80s (played by John Cusack) who struggles daily with reality. The two parts interweave like one of Wilson’s vocal harmonies, giving the audience an idea of how Wilson ended up over-medicated and socially subjugated by the imperious Dr. Landy, who controls everything from what Brian eats to who he talks to. […]
When rerecording mixer Chris Jenkins got a call from music composer Tom Holkenborg about working on Mad Max: Fury Road, saying yes, was the easy part. But what took place over the following months was a collaboration the mixer won’t soon forget. “When Tom asked me if I was interested in being part of the project, he had been already working with George Miller on music themes for over a year,” said Jenkins. “George’s first Mad Max film was mind-blowing. Everyone loved it, so when Tom reached out, I knew this was going to be a once in lifetime opportunity.” Jenkins ended up flying to Sydney where he met up with Holkenborg, picture editor Margaret Sixel, and the rest of the team. Along with rerecording mixer Gregg Rudolf, they spent nearly 10 weeks at Deluxe in Lane Cove before returning to Warner Bros. to finalize the film. […]
In directing Chi-Raq, Spike Lee takes on the rampant gang violence plaguing Chicago using bold choices in his present-day interpretation of Aristophanes’ Greek satire, Lysistrata. As in the original play written 2,500 years ago, a group of women vow to boycott sex with their men until they put down their weapons and end the bloody carnage. The provocative title – street-slang that combines “Chicago” and “Iraq” – depicts the blood-soaked reality of life in an urban community that has become a war zone. […]
Many directors have a regular crew of collaborators on their films. Editor Pietro Scalia first worked with director Ridley Scott on G.I. Jane in 1997 and won his second Oscar for the Scott-directed, Black Hawk Down. Because the production of The Martian came together more quickly than is usual for a high-profile project, when production started Scalia was editing The Sea of Trees for director Gus Van Sant, but he was able to join the team in Budapest about four weeks into the shoot. […]
When replicating real-life figures in a film, the artists charged with creating the likenesses always face a challenge – accurately recreating the visage of the actual person without losing the movie star wearing the makeup beneath layers of prosthetics. Black Mass was no exception to that reality, with star Johnny Depp playing gangster Whitey Bulger, a notable figure in the 1970s and beyond. […]
Showing the un-showable, but not the unwatchable. That was the taut tightrope that Hungarian director László Nemes had to walk to make Son of Saul, a movie that gives more than a glimpse of what it was like to live and die inside the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where the Nazis systematically murdered several million Jews. […]
When visual effects supervisor Tim Alexander undertook the task of bringing dinosaurs to life for the third Jurassic Park sequel, his challenge was made somewhat less daunting due to the familiar territory of Industrial Light & Magic as the project’s effects base. “Being at ILM, we had a lot of history,” he said. “A lot of the people who worked on the original are still there – Denis Muren [visual effects supervisor] and Phil Tippett [dinosaur animation supervisor] consulted with them extensively on what they had done, and why they had done it.”
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