Ever since she made her directorial debut in 2003 with Thirteen, Catherine Hardwicke has been one of the American cinema’s great chroniclers of young people navigating the transition to adulthood. In films as diverse as Lords of Dogtown, Twilight, Red Riding Hood and The Nativity Story, Hardwicke has explored teenage crises and discoveries with serious intent and the sharp attention to visual detail that she developed as a production designer on movies like Three Kings and Vanilla Sky. Her work on those films and other often demonstrated a bold and original approach to color, and this is true of her latest directorial effort, Don’t Look Deeper, as well. A series for Quibi that follows that platform’s format of 7-10 minute episodes that can be watched either horizontally or vertically on one’s phone (the viewer can switch aspect ratios at will at any point in the narrative), Don’t Look Deeper is top-tier Hardwicke, a vivid and emotionally devastating coming of age story with sci-fi trappings in which every visual detail deepens and expands our understanding of the characters. Helena Howard is superb as a high school senior who realizes that everything she thought she knew about herself and her life is false, and Don Cheadle and Emily Mortimer are equally strong in supporting roles as adults who are both the source of her anguish and the two people most determined to protect her.

 To delve too much into the plot would be to rob the viewer of Don’t Look Deeper’s pleasurable twists and turns, so I’ll just say that it’s worth watching for the usual reasons that apply to Hardwicke’s work, along with a few new ones. Her ability to thoughtfully convey the struggles of her teen characters and to elicit complex performances from young actors is on full display, but the philosophical questions raised by showrunners Jeff Lieber and Charlie McDonnell’s scripts allow Hardwicke to explore unexpected and provocative ideas—she’s always been interested in inquiries into identity and how it’s formed, but such questions reach a whole new level here. I spoke with Hardwicke by phone a few months before the series’ release and began by asking how she first came to be involved.     

Catherine Hardwicke: The two writers, Jeff Lieber and Charlie McDonnell, had been working on this idea for short form content and sent it to me—probably because it had a complex teenage girl going through a journey of self-discovery, which is the kind of thing I love. And I did immediately love the script; I was very intrigued and drawn into this emotional struggle the girl goes through. About a week after they sent it to me, Quibi announced that they were going to start making content using a short form model. It was great synchronicity: I had done another project with Jeffrey Katzenberg and had a good working relationship with him, so we went in and told him the concept and they were on board right away. I think we were one of the first dramatic shows to start shooting, and it was very exciting, because they were encouraging these interesting actors that we cast. It was really fun to be one of the first out the gate.

Filmmaker: Since you brought up the actors, I wanted to ask you about how you decided on Helena Howard, because I thought she was really fantastic. How did you come to cast her, as well as more established actors like Don Cheadle and Emily Mortimer? 

Hardwicke: Helena had that beautiful movie at Sundance last year, Madeline’s Madeline, where the director did something similar to what I did with Thirteen—found this incredible girl and built a story around her. I thought Helena was very moving in that film, and knew after having some conversations with her that she would be fantastic. With Don and Emily, we talked on the phone and on Skype and I would just ask them how they saw their characters. I’d share my images of how they could dress, and what the vibe would be, and what kind of backstory I thought of, then see if they liked that or wanted to add to it. What kind of professor would Don be? What kind of house would he have? You just make sure you’re all on the same page before everybody signs on. Then we had a couple of days of incredible rehearsals with Don, Emily, Helena, and other cast members, and that’s where Don was really a creative force. He has produced, written, directed and starred in so many things, and he has so many great ideas and feelings—not just about his character, but details he thought of for Emily and Helena too. It was a really fun, creative process, finding cool new things to incorporate into the script while also figuring out what everybody would wear and how it would inform the characters.

Filmmaker: Something that characterizes all of your movies is that the performances don’t feel like performances. They feel like behavior that you just caught on the fly. I’m curious how you achieve that. 

Hardwicke: What a wonderful compliment, thank you. I think part of it does start with those early conversations, when you develop and build the character through wardrobe, hairstyle, details like that. And then, in the rehearsals, there’s not a giant crew around, so the actors can feel free to express any problems they have, any areas that don’t feel right to them or dialogue that they feel is missing something. We have that private time to express all that, so everybody gets their fears and issues out. By the time we get to the set, we know we’re going to have more people standing around, but at least we’ve created this bond where we feel good and understand what we’re doing, even though on the set you can’t shoot it in order. You have to go to the house and shoot all the house scenes, and it might be just wildly out of order. Or you have to do the final scene the first day. I remember we had to do the sex scene with Emily and Don first. It’s a very emotional scene, where Don really opens up and is very vulnerable. But we had done those rehearsals. 

Of course, the more emotional the scene is, as a director I try to keep the set to a minimum amount of people. On some shows I’ve literally put up a sign: Respect for Actors. They need quiet, so don’t be talking about where you’re going to go to get a hamburger. Help them stay focused in their character. I think our crews get excited about that. They really do want to support the actors, because we all know that it doesn’t matter how cool the camera moving is, or how beautiful the set or the costumes are—if you don’t love the actors or don’t feel for them, then you don’t really care about the story.

Filmmaker: Absolutely. When you’re on the set and you’re shooting, what kind of give and take is there between the performers and the camera? Do you preplan your shots pretty specifically? Or are you more responding to what the actors are doing on the day? 

Hardwicke: It’s kind of a dance. I hate to keep coming back to in rehearsal, but that’s where I’m already thinking about the blocking that would work best cinematically. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to rehearse in the real locations; in Thirteen we did that. In this one, we didn’t get to do it as much, but I knew the space, I could lay it out and visualize it for them. I knew what would work well for the camera, so we would talk about that, even in rehearsal. If something felt jammed into a tiny little corner, or people’s faces were too close to each other or something was too static, we would talk about that in the rehearsal to figure out a way to open it up or make the scene more dynamic. So that on the day, yes, I did have shot lists and diagrams of all the shots planned out, but you still have to be flexible. Something might not work the way you thought it would work, but at least you have a plan that you can then deviate from if you want to.

Filmmaker: I really liked the look of the film, especially the way you used color, and I was wondering what kinds of conversations you had with your DP and production designer.

Hardwicke: We had a beautiful cinematographer, Patrick Murguia. He’s from Mexico City, where a lot of the best cinematographers in the world are from. I had already done two projects with him, Miss Bala and a TV show in Detroit, so our minds were already in sync when it came to the palette. We would have these beautiful photographs that were our guiding references and influences for each scene. The production designer, Adam Riemer, is also very good with color and very focused, as is the costume designer, Marie France. We were all in sync, and the photographs and everything else we looked at went up on the wall, so that you could walk into my office and see the whole look of the film right there. 

The big challenge was that the show had to work in both vertical and horizontal formats, and Patrick and I had never done anything like that. We’re used to shooting horizontal. So we did a short film as a test, where we shot it horizontally, then we shot the same film vertically, so that we could learn these principles and the differences. You might be watching it in a landscape format, and you can really feel the environment and the influence of that environment on the characters. If you turn it at any moment into the vertical format, it’s more intimate, more of a closeup, where you’re almost FaceTiming with the character. In a way, you get to be your own editor as you’re watching it.

Patrick and I had to figure that all out: which lenses, what kinds of lighting work better in one format or another, or just don’t work at all when you change it. There was a lot of experimenting to learn about the format. Then there’s the structure, where people are watching segments under 10 minutes. I had never thought that way. I made shorts at school, but they were standalone films. I thought it was a great exercise, because as a filmmaker you’re always trying to find a way to tell this story efficiently. Maybe layer the frame so that you can convey a lot of information in a short amount of time without being repetitive. We’re always trying to make sure that we do not repeat the same beats, to advance character development, the plot, whatever. So this took it to the extreme, the question of how to streamline it and be respectful of the viewer’s time and attention. We always try that, but now we have to do it on steroids.

How can I compose a frame in a way where there’s foreground, middle ground, and background all giving you interesting information, while also allowing you to share the feelings of the character? It’s more compressed, more efficient. I love that challenge. I have a short attention span: I’m, like everybody else, super busy, and I like it when the filmmaker respects my time and does it in an engaging and efficient way. The editing process was like learning to play the trumpet or something, because working with the two aspect ratios really keeps your brain elastic. I felt like I learned two languages and an instrument because you had to be able to fluidly turn your phone horizontal to vertical. So that means the soundtrack has to be exactly the same, right? And the takes to the lip sync will work out, right? Or the sound effect of the knock on the door has to be the same. So you cannot change takes unless the sound is synchronistic, yet some things that worked beautifully in landscape do not work in vertical at all. 

Filmmaker: I would also think that on top of all there’s a delicate balance in terms of giving the audience information, because the script is very precise in terms of the way it keeps us in the dark about some things and reveals others. Was that all worked out fairly well ahead of time, or did you get into the editing room and find out that you had to play with it a little bit too?

Hardwicke: The script was very well structured, but when we got into the editing room no episode could be longer than 10 minutes, not even one second longer. That was the whole point. That was the format. And suddenly some episodes were longer. We had a big wall of cards in the editing room, and we did have to do some restructuring, which like you say, could not tip the scales. It couldn’t have any spoilers. It still had to be in that precise, beautiful order of reveals. It was very challenging. I had many days where I was just looking at all the cards on the wall, because then you can see the heart. When you put the cards on the wall for every scene, you can see the whole picture. And when you’re in AVID, you’re almost editing in a linear manner. So, I would go back and forth from the macro to the micro to try to figure out the mind bending exercises, how to accomplish the time limits and the intricacy of the story. I bought some brain pills, some brain vitamins while I was in there. I’m not kidding. Because my head was exploding.

Article written by Jim Hemphill for Filmmaker Magazine.

Dave Franco's art imitated his own life as he channeled his increasing paranoia regarding home-sharing services and modern technology into his debut genre feature, The Rental. Led by Dan Stevens and Franco's wife, Alison Brie, the film chronicles a vacation getaway between two couples that quickly unravels because of their own secrets and a shadowy presence in the distance. The story allowed Franco to explore the potential danger of Airbnb-type services as well as technology's role in the process.

"My paranoia about the concept of home-sharing is what inspired the film in the first place," Franco tells The Hollywood Reporter. "But my paranoia has reached new peaks since filming this movie, where now when I stay in a rental home, I'm not thinking, 'Are there cameras here?' Instead, I'm thinking, 'I know there are cameras here. It's just about whether or not I'm going to find them.'"

Franco's fears extend well beyond Airbnbs and hotel rooms as he has the same anxieties at home.

"Yeah, I am personally very scared of technology, and I do think about how we are potentially being watched and listened to at all moments in the day," Franco admits. "And one way that has impacted my life is when I'm talking to my family or some of my closest friends. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, 'Should I say this? Or should I not knowing that there might be someone listening in on this call?'"

The 35-year-old actor-filmmaker also explains why he decided not to appear in his own film.

"So, the truth is I was not originally planning on directing this film. At that time, I was going to play Josh, and that role ultimately went to Jeremy Allen White," Franco explains. "As much as I wanted to cast Alison from the beginning, it would've been weird if we were both in it because she would've been playing my sister-in-law," he adds with a laugh. 

The Northern California native also reflects on the call he received from Barry Jenkins regarding a role in If Beale Street Could Talk.

"Barry Jenkins actually called me and offered me the role, and the first thing I said was, 'Are you sure?'" Franco recalls with a laugh. "When Barry Jenkins asks you to be in something, you do it. I would've been an extra in the film, walking in the deep background, if he wanted me to."

In a recent conversation with THR, Franco also discusses the unspoken shorthand he had with his partner, Brie, on the Rental set, the "elevated and tasteful" romantic comedy they wrote together during coronavirus lockdown and his hopes to continue The Rental’s story in a sequel.

Since making this film, have you been a little more paranoid than usual when staying at a hotel or rental property?

