March 27, 2023
As is more or less received wisdom in the creative industries, second acts are difficult. It’s therefore fortuitous that How to Train Your Dragon 2 director, Dean DeBlois, as well as directing and writing credits including Mulan and Lilo and Stitch, also co-directed the original How To Train Your Dragon with Chris Sanders. […]
Oscar-winning director of photography Robert Elswit was the cinematographer on two quite different films this year: Nightcrawler and Inherent Vice. The only common thread is that both happen to be set in Southern California, which Elswit knows well because he grew up there. […]
The latest movie by award-winning director of photography, Roger Deakins, is Unbroken, an ambitious World War II biopic helmed by Angelina Jolie in only her second time in the director’s chair. “The hardest thing for Angie and certainly for me as the cinematographer was to make it all feel and look like the same movie and not like little bits put together,” Deakins said. […]
In Darren Aronofsky‘s Noah, the creator of the world chooses a man (Russell Crowe) and his family to build an ark and fill it with the world’s animals before a world-wide flood cleanses everything left behind. On hand to dress the inhabitants of this world was costume designer Michael Wilkinson, who is known for his work on 300 (2006), Man of Steel (2013) and American Hustle (2013) for which he received an Academy Award nomination. Wilkinson was as eager to work with Aronofsky as he was drawn to the script. […]
Into the Woods is the third musical that Oscar-winning director of photography Dion Beebe has lensed for director Rob Marshall, and compared to Chicago and Nine, the most complicated yet to be put on the screen. The movie is a faithful rendition of one of composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s most fanciful and intricately woven shows. It has 25 songs and requires 17 principal actors who do the actual singing. Stars include Meryl Streep, Chris Pine, Anna Kendrick, Johnny Depp and Tracey Ullman. […]
Director Richard Linklater’s epic-yet-quiet coming-of-age tale, Boyhood, has increasingly become an awards season contender on the strength of a “best picture” nod from the New York Critics Circle (in the same week that The Washington Post and Sight and Sound also put it atop their “year’s best” lists). […]
Mike Leigh‘s Mr. Turner explores the life of eccentric painter J.M.W. Turner. Working without a script, Leigh crafted the story from rehearsals with the actors. The process of working without a script was an interesting one, especially for production designer Suzie Davies. Best known for her work on The Children (2008), Davies was enthralled by the idea of making a film about Turner with another artist she admired, Mike Leigh. […]
IFC Films released a “Making of” video for Richard Linklater‘s Boyhood. This 10-minute featurette, spanning 12 years, gives an extensive look at the process of creating the film with behind-the-scenes interviews with Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater.
“I find it fascinating when there is a little-known true story set against a story everybody knows,” said editor William Goldenberg of The Imitation Game, his fifth film based on a true story. Of the other four, the editor took home an Oscar for Argo and garnered nominations for Zero Dark Thirty, Seabiscuit and The Insider, racking up quite an impressive track record. […]
Robert Yeoman, the director of photography on The Grand Budapest Hotel, has been director Wes Anderson’s cinematographer of choice for nearly two decades. The enduring collaboration dates back to Bottle Rocket in 1996 and encompasses nearly all of the individualistic director-screenwriter’s droll and stylish confections, most notably Rushmore, The Royal Tennenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom. […]