(Laughs.) Definitely. My paranoia about the concept of home-sharing is what inspired the film in the first place. But my paranoia has reached new peaks since filming this movie, where now when I stay in a rental home, I'm not thinking, "Are there cameras here?" Instead, I'm thinking, "I know there are cameras here. It's just about whether or not I'm going to find them."

The Orwellian term "Big Brother" is closely associated with mass surveillance by the government, but what makes this movie so alarming is that modern technology can turn any ordinary citizen with a credit card into a Big Brother of sorts. Does today's technology also frighten you since cameras are just the tip of the iceberg?

Yeah, I am personally very scared of technology, and I do think about how we are potentially being watched and listened to at all moments in the day. And one way that has impacted my life is when I'm talking to my family or some of my closest friends. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "Should I say this? Or should I not knowing that there might be someone listening in on this call?" And I hate that I think about that stuff, but it does tie in to some of the reasons why I made this film.

I can't help but view entertainment through our present-day lens. And among the points that have had the most effect on me is that it's not enough to be not racist; it's important to be anti-racist. So, when Sheila Vand's character questions Toby Huss' character about racial profiling, the three other characters stood out to me because they were passive and silent during that argument. Are current events also reshaping the way you view not just your own movie but entertainment in general?

Yeah. Obviously, we made this film before any of the events that are currently happening right now. But that aspect of the film is based on friends of mine who have experienced racial profiling when trying to rent a home on one of these apps. It was important for me to include this in the film, and it was an honest way to create immediate tension between one of the renters, who is of Iranian descent, and the homeowner, who is white. And it's a moment in the film that makes everyone else in the scene uncomfortable, like you said, as they are all forced to deal with the fact that their friend, played by Sheila Vand, was likely a victim of racial profiling and this isn't something that they can just ignore anymore. So, it definitely does feel relevant to what we're seeing today.

You and Alison have both created your own material lately. Did you see her writing Horse Girl first and get inspired by that? Or was it just the opposite?

(Laughs.) I promise I'm not trying to brag here, but I did start working on The Rental before she started writing Horse Girl. And I only say this because I know she has said in multiple interviews that watching Joe Swanberg and me write The Rental inspired her and gave her the confidence to start writing her own script. And I'm so happy that she did because I think she gives one of her best performances ever in Horse Girl, and I'm so impressed just by how her and the director, Jeff Baena, put that story together. It's not an easy one to tell and they executed it in such a way that it feels extremely unique and abstract, but at the same time, relatable and universal, and just very human.

I believe you could've played Dan Stevens' or Jeremy Allen White's parts if you really wanted to, but did you avoid casting yourself so that the viewer wouldn't carry their real-world knowledge of you and Alison into the movie?

It's an interesting question. So, the truth is I was not originally planning on directing this film. At that time, I was going to play Josh, and that role ultimately went to Jeremy Allen White. As much as I wanted to cast Alison from the beginning, it would've been weird if we were both in it because she would've been playing my sister-in-law. (Laughs.) But as soon as I decided to not act in the film, she was obviously my first choice, and I'm so happy that it played out the way that it did for a few reasons. She's incredibly talented. She has this unique ability to balance heavy drama with moments of levity, sometimes within the space of a single scene. It was really impressive to watch her navigate seamlessly between conflicting emotions, and there aren't many actors out there who can do that. I guess I'm going on a tangent here about just how much I love my wife. (Laughs.) But it was just comforting to have her there with me because as you can imagine, as a first-time director, there were moments where I would get in my head and start to doubt myself in small ways, and she was always there to build me up and give me confidence and remind me that we were doing good work.

As someone who's addressed one of his friends as "Brosephine Lilly" for 16 years, I loved the bro wordplay moment quite a bit, especially since it sold me on Dan and Jeremy's characters being brothers. Was there a point where you and Joe Swanberg sat in a room and just riffed on all things bro?

(Laughs.) Absolutely. My closest friends in real life have commented on that scene, saying that it's a reflection of our lives more than anything else in the film. But yes, there were many bro puns being thrown around while Joe and I were holed up in his hotel room in L.A. 

I talked to Joe Gordon-Levitt recently, and I've been kicking myself ever since because I forgot to mention "Broseph Gordon-Levitt" to him.

(Laughs.) I think it'll be better as a surprise for him if he ever does watch this film.

When I first saw Joe Swanberg credited as co-writer, I did a double take since horror isn't his usual M.O., but then I remembered V/H/Sand his acting work with Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett. So how did you end up with him on board?

Yeah, so I acted in Joe's Netflix series called Easy, and we got along really well and realized we had similar sensibilities, including our love for horror films. But the main reason I wanted to pair up with Joe on this one is because his main strengths lie in character and relationship. And so, our goal was to create a tense relationship drama where the interpersonal issues between the characters were just as thrilling as the fact that there's a psycho killer lurking in the shadows. At its core, the film really is about these characters and their relationships, and then we sprinkled the horror elements on top to help accentuate the problems they're going through. But the disintegration of their relationships also coincides with the characters finding themselves in more physical danger, and I guess it's somewhat of a metaphor …

I'm sure you had a shorthand with Alison that was unique from the other actors, but how specific could you get with her? Did you reference her previous work or remind her of a shared experience where you knew that she felt a certain way?

It was honestly much more simple than that. She would do a take, and then I would start walking toward her to give her a note. And before I said anything, she would look at me and say, "I know exactly what you're going to say. Just let me try one more." And then, she would do the next take and do exactly what I was thinking. I can't explain it, except for the fact that I guess that's the dynamic you have when you've been living with someone for eight years.

First-time filmmakers often test their films via friends and family as they shape the final cut. What feedback did you pick up from such screenings, and what did you ultimately apply, if anything?

The main takeaways from the test screenings were in regard to pacing, where there is an underlying tension from the opening shot of the film that slowly builds throughout. But the first half of the film is really about these characters and their relationships, and so we needed to find ways to keep the tension during that portion of the film, even when there was nothing overtly scary happening onscreen. And so, it was really about spacing out these voyeuristic shots that we have that almost remind the audience that we're in a thriller or a horror film. That's what we really took away from those screenings.

I love the poster for this film, and despite a few exceptions here and there, I feel like artful movie posters are a thing of the past. Do you find movie posters to be lacking these days as well?

I don't know. I mean, we definitely put a lot of time and effort into our poster. And I'm really happy to hear you recognize that because we did try to make it feel a little more artful than a standard horror poster. It was difficult because we wanted to lean into certain horror elements, but at the same time, the movie is not your standard horror film. There are not jump scares every few minutes. It's more of a nuanced, atmospheric approach where the movie really takes its time to creep up on you. And so, we wanted to somehow reflect all of that in the poster, and I think we were able to achieve that by just creating more of an atmosphere and not leaning too heavily on the horror, but just enough so that you know that you're in for a creepy ride.

Is it safe to say that you've caught the directing bug?

Absolutely. I would love to continue on this path and direct another horror film. I have a pretty strong idea for a sequel to this film, if I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to carry on the story. But also, Alison and I have written a romantic comedy during the quarantine. We love the genre, but we were kind of looking at the landscape of romantic comedies over the past decade or so and we feel like people are really yearning for one that feels a little more elevated and tasteful. And so, we started thinking about some of the classics like When Harry Met Sally …, Sleepless in Seattle, My Best Friend's Wedding and Pretty Woman, which are all films that are extremely grounded. The acting is great, and they are all shot like dramas, so they look good. And so, we were just wondering why no one approaches the genre from that point of view anymore. So that's what we tried to do with this script, and that would be for me to direct and for Alison to act in.

I really appreciate when a known actor shows up for a scene or two and immediately makes their presence felt. And you certainly made an impression on me in If Beale Street Could Talk. What do you remember about that day or two of shooting, and was it a standard casting process?

Oh, thanks. It was not a standard casting process. Barry Jenkins actually called me and offered me the role, and the first thing I said was, "Are you sure?" (Laughs.) And we talked through it, and you know, when Barry Jenkins asks you to be in something, you do it. I would've been an extra in the film, walking in the deep background, if he wanted me to. But I remember the experience on set being very positive in the sense that he creates such a comfortable environment, and he really gives you the time to find the moment. He's so confident about what he's doing, and has such a strong vision and knows exactly how to talk to actors. I remember he would come up to me and sometimes just say one or two words, and I knew exactly what he wanted. And these simple poignant directions that he gave ultimately made the character much more complex and gave him a lot of weight.

You were also part of a memorable opening sequence in Michael Bay's 6 Underground. Was that movie as bonkers to shoot as it was to watch?

It was crazier than you could ever imagine. Whatever you're thinking, multiply that by 50. (Laughs.) I'll leave it at that. If we ever get to meet face-to-face again, we can spend an entire dinner reflecting on that experience, and I have many, many entertaining stories for you.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Rental is now available at drive-ins, in select theaters and on demand.

Article written by Brian Davids for The Hollywood Reporter.

The director of "The Messenger," and the producer of "Bad Education" and "The Tale," looks over a movie landscape changed by the pandemic — but one, he says, that was already undergoing a revolution.

Oren Moverman began his career as a screenwriter, contributing to such landmarks of independent film as “Jesus’ Son” and “I’m Not There.” In 2009, he made his directorial debut with “The Messenger,” an Iraq-war homefront drama that attracted major critical acclaim as well as two Oscar nominations (for best original screenplay and for Woody Harrelson as best supporting actor). Moverman’s other films as a director are “Rampart” (2011), “Time Out of Mind” (2014), and “The Dinner” (2017); he also cowrote the Brian Wilson biopic “Love & Mercy.” In addition, he works as a producer, and has been more and more active in that role in recent years (he’s a partner, with Julia Lebedev and Eddie Vaisman, in Sight Unseen Pictures), having shepherded such films as “Bad Education,” “The Tale,” “Wildlife,” “Monsters and Men,” and “Diane.” I spoke with him about where he thinks the movie world is heading.

Here we are in the middle of a totally fractured, changing movie landscape. When you look around you and look at the future, what do you see?

Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from these times, it’s that nobody knows anything, and everyone’s an expert. And I’m included. I see what’s happening now, the pandemic, as just the evolution moving faster than we thought it would. To me, it’s very clear that independent cinema, as we know it and as we love it, is over.

Over?

Over, I think. But qualified: as we know it. The idea of independent financing, putting together films that have no home, taking them to festivals, trying to sell them — they’re going to have to take on a very different model, if they get made. A lot of producers I talk to are looking to set up projects with the streamers, the studios, whoever’s going to be left standing. Whereas the sort of grungy putting together of ten dollars here, ten dollars there to make a film — it’s possible from a financial standpoint, it’s just a question of where it will ever be seen.

Do you see the change you’re talking about, then, as primarily an exhibition problem?

Yes. Without movie theaters in the foreseeable future, and with the way things were already going pre-Covid, we’re going to have to find a different model for showing independent films. For me, it’s very hard to see what that would be like unless Netflix or Amazon comes up with the idea of, say, having one lane for independent film. But I think that takes us into a conversation about cinema — if I can use that dirty word — and quality, and what kind of films won’t make it to the platforms.

You were already ahead of this curve in terms of what happened with “Bad Education,” which you produced. Last year, I wrote that the idea of a movie of that quality, pedigree, and acclaim going straight to HBO felt like a revolutionary change. Do you think that’s accurate?

Yeah, that’s what it felt like. I actually experienced that a couple of years before with “The Tale,” which is another movie I produced that also sold to HBO. The feeling was: You need a home — a home that supports these movies. And that’s not an easy thing anymore. With both these movies, HBO came and really talked a good game and delivered on it. The kind of support and infrastructure that they can provide a film that was made independently is almost shocking in its efficiency, and its potential.

“Bad Education” felt like the kind of movie that, potentially, could have made a splash in theaters. Did you have that thought? Did you think, “We’re going to be missing that?”

Yeah! It was one of those classic middle-of-the-night, people coming into the hotel room to talk about why they should be distributing the film situations. And I think one of the things we’re dealing with now is letting go of some of these expectations of theatrical distribution. I don’t mean to say that it should go away completely. It shouldn’t. There’s room for it and there’s a need for it. But I also feel like you have to question yourself: Why do you want theatrical? Is it about the nostalgic element of it, the romantic element of it, the sort of dreamy aspect of it — which I can say personally, that was my dream. My dream was to make films and have them in movie theaters, and that was kind of it, you know? But you also have to measure that against the reality of where things are going, and whether you’re resisting change because change is hard and change is uncomfortable and change demands a lot of self-reflection. Or are you going to start embracing change and seeing the opportunities that come with it, and seeing what is good about it?

Theater reopenings and big movie openings, like Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” have been delayed and delayed. When do you foresee theaters in the U.S. reopening, and what has to happen for that to happen?

It’s hard to tell, obviously, but I think there are two aspects of it. There’s the science, and there’s the psychology. When are people going to feel safe? And, of course, we know that plenty of people — too many — feel like it’s safe right now, but the reality is that the numbers are going up, and it’s a scary time on a lot of levels. I think when there’s a vaccine, and people are feeling like it’s working, then a lot of stuff will be tested. We’ll test the idea that now people are realizing they need community, they need interactions with people. And when people feel safe, we’ll see whether the theaters are still standing. Obviously, the big chains are dealing with something different than the small chains. The big films will ultimately be fine. But I don’t think it’s all going to be back for quite a few months.

What do you think is going to happen with awards season this year?

I think there is going to be one, because it’s hard to let that go. And it’s also such an integral part of the way the industry operates. You see all the efforts to have some form of a festival, even if it’s just announcing, “These are the movies that will not be shown at our festival!” It’s like the value system is changing, so now the value is like, “We got into Cannes!” No tuxedoes involved. You don’t really know what’s going to happen. You don’t really know that the orchestra playing with the silent movie is about to be canned and never to return to the movie theater. I think people will want to have awards, maybe with a big asterisk. But the industry needs it on some level.

Your silent-movie analogy is fascinating. Do you think that’s the kind of moment we’re at right now?

Yeah, I do. I think this is exactly that kind of moment. It’s like, sound is coming in, and these people are not going to be needed anymore, and these people are going to be making something new out of it, and all of a sudden you need all these people who know how to write dialogue to come in and make the movies talk. What I’m hoping for, as the immigrant that I am, is that good old American ingenuity sort of looks at something that’s gone and can never be repeated and all of a sudden pivots into something that’s new and supplies something else to be excited about.

Pretend that it’s five years from now. The pandemic is long over. What does the American film industry look like?

I would have to think, based on what is going on now, that it would be streamers, platforms and such, big movies in theater chains, and small movies in repertory theaters and art theaters like the Metrograph in New York. And by the way, all this stuff Godard said 30 years ago. He said that in the future movies will be in museums, that the kind of movies we love and grew up on and gravitate towards are just going to be more of a specialty item.

But five years from now, do you still see the existence of a big studio franchise culture like the kind we have now?

I think so, in some form or another, yeah. I think that that’s the theme park that doesn’t go away. That’s real business. That’s, like, a level of business that’s going to adjust itself for success. It may not be precisely Marvel, but it will be something of that nature.

Do you think there will be even less room in that model for what we used to call dramas for adults?

I do, yeah. I’m saying all that with a very silly optimistic part of me kind of screaming as I say this, but I actually think that the dramatic movie may be going the way of the novel. It’s human evolution. It’s where we’re going. It’s a very complicated marriage with technology, and it’s a marriage that’s not going to end in divorce, but it’s just not going to be the same.

Whenever I write something about movie theaters vs. streaming, and I tend to be quite a cheerleader for the theater experience for reasons that I don’t think are simply nostalgia, I always get loads of comments saying, “Oh, get over it. Theaters are dying. I’d rather be at home.” Do you think that appetite to go out to a theater is actually waning?

People are always going to have this drive for gathering, for being with other people. But I think culturally a bunch of people going “Hey, let’s go to the movies” could be something that is a relic, a historical thing that you see on “Seinfeld” reruns. Oh, people used to go to the movies! Obviously, the industry is going to try to fight it, and I’m all for the fight.

How does the new deal between Universal and AMC, shortening the theatrical window to a potential three weeks, fit into that fight?

You can’t help but feel like that a deal like that is a practical business adjustment, purely a change acknowledging reality. But it also speaks to the uncertainty of who we are as viewers, as a society. You have a small window to go to the theaters. You may choose not to. There are so many reasons not to go to the theaters, so many fears of the world out there, so many inconveniences and challenges. It’s not a cheap offering, financially and otherwise. Now you get the reassurance that you won’t have to wait long before the film comes to you, safely, at home. You won’t be missing out for too long. So the three weekends the film will spend in the theaters will determine the desire for its consumption in a communal way.  Maybe that’s a new barometer moving forward: Is the film worthy of interaction with other human beings in public spaces in the short amount of time it only exists that way? It weirdly raises the bar. But will it raise the quality of the work and its attractiveness? Wouldn’t it be nice?

Everybody now seems to accept the conventional wisdom that if you’re going to a theater, it’s probably to see a big spectacle film. Yet the definition of movies for so long was that you went to theater to see a drama, and it was the theater experience that made it a spectacle. Why has that hunger gone away?

Because I think the streamers and the things that you can get at home changed everything. They didn’t just change that particular element of going to a theater. They changed the way stories are being told. They changed the way narrative is laid out. They changed the acting, editing, writing, directing, the whole approach. A lot of TV, for example, is driven by writers. That has a different effect on viewing habits. I think that the way narrative now is laid out for people, it’s much more challenging to sort of face the more idiosyncratic artistic expression of films driven by a director’s vision. I think the plot vision behind serial television is easier, frankly.

So you’re saying that long-form serial storytelling is changing the DNA of what we want?

Yes. I really believe that. And I see it. Just watching even some of my favorite actors and seeing how working in that system changes something about the way they work, changes the way they are as actors. It’s very interesting when you talk to someone about a TV series and they say, “Oh, you should really watch it — it’s very cinematic.” It means that it’s not just concerned with the words and the plot and the various spoon-feedings of narrative.

I think that’s a telling irony to all this. The television revolution we’re in the middle of is 20 years old. If you look at the great defining shows of that — “The Sopranos,” “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” — these are the shows we think of as being “like movies.”

Yeah. And we all know that “The Sopranos” could never exist right now. For a lot of reasons.

Like?

On a very simple level, the content of it, the misogyny, the racism, the stereotypes that people would object to. But also, it’s cinematic. It’s not only driven by: and then this happened and then this happened. It’s gunning for a bigger vision that you don’t see a lot of on television these days.

Is this a moment of creative destruction, like what the Buddhists talk about?

That’s a very good question. In a way, yes. In a sense, something has been built, and now it’s being wiped away. But I think the wiping away just reveals a new thing. And if we pay attention to the changes not in a hostile way, then it could be an exciting time.

The aftermath of the murder of George Floyd has provoked an incredible reckoning in America, and in the entertainment industry. Do you see this moment as having a lasting impact on movies?

Yes. Very much so. I think that’s one place where I’ve noticed that the change is real, and it doesn’t feel like it’s short-term. From what I’m seeing, there’s a real reckoning, there’s a real shifting of perspectives and of operational efforts.

And maybe that, and also the post-#MeToo universe, feeds into the other changes you’re talking about.

Absolutely. One of the things I like about what we do is that all these things sort of interact. Because there are all these new people coming in, all these new perspectives finally getting their full due. And out of that, new things will come.

Article written by Owen Gleiberman for Variety.

The theatrical window has been shattered, and it’s a pretty good bet that it will never be patched back together. That means that the movie business will never look the same.

The Universal and AMC Theatres deal enabling the studio to release new movies on premium video on-demand within three weeks of their debut has upended the exhibition industry. That substantially shrinks the amount of time during which films can only show on the big screen in AMC’s venues. The arrival of this moment had been threatened for decades.

Before Universal and AMC’s alliance, movies typically had to wait 75 to 90 days before they appeared on home entertainment platforms. Now, Universal will have the option to put its movies on digital rental services after they have played in theaters for 17 days.

It’s also a stark reversal from earlier this year, when AMC’s CEO Adam Aron vowed his company would ban Universal’s movies after the studio said it would consider simultaneously releasing films in theaters and on digital rental services.

“This is a watershed moment for the entertainment industry,” says Rich Greenfield, a media analyst with LightShed Partners. “Universal isn’t trying to hurt movie theaters. They’re trying to do what consumers want — which is to watch movies wherever.”

After the initial shock of the announcement, Universal’s competitors were skeptical about the immediate impact of the deal, citing all kinds of caveats. One film executive speaking on the condition of anonymity rattled off a list of questions and observations: AMC is distressed and flirting with bankruptcy; studios have to share profits with the theater owners at the very start of a film’s financial life cycle; what happens when people aren’t locked in their homes anymore because of COVID-19?

It’s only a matter of time before other theater chains feel pressure to sign similar pacts and other studios insist AMC and fellow cinemas allow them to release their films in the home earlier. It’s the kind of precedent-shattering pact that only came about because coronavirus has brought the theater business to its knees, limiting its negotiating power.

But it’s also an agreement that will have wide-ranging ramifications for how studios make films, how customers watch them and how cinemas and movie companies earn money.

Here are six burning questions raised by the Universal and AMC pact.

Will rival studios follow suit?

Of course, but probably not Disney. Universal has been the most aggressive at trying to trim theatrical windows (Remember the “Tower Heist” experiment?) But nearly every other major studio, with the exception of “the house that Walt built,” has also wanted to be able to release their films on-demand earlier. It’s advantageous for them because movies generate most of their box office ticket sales within the first few weeks of release. When they have to wait three months to launch the same title on demand, it requires them to shell out more money to reignite marketing campaigns. Look for Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony and Lionsgate to commence their own negotiations with AMC. Whether they ultimately decide to take the plunge is a question for another day.

Do Regal and Cinemark join in?

They may not have a choice. In case you haven’t noticed, the theater business isn’t doing so hot right now. The exhibition industry hasn’t figured out a way to reopen on a national scale while coronavirus is raging in many parts of the U.S., leaving cinemas without any revenues for months. They need “Jurassic World: Dominion” and “F9” to pack their multiplexes even if it means accepting that the next “Purge” movie may debut in the home within a few weeks of it hitting the big screen. Movie theater owners also could use some fresh revenue streams. By giving Universal the green light, they will receive a cut of its premium video on-demand sales. In the short run, money talks. In the long run, taking the check from Universal could be disastrous. If moviegoers decide it’s a better deal to skip theaters and wait a few weeks to pay a steep rental fee, that could take a big bite out of box office revenues.

Do smaller theaters get screwed? 

Probably. The big chains will be able to use their size to ink better deals, but smaller, mom-and-pop businesses won’t have the same kind of bargaining power. They’ll have to accept a new normal for their industry — the perimeters of which will be determined by mega conglomerates and corporate giants that don’t care how much popcorn they need to sell to keep the marquee lights on. Many of these cinemas were teetering on the edge of financial ruin. If the theatrical window keeps cracking, or people decide it’s too great a risk to return to cinemas in a pandemic, it could mean they’ll be forced to roll credits.

What happens if AMC goes bankrupt? 

Unclear. The theater chain is heavily leveraged and has already warned investors that it could stop being able to operate if the pandemic stretches on too long. It did reach a deal with its creditors to wipe out some of its debt and to improve its liquidity, but coronavirus, at least in the U.S., is getting worse, not better. At some point, AMC’s debt could become too great a burden. If it goes under or gets sold to new owners, will the deal with Universal still stand? It might not matter. This new agreement and the ones that are likely to follow between other theater chains and studios has likely changed things forever.

What does this mean for Netflix?

Everything changes, or nothing does. The formal terms of the Uni-AMC deal limited this agreement strictly to PVOD — meaning streaming video providers are still shut out, even if its own originals are hopeful for physical screens. Still, Netflix can easily gloat about this long-awaited moment for their notorious establishment foe. The streaming giant has tried and failed to force theaters to show its films on their screens, even carving out exclusive windows for films such as “The Irishman” and “Marriage Story” that dwarf the 17-day window Universal now enjoys. In the past, AMC has refused to show Netflix releases, arguing that the films debut on the streaming platform too early. The Universal pact likely torpedoes those arguments. With many major studios shifting their releases into 2021 and beyond, Netflix could be invaluable to AMC if and when it is able to mount a national reopening. Its fall slate, which includes Ron Howard’s “Hillbilly Elegy” and David Fincher’s “Mank,” looks strong, and content-starved theaters could have no choice but to yield to its demands.

Will this mean studios can make movies that aren’t about superheroes? 

That’s the hope. Hollywood has made a point of backing comic book adaptations and franchise fare because it claims that the economics of the theatrical business are so brutal, they don’t reward creative risk-taking. The excuse from Hollywood, as of late, has always been that it’s too hard to build word-of-mouth for movies that are edgier or more challenging to market. Since it routinely costs tens of millions of dollars to advertise and distribute movies, it’s hard to make a profit on anything that doesn’t have a huge opening weekend. AMC and Universal’s deal would theoretically alleviate some of those pressures, enabling the studio to find alternate ways of earn money on a film that’s failing to catch fire at the box office. If better movies can come out of all of this tumult, that would be a win for studios, theaters, and audiences. That’s a Hollywood ending everyone could get behind.

Article written by Brent Lang, Rebecca Rubin, and Matt Donnely for Variety.

Universal Pictures is in negotiations to land Tom Cruise’s new film, a project set to make history as the first narrative feature shot in space, insiders tell Variety.

The movie, which will be directed by former Cruise collaborator Doug Liman, made waves in May for its record-chasing ambition and for recruiting the full cooperation of Elon Musk’s SpaceX and NASA, who will house the production on the International Space Station.

This kind of innovation does not come cheap. Sources said the production budget has been set at $200 million in the most optimistic projections. Cruise could earn somewhere between $30 million and $60 million, according to insiders. This would cover his services as a producer and star, and also be comprised of significant first-dollar gross participation over a windfall up front.

Representatives for Universal had no comment. A Cruise representative had no immediate comment on the matter.

The inherent marketing value around a global event like this is obvious. Similar to the recent historic launch of SpaceX’s Dragon crew vessel, the entire world will watch as Cruise is rocketed into space, forcing natural curiosity around the results. The stakes are also high from a filmmaking standpoint. As one person familiar with the project put it, “you can’t be sure what you’re going to get up there, and you have one shot to do it.”

A major issue for any company considering the project is insuring Cruise and the filmmaking team, as no scripted production has ever conceived of shooting action sequences outside of Earth’s orbit. The movie is also said to not yet have a script.

At least two of the major streaming platforms were not invited to bid on the project, according to another insider, citing a strong preference from filmmakers to roll out the pic as a splashy theatrical event with a traditional studio.

To call the film an investment on Universal’s part would be an understatement. Cruise must still finish production on the latest “Mission: Impossible” film, which was stalled thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, before he heads directly into a seventh installment of the Paramount franchise.

Given his production schedule and what several insiders familiar with the project noted as considerable prep time for the cinematic feat, 58-year-old Cruise could be well over 60 by the time he straps into the SpaceX Dragon vessel and jets to the ISS to make his call time on set.

Liman and Cruise have previously collaborated on the films “Edge of Tomorrow” and “American Made.”

Article written by Matt Donnelly and Brent Lang for Variety

Black makeup artist Denise Tunnell has over 84 credits to her name. Her films include, “Mean Girls 2,” “Stomp the Yard,” “The Notebook,” “Furious 7” and most recently, Netflix’s “Sweet Magnolias.”  Despite that body of work, Tunnell is still asked on job interviews, “What White actors have you done?”  She would rather be asked, “Can you do a White actress?”

Conversations about diversity and representation haven’t stopped for Tunnell. They’re continuing, only getting louder. She’s asked on Zoom calls to discuss such topics. And she says yes because she is aware of younger makeup artists coming up behind her. She wants to make things better for the next generation of artists.

Tunnell talks to Variety about her experiences and challenges as a Black makeup artist, and how a show like “Sweet Magnolias” is reflective of society through its representation of Blacks and People of color.

When you go on a set like “Sweet Magnolias,” and you have a wealth of diversity both in front of and behind the camera, what does that mean to you?

To have a show where I’m not working with all Black actors is great. I love makeup so I’ll work with anybody. It feels good to work on something like “Sweet Magnolias” where I see people that look representative of my neighborhood. I live in a very diverse neighborhood. I have Black people, White people and Asian people. It feels good to be on a show where you can touch a bit of everybody.

As a Black makeup artist, a lot of the times, we are pigeon-holed because people think you can only work on Black people. So, when you meet someone like creator Sheryl J. Anderson, she doesn’t see my color. They’re seeing me as a makeup artist. They look at my resume and they know I can do my job.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with different people all over the beauty industry about diversity – about being a Black makeup artist, working with white actors and some of the prejudices that I’ve faced early in my career.

That leads us to blindspots, what are some of Hollywood’s blindspots when it comes to hair and makeup?

A lot of the time, people look at you and think you can’t do that type of hair when in fact you can. People like to think maybe this White actress doesn’t want a Black makeup artist touching her. Maybe that’s the case for some situations and don’t know.

I feel sometimes it’s more the producers who think that you can’t do the job. I think it’s a lack of knowing what you can and can’t do.

Sometimes it bothers me when I’ve sent in my resume and I’ve been called in for an interview and I’m asked, ‘What White actresses have you done?’ I think to myself number one, I’m a makeup artist. You’ve had my resume for two days so you could have looked at the body of work to see who I’ve worked on. It blows my mind. Sometimes, it comes from producers who assume you can’t do it. I’d rather have someone ask me, ‘Can you do a White actress?’ and I can just answer the question.

There’s always a camera test and I can prove it on the camera test, and if at that point it doesn’t work out for you, then replace me. But don’t insult me by asking me, ‘What White actresses have I done?’

In some sectors of this industry, a producer can hire a friend over you and that person might not have as much experience. Have you lost jobs because of that, where you’ve lost a job to a White person who might not be as qualified?

Yes, that happens all the time. You’ll have big shows with big Black actors and you think, ‘I want to work on a show like that.’ So, you submit your resume and you don’t even get a callback, but you know you’re qualified.

When the show starts shooting and there’s a White makeup artist who’s doing the job, you know it’s because that person is getting called by a producer that she knows and that producer is a friend. You know that because she’s called by the same producers all the time for whatever the show is and you never get that opportunity.

You have a great resume under your belt, are you able to use your voice and confidently say to producers, ‘I can do this job.’ When did you find your voice?

These issues have always been there and I’ve rolled with it. I think whatever opportunity is for me, it’ll come to me.

I think I’ve just recently found my voice with Black Lives Matter you know, and I just kind of like, just put some of the nonsense out of the way not focused on that. But I think I found my voice just recently with all the Black Lives Matter and people have been reaching out to me to join Zoom calls.

I fell I have to find my voice because people are coming up behind me that don’t need to go through what I went through early on in my career.

We have to make it better for those coming behind us and being able to use what I know and learned to help somebody else.

What next, do you feel there’s going to be a change?

Hollywood has to change. I feel more people are going to demand change. We have actors now that that will be willing to speak up and fight a little bit for us.

Denzel Washington requires on every show that there is one Black person in every department. We need more people like that. I don’t want someone to put me on a show because I’m Black. Consider my skills and if I’m qualified to do it, great. I want there to be more opportunities for Black artists if they’re qualified.

Article written by Jazz Tangcay for Variety

Kelly Valentine Hendry is one of the biggest names in UK casting right now. She’s cast huge TV hits including Fleabag, Broadchurch, The Last Kingdom, Gangs of London, The Cry, and Humans. Her company, KVH Casting, definitely knows British talent and where to find it, so if you want to know how to bag your breakout role, this is the woman to ask. She recently spilt the beans to us during a live Q&A for The Slate, revealing all about her career, what she looks for in new talent, her self-taping tips, and the best audition she’s ever seen. Here are just some of the take-outs from the film:

On the importance of your agent’s rep
“I do not care where someone comes from, agency-wise. There are obviously the big ones, and they tend to have some of the bigger clients. However, they’re quite often the people who don’t find the talent in the first place. We love the big agents, but a lot of the young, up-and-coming agencies are scouting the drama schools outside of London, youth groups, you name it – so that’s where you’ll find the surprises.

Will you have a better shot with your career with a bigger agent? There’s no denying that that would be true. But loads of actors are still with their smaller agencies and never left, so it’s what works for you. If you are getting the meetings then you do not need a better bigger agent!

On getting in touch with casting directors directly
“Write a very clear message on the subject line of what you’re applying for and just be as simple as possible. You don’t need to think about it too much. For example, in The Last Kingdom, which we’ve just had picked up, just be sure to say – if you happen to be Scandinavian – you put: Scandinavian six-foot-five actor re. The Last Kingdom. I’m definitely opening that because I’m running out of big, strapping Vikings! So, just be clear in the subject matter, keep it short, simple and specific. The blanket kind of email [that says] ‘I would be right for…’ is where you’re going to fall through the gaps. Be specific about how you’re unique!”

On auditions and self-taping post-COVID
“Self-taping is an opportunity and I think everybody just needs to jump on board. It’s not going anywhere, especially in the current environment, and it’s only going to get bigger. Attempt to perfect your self-tape but don’t think about it too much. That’s how you’re going to get jobs.

People who don’t have agents should be very keen on self-taping. If you get in touch in the correct manner – I just mean politely, at the right time – and you can get your self-tape to a casting director then you’re off!”

On her best self-tape tips
“Bearing in mind I’m getting thousands of tapes, so sometimes, when it’s really badly done, I just think: ‘You know what? It’s not worth it.’ I don’t want that going up because, even though [the client] knows it’s self-taped, it’s still me that’s presenting it.

My tips? Personally, I don’t like white backgrounds. They don’t make you look as good. You want a blue or a grey, and you want to light yourself. You want to make sure that your sound is really good, and have your readers stand a little bit away from the camera because you want to just hear them. Sometimes, readers are terrible, and it genuinely does distract. Quite often, directors will watch with headphones on and they’ll have really good headphones that pick up all the extra noise. It doesn’t take much for things to annoy people.

On an actors’ best strategy for a callback
“On a callback, they liked what they saw, or I liked what I saw. So, the director will want to see if he can direct you. They’ve already liked what you’ve done. Great. Stick to that. I’d even suggest come in wearing exactly the same.

Now, the following is such an important bit of advice which is going to sound so obvious, but it is single-handedly one of the reasons that people don’t get the job: it’s that you can do a blinding audition with the directors – then I ask you to do it again and give you a couple of little notes. If you do not do those notes, after the person leaves they say: ‘I love their first tape, but they don’t take direction.’ Just make sure you change it as asked – just listen and make sure that you do that. Get good at it.

Karena Evans is a woman with a plan—but even she is surprised at how quickly and precisely her career has gone according to it.

“I got into music videos so that I could figure out the technical communication of the story, because I love stories so much and had more of an intuitive understanding of story, but I needed to understand the best way in which I could communicate that knowledge,” says the director. “I can be honest with you: I did not expect it, the rate at which I have been able to transition to film and TV, but I’m very grateful for it.”

Evans had already made a name for herself helming a number of music videos for Coldplay and Drake. But that she’d be able to jump right to directing the pilot episode of Starz’s new series “P-Valley” was a straight shot from intent to outcome that is generally unheard of in showbiz. Oh, another thing: Evans is 24.

As Hollywood commits to featuring more Black actors on camera, another question arises: What is being done about the support staff around them — and particularly in the hair and makeup trailers?

When “The Bold Type” star Aisha Dee posted a letter on Instagram on July 15 detailing her experience as a biracial woman in Hollywood — using the moment to “demand better and more authentic representation both in-front-of and behind the camera” — she joined a chorus of voices speaking out about the lack of diversity in a specific part of the industry: the hair and makeup department.

“It took three seasons to get someone in the hair department who knew how to work with textured hair,” wrote Dee — who wears her hair in a kinky, curly style to play Kat Edison on the Freeform series.

“I want to make sure that no one else ever has to walk onto a set and feel as though their hair is a burden. It is not.”

Dee is certainly not the first actor of color to share these sentiments. Black actors in particular have been speaking up about conditions in the hair and makeup department for decades, with stars like Nia Long revealing that she would carry extra makeup shades in a Ziploc bag to set just in case the makeup artist didn’t have her shade.

But with Hollywood now taking stock of its history of systemic racism and looking for ways to improve diversity across the industry as it embraces the Black Lives Matter movement, the actors, hairstylists and makeup artists at the center of the problem have become even more vocal, with the expectation that someone will finally listen.

“I think the unions need to be responsible for the amount of diversity there is in the hiring. Producers, studios, networks, need to have a mandate, where the hair and makeup trailer is diverse,” Long says. “If you have a Black lead, bring a Black person into that hair and makeup trailer.”

She adds, “There are talented people of all colors who are capable of doing the job. [But] I don’t want to have PTSD walking in seeing a white woman there to do my hair when I know I’m going to have to explain myself to her. And that’s going to turn into another thing, if she doesn’t like my tone or she’s thinking that I’m trying to tell her how to do her job.”

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

“The producers [and] employers are the sole authority on hiring, employment and terminations,” says Julie Socash, president of the Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild (IATSE Local 706).

Actor Ryan Michelle Bathe recently replied to a Twitter thread, started by Oscar-winning director Matthew A. Cherry, which asked how the industry planned to ensure inclusivity in the hair and makeup department as it increases representation on-screen. Bathe shared that she “was once told by a union hair stylist that they ‘couldn’t pay him enough to do my hair.’” She said in her tweet that she had to have her hair professionally straightened every Sunday at her own expense while working on the project (Bathe declined to specify the title of the show).

When this incident occurred in late 2004-05, Bathe tells Variety, she was working on a show for which her contract had a clause saying that if an actor had Black textured hair, the production was “not responsible financially or otherwise for your hair, and performers must come to set with it done.”

This is just one example of how Bathe has learned to manage Hollywood’s opinions about her hair, fielding pressure to swap her natural styles for weaves or wigs or having it chemically straightened in order to book roles. Bathe now wears her hair in its natural texture.

“For me, having natural hair was an act of revolution and defiance,” she says. “I don’t want to be responsible for another generation growing up and feeling like the only way to be beautiful and sexy is to have long straight hair.”

But on set, Bathe emphasizes that she’s “never been in a position where the hairstylist has not had more power than me.” On her latest series, BET’s “The First Wives Club,” Bathe says that showrunner Tracy Oliver was instrumental in the fight to get proper hair and makeup for her stars. Though Bathe wore a wig for the show, her experience working with the hair and makeup team at the start of the production was so disheartening that “I would go in my trailer and I would turn my face around because I could not look in the mirror because my makeup and my hair were so bad.”

But when Oliver hired hairstylist Oscar James (whose clients include Tyra Banks, Tiffany Haddish and Vanessa Williams), Bathe says things improved dramatically.

The struggles extend to men in the industry as well. During Variety’s#Represent: Black Men in Hollywood roundtable with actors Jay Pharoah, Chris Chalk, Derek Luke, Algee Smith and Aldis Hodge, the group discussed the challenges of acting when you don’t look or feel your best. They also discussed how difficult it is to get their barbers into the hair and makeup unions, so they can cut hair on set versus the actor being forced to drive to them or to a hotel while on location.

“I would go in my trailer and turn my face around because I could not look in the mirror because my makeup and my hair were so bad.”
Ryan Michelle Bathé

“There is a consideration that is not given to Black men and women, when it comes to the hair and makeup trailer, of having Black cast members come on and giving them the environment to win, to thrive,” Hodge noted. “And when I ask about it [I say], ‘Why do you oppose? As opposed to doing your job to get the right person.’”

“The Neighborhood” star Tichina Arnold has also found her own methods of maneuvering through the hair and makeup trailer, saying she and her mother decided to chemically straighten her hair shortly after she began her career at 11 years old.

“I would do different shows and events, and literally, there was nobody of color that was able to do my hair,” Arnold says.

“A lot of people did not know how to do a nappy-headed little girl from Queens. Now that I’m a part of projects where people offer me the role instead of auditioning, it puts me in a better position, because now I’m like, ‘OK, you want me to do this, and I need this.’ So I always try get in people that I’m familiar with.”

Arnold has used such so-called star requests — when celebrities make a specific request for a stylist to do their hair and makeup — to get one of her personal hairstylists, Tash Jennings, on board for special projects or events, though Jennings is not in the union. That doesn’t always mean Jennings is permitted to work on set and, as a result, is no closer to earning the requisite amount of time necessary to get into the union.

To qualify for membership in Local 706, hair and makeup artists must have 60 days of non-union work, per year, for three years in a five-year time frame, or 30 days of union employment over a 12-month period on an organized production, lower-budgeted SVOD new media production, music video or TV commercial. Socash also notes that as a labor organization, Local 706 does not keep any records on its members’ race, ethnicity (or perceived race or ethnicity), country of origin, citizenship status, sexual preference, religion or other such data, but has made steps toward progress internally, pointing to a diversity committee recently formed in an effort to give union members a voice. Socash says that she has also encouraged members to take additional skills education courses in fields such as barbering, textured-hair and wig work and natural-hair care.

For many white artisans, such skills might be completely new. Celebrity hair stylist Ted Gibson — who isn’t a member of Local 706 — has not, as a Black artisan, had the luxury of being able to build a career without a complete toolkit.

“What I’m grateful for today is the fact that I have been able to carve out something of a career for myself,” he says. “And I truly believe how I’ve been able to do that is that I’ve had to be a hairdresser, not a Black hairdresser. And what I mean by that is that I have to do all kinds of hair in order for me to be at a certain level, and my white counterparts don’t necessarily have to.”

Article written by Anjelique Jackson for Variety

After a quarter of a century, costume designer Mona May’s work on director Amy Heckerling’s 1995 classic teen movie, “Clueless,” remains iconic.

“Everybody was into grunge fashion when we made this,” she recalls. “We were having to look to the future and bring it to the table. We were inventing pretty much everything.”

As Clueless celebrates the 25th anniversary of its landing in theaters on July 19, May and Heckerling look back on five key pieces of costuming.

Cher and Dionne’s First Day of School

May: As this was the first outfit, we needed to get it right. She’d be in the Quad, which was outside, there was going to be a lot of green. We tried blue, we tried red, but they didn’t have the right energy.

Heckerling: We originally had something else for Cher to wear, but Mona kept telling me she couldn’t sleep at night. She was worried Dionne’s outfit would shine, and Cher’s would disappear into the background.

May: We had Alicia (Silverstone) try on this yellow Dolce & Gabbana suit. It was off the rack. I had to pay for it. In the fitting, everyone just went, ‘Yes.’ We’d found THE outfit.

Heckerling: You don’t dress them separately; they were a pair. They had to go together.

May: We wanted Dionne to complement her, so we did the black and white suit. We added the vinyl lapels to match her hat. Amy was such a visionary, to have a girl who was African American in that setting of rich families in Beverly Hills wearing designer clothes.

Amber

May: Amber was a fashion victim and wanted to be Cher so bad. She loved dressing up and themes, so this was her sailor outfit but done in red. A lot of directors don’t let actors wear hats because you can’t see their eyes, but Amy was always saying, ‘What kind of hat can we add to this?’

Heckerling: Amber was going to be in the classroom, so it was all about the hat.

May: When I put the dollar sign on Amber’s hat, Amy almost cried because it was so perfect. It’s not often that you get to dress a secondary character in such a dynamic way.

Heckerling: The idea with Amber was to have her going to different kinds of characters with her fashion. She didn’t just get up in the morning and say, ‘What should I wear?’ For Amber, it was more like, ‘Who should I be?’

Gym Class

May: Alicia had a beautiful spaghetti-strapped black tank top. The look was new at the time but is still emulated today. Amber wore a striped outfit, like a Mexican wrestler or old bathing suits, and Dionne had a tuxedo shirt. We tried to take things that were high fashion and translated them to the gym.

Heckerling: If I was going to be having these characters wearing different colors to represent seasons. The gym class was going to carry through all of the seasons; I felt it should be consistent, so we went with black and white. It needed to be state of the art fashionable in styles that still reflected each of the characters.

May: All of these styles are very different, but it was my job to make them work. It’s like putting a puzzle together, but we’d always start with Cher’s outfit being at the center.

Chatting with Mr. Hall

May: Cher is in a classic schoolgirl outfit, a little sweater vest, the plaid skirt with knee-highs, a timeless look. She was dressed to look more grown-up, so Mr. Hall saw them as adults, as equals. I loved Wallace Shawn’s look, the ill-fitting tweed jacket that looked like he’d had it for 20 years, and his outdated ties. She’s more together than he is. Then there’s Dionne with the 1950s clutch, the vinyl skirt, the Bouclé sweater. It was a beautiful and effective juxtaposition to Cher. It worked together very well as a color palette.

Tai

May: For Tai, we needed to see her arc, what happened to her and know how she matured. It was imperative to have a lot of room to grow with her. She came from the East Coast and was very much about what was happening on the street, wearing oversized pants and t-shirts. It was youthful and down-to-earth. It was a great way to introduce her.

Heckerling: Fashion for girls like Tai was a t-shirt where you would show what cartoons or movies or bands you liked, and the rest of it was just layers to keep you warm and hid eyour body. At the end of the journey, she’s back to her roots but in an evolved way, wearing different styles of t-shirts with a bit of jewelry, and Tai and Cher agree to be friends because of who they are, not how they looked.

May: Cher’s plaid skirts were designer, but Tai’s were from Contempo Casual. Her style progression reflected her finding herself in her journey of emulating Cher.

“Clueless” celebrates its 25th anniversary with a Blu-ray and a Limited Edition Blu-ray Steelbook release on July 21.

Article written by Simon Thompson for Variety

Why an actor should choose not to express certain feelings and emotions

Michael Caine is a highly revered English actor, with an extensive acting career that spans more than 70 years and includes appearances in more than 100 films. His career highlights feature several Oscar nominations, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role in Cider House Rules (1998).

So, needless to say, he knows a thing or two about performing on-camera. In fact, he literally wrote the book on it (Acting in Film: An Actor’s Take on Moviemaking, 1990). According to Caine, one of the traits that sets a polished actor apart from an amateur is the way a polished actor chooses not to express certain feelings and emotions.

For instance, it’s natural for an amateur actor to receive sides that call for their character to cry and to assume that they must, indeed, cry during their audition. In their neophyte minds, producing an abundance of tears is great acting.

But, according to Caine, the opposite is true. It’s not the tears that make the scene interesting, it’s the holding back of those tears that makes the scene truly compelling.

“The modern film actor knows that real people in real life struggle not to show their feelings. It is more truthful, and more potent, to fight against the tears, only yielding after all those defense mechanisms are exhausted.” 

(Michael Caine)

Caine goes on to explain further:

“The same is true of drunkenness. In real life, a drunk makes a huge effort to appear sober. A coarsely acted stage or film drunk reels all over the place to show you he’s drunk. It’s artificial. And eventually, that kind of acting puts up a barrier between the actor and the audience, so that nothing the character says or does will be believed.”

It’s a lesson Michael Caine learned the hard way, as a young actor. He described the experience in an interview with the BBC:

“I was supposed to be a drunk, when I was a young actor. And I came in drunk. And the producer stopped it and said, “What are you doing?”

“I said, I’m drunk, sir. I’m drunk, in this scene.”

“He [the producer] said, “I know you’re drunk in the scene, but you’re not a drunk. You’re an actor trying to be drunk.”

“I said, “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“He said, “Well, you’re an actor who’s trying to walk crooked and talk slurred. A drunk is a man trying to walk straight and talk properly. Go out and do it again!”

“That is a wonderful basis for movie acting,” Caine concluded.

Article written by Carmichael Phillips for Acting Magazine

When it came to editing Hulu’s “Palm Springs,” the key to cutting for editor Matthew Friedman (“The Farewell”) was not to make scenes repetitive. The film stars Andy Samberg plays Nyles, a wedding guest stuck in a time loop. Soon, he’s joined by Sarah, played by Cristin Millioti, and together they relive the same day over and over.

Friedman breaks down the key to cutting comedy and frames two key scenes from the movie: the pool scene loop and the montage sequence for “Palm Springs.”

EDITING COMEDY

The key thing in the cutting room was not to let the audience get ahead of the story, and that’s one of the core principles of cutting comedy. The key to cutting comedies is all about timing and to give the audience just enough time to form incorrect expectations. If you subvert it too fast, it’s not going to be funny, because the expectation hasn’t had a chance to form yet. Audiences are smart, and they know they’re watching a comedy, they’re aware that a joke is going to happen. And if you give them too much time, they’ll get to the joke before you, and they won’t laugh when you want them to. So much of what I do as an editor is understanding on a very basic level, how audiences are experiencing and processing the movie, and using that to tell a more effective store.

POOL SCENE LOOP

This is at the beginning of the movie, and it’s the sequence when Nyles is hanging out in the pool. When he talks with Jerry, I got a whole lot on a different cut because we did two different structures of the opening of the movie. – and we were playing with that right up until the last minute.

The alternate version we were considering didn’t hold your hand quite as much and it wasn’t clear that the film was going to be a comedy. And we tested both ideas extensively.

In the end, we went with a structure that introduces jokes and laughs a little bit earlier and holds your hand a little more to get you into the time loop aspect of the film.

One of the things that we took great pains to do, was to ensure that these repetitions did not feel repetitive to the audience. If things started to feel repetitive, the audience would get bored.

If we look at the sex scene between Misty ( Meredith Hagner) and Nyles, they have that exchange the first time. The second time, we don’t have to see all of that again since the audience already knows that. We do it a bit shorter. We tell that story faster and more efficiently the second time.

In the pool scene, we use a wide shot establishing the pool. The second time, it’s much shorter. We don’t show Jerry coming in with the kickboard because again, the audience has seen that.

What we do change is how Nyles sees things, this is his perspective, he remembers the past and it’s his repetition and it’s affecting him. When he says, “Today, tomorrow, yesterday, it’s all the same,” the first time, you’ll notice the second time, he says it faster.

When Sarah comes out and asks him, “What did you do to me?” The first few times we see it, it’s always from his point of view. We stay very wide. The camera never goes behind Sarah.

The second time is played from Sarah’s POV. The camera moves behind Sarah and seeing what she’s looking at. In this version, she says, “What the f— did you do to me?” twice. We don’t do literal repeats, we repeat the story beats and try to do it in the shortest amount of time. And it’s all very subtle.

EDITING THE MONTAGE

We were all concerned about this montage. But by all normal, stylistic conventional rights, this should not work. Convention dictates you have a montage, time passes and one song or one piece of music covers time passage. We had three different pieces of music in this.

Originally, we wanted “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac, but that was such an expensive song and just couldn’t afford it.

We originally scripted it so Sarah falls out of the sunroof as they’re driving to the house, but as you see we moved that later. Because her energy is so happy in the car, and it’s not how we left her in the previous scene.  We pulled it out and saved it for later.

Instead, the montage starts by the pool with this short sequence and a bit of dialogue. There’s another short sequence with target shooting. Next, we get to a dance scene in this bar. It’s the longest scene, and it almost does not feel like a montage. This moment allows the brain to reset itself. We had talked about adding in a joke through ADR as Sarah and Nyles run away. But we ended up not doing that because we couldn’t come up with something.

At the end of it, at the Happy Birthday moment, we have a close up between the two of them, there’s no dialogue. And that look sums up the entire relationship. When we were going through the footage, it spoke to us about it being the end of the montage. We didn’t want it to feel like one giant long never-ending montage so we cut music out completely before bringing in a song again — the next song — to change the energy of the scene. Also, we didn’t want joke fatigue so this whole ending to the sequence becomes about two people who have become really good friends and are having fun together.

Article written by Jazz Tangcay for Variety

Producer Mark Kassen’s morning routine looks very different than it did in a pre-coronavirus era.

When he pulls up to work — in this case, a music soundstage in Pasadena, Calif. — Kassen clocks in so building staff can account for the number of people present. From there, his temperature is taken (behind a plexiglass wall) and he’s handed two monitors: One tracks his temperature and another observes his oxygen levels.

The 48-year-old executive is spearheading production on a commercial that he hopes will serve as a case study in best practices during the pandemic. If successful, the shoot could help guide Hollywood as it tries to restart film and TV production. Some high-profile projects have been given the greenlight to resume, though many actors and crew members will have to agree to a two-week quarantine to ensure everyone on set is coronavirus-free before its safe to roll cameras again.

But heightened safety measures aren’t what Kassen anticipates will distinguish his undertaking; it’s the cutting-edge technology that he’s deploying to bring the commercial to life. The production incorporates dynamic LED light walls plastered along the walls and floor, camera tracking software and Unreal Engine, a system that’s traditionally used for video games, to create a 3D, lived-in environment. It’s an unusual method for a commercial, but one that makes locations across the globe look more realistic than ever before without having to board a plane or private jet. Roughly a half-dozen projects have ever used the technology, the most high-profile being the Disney Plus series “The Mandalorian.”

“With COVID concerns, it definitely would have been challenging and very expensive to hire the amount of people needed for a traditional set build and green screen,” Kassen said. “So, we reduced the amount of people and in turn used more expensive technology.”

For movies that rely heavily on special effects (think “Avengers: Endgame” or any “Fast and Furious” installment), the striking visual scenes are spliced in after the fact. It’s started to look more realistic as technology has advanced, Kassen says, but it leaves little room when it comes to flexibility for the actors and cinematographers. The technology being used on Kassen’s set, which was also featured on Beyonce’s latest concert tour, is more dynamic than your average green screen. That’s because the cameras adjust in real time, which makes everything in the background feel a little bit more lifelike. In this case, the entire room can morph into a different location and actors can move around the set without fear that they’ll ruin the shot.

Now, it could pave a new way forward by granting TV and film sets the ability to recreate realistic backgrounds for any location without the need to travel. That is especially helpful during the pandemic, where many parts of the country are experiencing a surge in the virus.

Kassen notes that studios are typically less inclined to take risks on expensive new technology given time and budget restraints. “It’s hard to get people to buy into something like this until you have a real need,” he said. “We’ve been looking at this technique for a while. This was our excuse to put it into practice in a big way.” And if major Hollywood companies willing to shell out a few extra bucks to get cameras rolling again, it could help expedite the entertainment industry’s plans.

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to restarting any production is controlling the amount of people in enclosed spaces. With the new setup, they’re able to save money by being more innovative with a smaller space and less people.

“It’s allowed us to work quicker and with less bodies on set in a smaller space,” Kassen said. “If we used a green screen, we would have needed a larger space to do what I would have wanted to do. With a larger space comes more support.”

The advertisement they are filming is timely, showcasing new technology from medical brand Masimo that is designed to help businesses operate safety during Covid-19. Between on-camera talent (consisting of three actors), editors behind the scenes, and visual effects teams in San Francisco and New York City, there are approximately 30 people working on the shoot. Kassen rented a giant studio space to control crowding and ensure there are never more than 10 people in a room. On the floor, there’s tape to delineate at least six feet of distance between people. Before anyone given permission to return work, they have to be tested and cleared of Covid-19. The monitors worn by those in the building, provided by Masimo, regulate in real-time if anyone’s temperature flares or oxygen levels waver and send the information to medical experts.

“You have to be cautious and not relax your behavior,” he said.

Kassen and his crew did most of the planning beforehand so they could efficiently roll cameras and avoid feeling like anything was “done on the fly.” As a result, the commercial was executed faster than usual; they were only on set shooting for two days. He’s optimistic that the process would be easy to translate for larger-scale productions, meaning other companies will be able to follow suit.

“At a time when people are freaked out or unsure about what’s going to happen, it’s been incredibly energizing to feel like we can do something with technology that forces us to grow as artist so more can get back to work in a way that’s safe,” he said. “It’s made the vibe here feel like more of a mission than a job.

Article written by: Rebecca Rubin for Variety

The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the global film industry and it is becoming increasingly clear that the transformations the crisis has already triggered are very likely to establish long-term trends.

The international film scene is undergoing tremendous change; nothing is the same as before. Hollywood is postponing its blockbuster launches week by week, films produced for the big screen land on streaming platforms instead. Many movie theatres and chains face an uncertain future. Film distributors, a key link between the studios and the audience, have no idea when they can offer their films.

The coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on the global film industry and it is becoming increasingly clear that the transformations the crisis has already triggered are very likely to establish long-term trends.

Planned for movie theatres, streamed on phones

The film Greyhound is a particularly striking example. Originally, the war film based on true events about a conflict between US ships and German submarines during World War II was to be released in movie theatres earlier this year. As movie theatres were closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Sony Pictures sold Apple the film starring Tom Hanks and featuring many digital tricks.

What about the real blockbusters?

The Greyhound deal is unlikely to have caused much of a headache, as the film directed by Aaron Schneider is not one of the major 2020 blockbusters millions of people worldwide are waiting for — unlike the new James Bond movie No Time to Die, the Disney film Mulan and Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. These films would be expected to make millions of dollars at the box offices worldwide. A financial disaster looms if they, too, can’t play to packed movie theatres.

“When Hollywood coughs, the global cinema industry has a bad flu,” German news magazine Der Spiegel wrote this week: When blockbusters are postponed over and over again, that has an impact on movie theatre owners, film distributors and the film industry’s entire infrastructure worldwide. Disney, for instance, had an eye on the huge Chinese market for Mulan. But after reopening, some movie theatres in China are closing down again as some areas are facing a second wave of COVID-19 infections. The situation is no different in the United States, which faces a severe rise in the number of infections.

Winners and losers in the crisis

Some movie theatre operators feel that reopening their venues is not worth the trouble under Germany’s strict security measures that stipulate only a third of the seats in the theatre can be sold. Movie theatres that have opened are showing documentaries, revivals of older films and sophisticated art house productions. Drive-in cinemas have been experiencing a boom, but these are niche markets that can’t hide the fact that a multi-million-dollar industry is in a tailspin.

Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Apple — the big streaming providers benefit from the situation. But even for them, supply is backed up due to long interruptions in new productions.

Decades-old system in question

Currently, mechanisms that have worked for decades are being questioned — in the so-called movie release window a film would premiere on the big screen, securing an income for producers, distributors and cinema owners. Next, the film would be available on DVDs or Blu-ray, and more recently on streaming platforms, too. The third source of income, again with a time lag due to the sale of rights and licenses, was the free TV market.

The system is currently undergoing dramatic changes, however. The industry needs to ask itself whether the movie release window may disappear entirely, or only be applicable as an exception and whether the system can even get back on track if and once the coronavirus crisis is contained.

Another given is also being challenged — until now, the major US studios (Disney, Sony, Warner, Universal or Paramount) have stood for global big business, with small independent producers and the entire art house sector on the other side. This system seems to be imploding.

Competitors on the streaming market

Successful streaming providers like Netflix are serious competitors to the established major studios, whose revenues threaten to collapse. Part of the confusion and constantly changing situation is that Disney (and soon Warner, too) now have their own streaming platforms. And what about the independent scene in this cut-throat competition?

If streaming platforms show new movies from the start, or if they are marketed as DVDs or offered as VoD (Video on Demand), several questions arise: Who earns the money? Will expensive productions still be worthwhile? Which movie theatres will survive? Will states and local authorities (at least in Europe) commit themselves financially to the film industry? Will cinema then be a subsidized culture like opera, theatre or concerts?

At present, no one can answer these questions. Everything depends on the development of a vaccine or effective drugs. No one can predict the development of the coronavirus pandemic. The movie industry is not yet out of the woods.

Article from The Wire

Amid a flurry of recastings, more "accurate and truthful" portrayals are beginning to be sought in a business that can boil down to "somebody knows someone."

Within days in late June, four animated TV shows that featured white actors voicing characters of color pledged to make changes, all with the actors' support. Netflix's Big Mouth creators said June 24 that they would cast a Black actor for the role of Missy, currently performed by Jenny Slate, while Apple TV+'s Central Park creative team said it will recast biracial character Molly, voiced by Kristen Bell.

Meanwhile, Fox's long-running The Simpsons, which had faced criticism for years over the portrayal of the Indian character Apu (Hank Azaria announced he was stepping away from the role in January), said June 26 that the show "will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters." And Mike Henry, who portrayed the Black character Cleveland on Family Guy, said he would stop voicing the role after two decades. "This is a time to acknowledge our acts of complicity," tweetedBell on June 24, adding: "Casting a mixed race character w/a white actress undermines the specificity of the mixed race & Black American experience."

Yet the moves, amid a nationwide reckoning on race since the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis on May 25, are only one step as the animation community seeks to become more inclusive onscreen and off.

"Animation in a lot of ways has historically kind of been a legacy business," says Peter Ramsey, who, as one of a trio of directors on Sony Pictures Animation's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, became the first Black filmmaker to win an Academy Award in feature animation in 2019. "There are long, long chains of relationships. And it's hard to sometimes become a part of those networks if you're coming in from outside and you're just a fresh new face." He hopes that casting a wider net in recruitment, beyond dedicated animation schools, could have a positive effect on the industry.

Karen Rupert Toliver, executive vp creative at Sony's animation studio and the 2020 Oscar-winning producer of Hair Love, put it bluntly in a letter published by the nonprofit Women in Animation on June 2. "In this area we are also not doing nearly enough," Toliver wrote. "It's not just about including Black characters in our stories. We need to influence hearts and minds to think differently. To remind us that we are all connected, that other people's hurt is everyone's hurt. We need to encourage people to not look away from uncomfortable things but instead breathe into that discomfort."

Major studios are redoubling efforts to showcase a diverse slate of creators. On July 7, HBO Max ordered a 12-episode animated series based on Oscar-winning animated short Hair Love from its creator and director Matthew A. Cherry and Sony Pictures Animation. According to Cherry, the series, Young Love, will "further explore the family dynamics of a young Black millennial family we established in our short film Hair Love." He will showrun with Carl Jones (The Boondocks, Black Dynamite).

Netflix's upcoming projects include Henry Selick's Wendell & Wild, whose titular characters are voiced by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, and Glen Keane's Over the Moon, which the studio says will feature an entirely Asian American voice cast. Several upcoming Netflix animated productions helmed by women include My Father's Dragon, from Nora Twomey (The Breadwinner), and Pashmina, directed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham).

Meanwhile, on Nov. 20, Pixar Animation Studios plans to unspool Soul, its 23rd animated feature and its first with a Black protagonist. The jazz-inspired story follows Joe Gardner, a middle school band teacher and jazz musician played by Jamie Foxx.

To make this movie, writer-director and Pixar's chief creative officer Pete Docter teamed with African American co-director/writer Kemp Powers. In a virtual panel as part of the Essence Festival of Culture on June 27, Powers said that to ensure the project is as "authentic and truthful as possible," the team assembled Black consultants — staff at Pixar, castmembers such as Questlove and Daveed Diggs, along with the likes of Oscar-nominated cinematographer Bradford Young. Jon Batiste, who wrote jazz compositions and arrangements that appear in the film, also consulted.

Meanwhile, Women in Animation is expanding its existing agenda, focusing on Black mentors and mentees through its fall mentorship program, and launching in early 2021 a talent incubator program for women of color to give them mentorship and experience toward becoming a showrunner. Through the program, participants will pitch and produce an animated project, and then, working with mentors, they will be asked to pitch the production to an actual potential client. Says Jinko Gotoh, WIA vp and Oscar-nominated producer of Klaus, "[Studios] are looking for experience but also looking for new voices."

Ramsey welcomes all efforts, though he admits he's "not too dogmatic" about recent voice casting changes. "I think it happens a lot of the time out of comfort. Somebody knows someone," he says, while noting that a Black actor conveys "accuracy so that you know that that character isn't just a caricature."

Adds Ramsey: "I would obviously rather see a person of color voice the character of color, "[but] the world's not going to end if Kristen Bell or whoever does the voice of a Black character, really. But all things being equal, why not? It's not that hard."

Article written by: Carolyn Giardina for: The Hollywood Reporter

“I’m not here to challenge the accuracy of the costumes,” says costume designer Julie Weiss, whose credits include, “12 Monkeys,” “Frida” and “American Beauty.”

Weiss is talking about the countless uniforms she needed for “Greyhound,” the Aaron Schneider film starring Tom Hanks as Navy Commander Ernest Krause. Streaming on Apple TV Plus from July 10, Krause leads his allied ships across the Atlantic to the frontlines of World War II.

“What’s interesting about this is it’s an Atlantic film,” Weiss points out. “We are so familiar with Pacific uniforms but [with this battle,] it’s a cold winter.”

To source the uniforms, Weiss combined working with costume houses and making outfits. “They came from American Costume, Western Costume, Palace Costume and the studios,” she explains.

Schneider explains that the story was about the experience of the soldiers, “Tom set out to celebrate the contribution and devotion of the soldiers by putting you through the same hell.” “Greyhound” was not a film about soldiers talking about a girl back home. “This was about everyone’s actions and commitment. You have to imbue these people with a life and that is now a visual job.”

The director goes on to say, “Here, uniforms are designed to make everyone be the same. The skill and the craft are, how do you manipulate the things that you can manipulate? How do you tell a story about each individual person? I thought Julie was such a perfect person for this job is because that’s, that’s her gift.”

Hanks didn’t just write the screenplay to tell the story of these soldiers, he also inspired the outfit for Elizabeth Shue’s cameo in the film. Shue appears as Evelyn, Krause’s girlfriend and before he goes off on his mission, he meets her to propose. “Elisabeth and Tom were getting their hair done and we had two different hats,” says Weiss. “He loved a different hat, and that’s the one we went with.”

Being on set daily was a benefit to Weiss who says, “There was that connection you had with the actors, and we could make adjustments where necessary.”

In addition to Hanks’ uniform, Weiss had to create the outfits for the lower-ranked individuals. She points out that Levi Strauss was making clothes for the armed forces.

“The men on deck wore pieces from World War I. We had jackets where men would write and paint messages on,” Weiss says. “You see that right at the beginning with Shannon’s character.”

Aside from uniforms, service blues and khakis, Weiss also used off-white with some of the men in the U-boats. “Those off-white leather looking outfits were made to order.” She adds, “Those were some of the best uniforms I’ve ever had made.” She says with pride, ” I couldn’t wait to show them to Aaron.”

For all her research and sourcing, Weiss credits Hanks and the actors for helping her tell the story. She says, “The costumes that become the uniform are nothing without the actor. It’s about their stance and how they wear it and how they tuck the shirts in. But they are nothing without the actor.”

Article written by: Jazz Tangcay for Variety

Australian production designer Steven Jones-Evans was tasked with creating a haunted house that would tell a tale of family horror in Natalie Erika James’ directorial debut, “Relic,” now at drive-ins and available on demand July 10.

In the IFC Midnight film, shot Down Under, Robyn Nevin plays Edna, an elderly woman who disappears from her house one day. Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote play her daughter, Kay, and granddaughter, Sam, who arrive at an empty house to discover it recently lived in and filled with decay. 

Variety talked with Jones-Evans (“Ned Kelly”) about how he built the home that serves as a metaphor for the dementia that Edna suffers from.  

On Finding the Perfect House

“We weren’t telling an Australian story, we were telling a universal one, so we wanted the house to feel universal. We chose a house in Victoria that was pale and off-white — something simple that described elegance and sophistication.

The green front door [that greets Kay and Sam] is tied to the idea of the woods and nature. Nature is now reclaiming this space. It’s also a metaphor for [Edna’s] dementia, and it’s permeating the house. We also express that through mold, which is creeping back in and reclaiming its territory.

Due to budget constraints, we couldn’t afford to build it all, so we built elements. We split the house into three different areas on soundstages: the bathroom, the bedroom/hoarding room and the labyrinth. We buried little hints in the house to show that it wasn’t as taken care of as you’d expect. There was a bowl of rotting fruit and the dog bowl that hadn’t been emptied when the women arrive. There were clues throughout the house to say there’s something slightly amiss.”

Lighting Choices

“There was this idea of suggestive space, where the hallway would bend or a door would be ajar. The lighting could help us — rooms could disappear into darkness or the hallway could do that too. We never fully lit rooms or hallways, giving them a feeling of something lurking in the shadows to add to the creepiness of it all.”

 The Art of Mold

“We did a lot of research and photographing of mold and the different types. I had mold cards to show the different stages of mold. It transitions from green to blue to black by the end of the film. We used different techniques [to create the mold], using shellac and water. We mixed in elements like sawdust and glue to build up the texture. We used real mold in smaller areas.” 

A House With a Backstory

“This was a very middle-class family. She had worked in the sciences. Maybe she’d worked in academia as a research scientist or something like that. We wanted to layer the house with a lot of history — and history is all about memories. This was where she joyfully brought up the children. We wanted to express the idea that this was at one stage a really beautiful place to live and bring up a family. She kept everything in boxes in what we call the hoarding room. Nothing was logically grouped in the different boxes, which was an insight into her mind.”

Article written by: Jazz Tangkay for Variety

The DPs behind movies from 'Blue  Velvet' to 'The  Social  Network' are among this season's Emmy contenders: "It was always a feature film we were making."

For the ambitious productions in the current golden age of television, it's not uncommon to see filmmakers crossing over between features and shortform narratives — and that certainly holds true in cinematography.

This season's Emmy contenders include Frederick Elmes, whose credits with longtime collaborator David Lynch include Blue Velvet and who earlier this year received the American Society of Cinematographers' Lifetime Achievement Award. He's also a 2017 Emmy winner for The Night Of. Among his fellow Emmy hopefuls are Jeff Cronenweth (son of Blade Runner DP Jordan Cronenweth), a longtime collaborator with David Fincher who earned Oscar nominations for the director's The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; and Paul Cameron, a BAFTA winner for Michael Mann's Collateral (shared with Dion Beebe).

Elmes, who lensed the pilot of Amazon's Hunters, which follows a band of Nazi-hunters in 1970s New York, says he was hooked on the project after a conversation with pilot director and executive producer Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. "He had this notion that it could be this pulp-fiction dark comedy and we could impose this graphic-novel feel to it," Elmes says. "In his eyes, it was always a feature film we were making, not the pilot of a show, and therefore we should treat the visualization of it on as big a scale as we could."

Filmed with an ARRI Alexa LF (large format) camera, the show's look took some inspiration from period photographs by Bruce Davidson that capture the grittiness of New York City, as well as illustrators' use of color and dramatic lighting in the graphic novels of Neil Gaiman. "One of the things that was paramount for [Gomez-Rejon] was moving the camera," Elmes says. "And one of the things that I really wanted to do was use the [bold] colors that he and I talked about to sort of lift the story out of reality."

The opening scene of the pilot contains what appears to be a roughly five-minute uninterrupted take of a family barbecue that devolves into a shocking murder. The sequence was shot in parts and stitched together by the visual effects team. "It was a scene that I feared. Alfonso had always spoken about it as this giant one-shot that introduced all the characters and set up the tone and the story and the style of acting, and set up the kind of camera moves," Elmes explains, saying that he used a large crane and track for an elaborate, carefully choreographed sequence shot on location on Long Island. "It didn't make the day easier to photograph, but we did make the day work in the time allotted and do all the photography off of the one crane."

The sci-fi show Tales From the Loop, also an Amazon series, is set in a dystopian future and is based on the work of Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag. This world includes sci-fi elements such as discarded robots. "But it's not unsettling; it's part of their daily life. It's something that they are used to," explains DP Cronenweth, who with this assignment made his small-screen debut. "We really wanted to set the world but not let the world distract from [the characters'] individual stories."

The series was shot in Canada around Winnipeg, using Panavision DXL2 cameras and 70mm lenses. Cronenweth confirms that the primary reference was the "compelling" source artwork itself, though "some images had bold, strong, saturated colors and hazy images, which in general we felt would be overpowering to the individual stories. So we … introduced our own version of [Stalenhag's] work. We wanted to juxtapose the science fiction with compelling human drama."

The visual language of the episode also drew inspiration from filmmakers such as Ingmar Bergman, whose "camera moves allow you to study and stay with these people." A favorite scene involved the protagonist Loretta at a young age, in the foreground of a shot while listening to an argument between her mother and uncle in the background. "You get all of the emotional insecurity and tension in her face without ever focusing on the adults in the background," Cronenweth says. "It lets you remember what it's like to be a child in an adult world when a confrontation is happening."

In season three of HBO's sci-fi series Westworld, the story moves out of the theme park and onto the streets of Los Angeles in 2058. To produce a fresh, futuristic look, the crew took advantage of new locations, relying heavily on shooting in Singapore.

The series achieves its visual style with 35mm film photography, though DP Cameron says he used Sony's Venice digital camera for select wide shots of night exteriors. Westworld's contemporary lighting is a "combination of what's in the frame — production designer Howard Cummings designed visual light sources — and my doing things like putting up a massive number of tubes, or [using light through] windows so you don't see the lights but there's this constant reminder of a graphics style. It's a classic look, but we try to make it a little snappier and modern."

Cameron, who shot the first episode of the third season and also lensed the series' 2016 pilot episode, says the goal remains a cinematic style. "With a show like Westworld, the bar is set so high visually," he says. This season, Cameron had the chance to flex his creative muscles when he was asked to direct the fourth episode, "The Mother of Exiles." "Having the opportunity to direct Westworld was tremendous. It was a fabulous challenge and I was very thankful to have it," he says.

"The opportunities in TV and streaming are boundless," he adds. "We're seeing types of shows that we've never seen before. We have content services that function like movie studios."

Article written by: Carolyn Giardina from: The Hollywood Reporter

As even the year's most anticipated films face uncertainty at the box office, studios are exploring if premium video-on-demand titles could be the new business model.

The news that Warner Bros. and Disney have again delayed the releases of Christopher Nolan's Tenet and the live-action remake of Mulan, respectively, amid the coronavirus pandemic was a blow to hopes that the movie business could soon return to normal ­— and a surge in on-demand and streaming viewership has experts questioning whether short-term solutions could lead to lasting changes in distribution models.

Nolan's $200 million drama was set to bow July 17, then July 31 and now is eyeing an Aug. 12 opening. Niki Caro's take on the China-set fantasy tale was originally planned for March 27 before being pushed to July 24 and, now, to Aug. 21. Distributors and cinema owners are counting on the studio tentpoles to kick-start the summer box office after it was put on hold by the pandemic. Solstice Studios' Unhinged, starring Russell Crowe, also was pushed to July 31 while Sony's romantic comedy The Broken Hearts Gallery will now join 20th Century Studios' The Empty Man in opening on Aug. 7 and United Artists' Bill & Ted Face the Music was delayed to Aug. 28.

The few titles that do come out, amid scarce competition, could do well. Overall, though, it looks like the 2020 summer box office will be a write-off, especially after a recent spike in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. that could lead to businesses closing again.

While the box office has sputtered, the business of streaming films is booming. Faced with the possibility of several more months of closed theaters and locked-down audiences, distributors are pushing out more of their films online, with the likes of Judd Apatow's The King of Staten Island(Universal) and Kenneth Branagh's Artemis Fowl (Disney) joining a growing list of studio titles skipping straight to premium video-on-demand. On June 26, Paramount shocked exhibitors by pulling its Aug. 7 theatrical release of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run and taking the sequel direct to PVOD early next year.

In April, when Universal became the first studio to break the time-honored theatrical window — the gap between a movie's release in theaters and its sale on home entertainment platforms — by releasing Trolls World Tour direct-to-PVOD, it felt like an anomaly. These days, it's starting to look like a business model.

"The old system of releasing films in restrictive windows — theatrical, VOD, home entertainment — was a model that worked extremely well for people until corona threw a huge wrench in it," Ben Johnson, CEO of digital marketing group Gruvi, said June 23 at a Cannes Marché du Film Online panel, one of the virtual events held in place of the canceled film festival. "Now we have a new normal."

In addition to Trolls World Tour and The King of Staten Island, Universal has used the straight-to-PVOD model for the Steve Carell/Rose Byrne comedy Irresistible and Dakota Johnson/Tracee Ellis Ross music drama The High Note, Warner Bros. for animated kids comedy Scoob! and Lionsgate for mystery thriller The Quarry, starring Shea Whigham and Michael Shannon.

With marketing money for these new titles already spent, the financial argument behind PVOD is clear, especially for conglomerates with proprietary streaming services like Universal (part of the cable giant Comcast), Disney (Artemis Fowl went straight to the new Disney+ platform) and ViacomCBS-owned Paramount, which will quickly shift the SpongeBob sequel onto CBS All Access after its PVOD bow.

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell praised the Trolls decision, pointing to an estimated $100 million the title earned in on-demand rentals in its first three weeks in North America and saying the results "have exceeded our expectations and demonstrated the viability of PVOD."

Some have suggested that because the studio's revenue split for PVOD was better than that for theaters, Universal could end up making more money on the sequel than its cinema-released predecessor. A studio typically pockets slightly more than half of box office revenue, with 40 percent to 50 percent staying with the cinemas. With PVOD, the studio typically takes the lion's share of an 80/20 split with an online platform. Trolls World Tour's $100 million on PVOD translates to $80 million for Universal, just $6 million less than estimated earnings from the original's $154 million domestic box office.

Go outside North America, however, and things look different. Compared with the theatrical box office, the PVOD market in much of the world is still tiny. It's near nonexistent in China and accounted for less than 5 percent of the U.K.'s $3.2 billion home entertainment market in 2019.

"The digital business has spiked, but not nearly enough to compensate for losses for films they were, or still are, planning to release theatrically," says David Garrett, head of production/sales group Mister Smith Entertainment.

Plus, theatrical releases drive home entertainment revenue, including PVOD, adds Jeffrey Greenstein of Millennium Media, the production group behind the Expendables franchise. "We don't see PVOD replacing theaters," he says. "We need the theaters to make PVOD work." And PVOD has a dark side: piracy. A new study by British analysts at Muso suggests that studios releasing films online faster has led to a spike in piracy as better rip-offs are available sooner. Sony's Bloodshot, a Vin Diesel actioner, saw a massive 1,600 percent increase in piracy streaming in the first seven days after the studio rushed out the film on PVOD after the coronavirus cut short its theatrical release. Piracy traffic for Sonic the Hedgehog, a Paramount title, jumped 719 percent. To compare, Warner Bros.' Joker, which bowed Oct. 4 and had a full theatrical release window, saw only a 29 percent increase in pirate site visits after a high-quality copy of the film leaked Nov. 10.

"During the worldwide lockdown, people are consuming a lot more films online," Muso CEO Andy Chatterley tells THR. "That's helped lift PVOD and VOD numbers, but those same locked-in audiences are finding, and using, piracy sites."

It's undeniable, though, that lockdown measures have helped the VOD business. U.S. consumer spending on VOD was up nearly 20 percent in the first half of this year compared with 2019; and spending on SVOD, or subscription video-on-demand, was up 27 percent. Netflix added 15.7 million new subscribers in the first three months of the year, more than double pre-pandemic market expectations. Independent film sellers at virtual Cannes noted that, for the first time, demand from online platforms was outpacing supply.

"Platforms have to buy more and buy faster because, as consumers, we are watching more films faster than ever before, and so the platforms are looking for finished films to fill holes in their production schedules," Ian Mckee, CEO of Vuulr, an online marketplace for film and TV rights, said at the June 23 Cannes discussion.

"Before COVID-19, the attention of all the big guns was skewed toward their own originals, their own back catalogs of film and series," adds Wendy Bernfeld, founder of digital sector consultancy Rights Stuff, who also buys for international VOD platforms. "But because no one can shoot right now, production on originals is stalling, and the platforms, from the very big to the smaller niche players, have to replenish their inventory."

The indie industry also has used the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to innovate. While some have embraced the PVOD model, the biggest changes have come from independent theater chains, which have adapted to the new normal by launching their own VOD platforms. In May, Alamo Drafthouse launched Alamo on Demand, which streams films to its local customers, a model pioneered by Curzon Cinemas in the U.K. Unlike the studio PVOD model, which has drawn the ire of traditional cinema chains — after the Trolls sequel was moved to PVOD, AMC CEO Adam Aron banned Universal titles from his theaters — indie on-demand platforms are being built with cinemas in mind.

Speaking at a virtual Cannes event June 22, Richard Lorber of speciality distributor Kino Lorber said his new online initiative, Kino Marquee, has generated nearly $700,000 in virtual ticket sales from 13 films the past two and a half months. Half of that revenue goes to its partner theaters, all closed independent and art house cinemas that would have been showing its films had they been open. Even while going digital, Kino Lorber is staying true to its cineaste roots. Kino Marquee's first screening was for 2019 Cannes prize-winner Bacurau from Brazil. "We've had much more engagement from the theaters for virtual screenings than we were ever able to achieve with physical for the simple reason that most of the art houses in the U.S. are small," explained Lorber.

Still, no one is ready to predict what lasting impact the coronavirus crisis will have. When Tenet and Mulan come out, there isn't a theater in America, or much of the world, that won't book them on as many screens as it can as fast as it can. But it's clear the inadvertent digital revolution COVID-19 caused is here to stay.

"The innovations we're seeing now is what the business has been calling for for years," said Mckee. "It's exciting. Demand is going up. It's a great time to be in the film business."

Article written by: Scott Roxborough

Reposted from: The Hollywood Reporter