When “Women of the Movement” executive producer Gina Prince-Bythewood stepped behind the camera to direct the show’s first episode, she called on her frequent collaborators, editor Terilyn Shropshire and cinematographer Tami Reiker, to help establish the visuals for Emmett Till’s murder.
The six-part series, set in 1955, tracks Mamie Till-Mobley’s (Adrienne Warren) fight to make sure her son would not be forgotten, and how she played a key part in the civil rights movement.
Prince-Bythewood, Shropshire and Reiker talked about laying the foundations for the series in the pilot.
What did you know about Mamie’s fight and how much did you know about this story?
Gina Prince-Bytthewood: I’ve known the story for a very long time. It’s a story that influenced my show “Shots Fired.” It’s a horrifying story that’s still relevant today, and in doing a story like this, we knew the self-imposed pressure,...
The six-part series, set in 1955, tracks Mamie Till-Mobley’s (Adrienne Warren) fight to make sure her son would not be forgotten, and how she played a key part in the civil rights movement.
Prince-Bythewood, Shropshire and Reiker talked about laying the foundations for the series in the pilot.
What did you know about Mamie’s fight and how much did you know about this story?
Gina Prince-Bytthewood: I’ve known the story for a very long time. It’s a story that influenced my show “Shots Fired.” It’s a horrifying story that’s still relevant today, and in doing a story like this, we knew the self-imposed pressure,...
- 5/23/2022
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
“Everybody talks about they wantin’ a piece of the pie, well I don’t. I want the goddamn recipe.”
One Night In Miami (2020) is currently available on Blu-ray on the Criterion Collection
Adapted by Kemp Powers from his acclaimed play, the feature directorial debut of Academy Award–winning actor Regina King puts viewers in a room with four icons at the forefront of Black American culture as they carouse, clash, bare their souls, and grapple with their places within the sweeping change of the civil rights movement. February 25, 1964, has gone down in history as the day that the brash young boxer Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) defeated Sonny Liston, but what happened after the fight was perhaps even more incredible: Ali, civil rights leader Malcolm X, NFL great Jim Brown, and “King of Soul” Sam Cooke all came together at a Miami motel. Electric with big ideas and activist spirit,...
One Night In Miami (2020) is currently available on Blu-ray on the Criterion Collection
Adapted by Kemp Powers from his acclaimed play, the feature directorial debut of Academy Award–winning actor Regina King puts viewers in a room with four icons at the forefront of Black American culture as they carouse, clash, bare their souls, and grapple with their places within the sweeping change of the civil rights movement. February 25, 1964, has gone down in history as the day that the brash young boxer Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) defeated Sonny Liston, but what happened after the fight was perhaps even more incredible: Ali, civil rights leader Malcolm X, NFL great Jim Brown, and “King of Soul” Sam Cooke all came together at a Miami motel. Electric with big ideas and activist spirit,...
- 12/9/2021
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Kemp Powers adapted his own play “One Night in Miami” to the new film of the same name. His adaptation earned him his first Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Powers recently spoke with Gold Derby’s Rob Licuria about what inspired him to write the play, the challenges of adapting it to film and what director Regina King brought to the project. Watch the exclusive interview above and read the complete transcript below.
SEEEli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr. interview: ‘One Night in Miami’
Gold Derby: Kemp, you adapted your acclaimed play of the same name. What’s the most challenging part about translating your words into something cinematic?
Kemp Powers: Just not being precious about my own work. I mean, I tried to approach it as though the same way as a screenwriter, sometimes people approach you with books or plays or other materials, and they’re...
Powers recently spoke with Gold Derby’s Rob Licuria about what inspired him to write the play, the challenges of adapting it to film and what director Regina King brought to the project. Watch the exclusive interview above and read the complete transcript below.
SEEEli Goree, Aldis Hodge, Leslie Odom Jr. interview: ‘One Night in Miami’
Gold Derby: Kemp, you adapted your acclaimed play of the same name. What’s the most challenging part about translating your words into something cinematic?
Kemp Powers: Just not being precious about my own work. I mean, I tried to approach it as though the same way as a screenwriter, sometimes people approach you with books or plays or other materials, and they’re...
- 3/21/2021
- by Kevin Jacobsen
- Gold Derby
The American Society of Cinematographers (Asc) has weighed in with picks for the best cinematography in film and television over the last year. Like other major guild ceremonies including the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild, the Asc nominees are looked at closely by Oscar pundits considering the overlap between guild members and the Academy. Over the last decade, the eventual Oscar winner for Best Cinematography has at least been nominated for the Asc prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases.
Last year’s ASC winner was Roger Deakins for “1917.” Deakins also won the ASC prize for “Blade Runner 2049.” In both cases, the legendary Dp went on to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography. Wally Pfister for “Inception” and Emmanuel Lubezki for “Gravity,” “Birdman,” and “The Revenant” are other recent examples of Asc winners who also prevailed at the Academy Awards. The Asc...
Last year’s ASC winner was Roger Deakins for “1917.” Deakins also won the ASC prize for “Blade Runner 2049.” In both cases, the legendary Dp went on to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography. Wally Pfister for “Inception” and Emmanuel Lubezki for “Gravity,” “Birdman,” and “The Revenant” are other recent examples of Asc winners who also prevailed at the Academy Awards. The Asc...
- 3/10/2021
- by Zack Sharf and Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
While “Nomadland’s” Joshua James Richards and “Mank’s” Erik Messerschmidt lead the field for the cinematography Oscar race, this is a deep competition, and although there are some women contending, they are once again a minority.
As for the forefront of the race, Richards won the Golden Frog from the prestigious Camerimage festival, the National Board of Review gong and has scored a slew of critics awards and nominations, but don’t discount Dariusz Wolski.
Wolski, who has framed such films as “The Crow,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Martian,” teamed up with Paul Greengrass for the Western “News of the World,” shot in New Mexico. Wolski relied on the Ken Burn doc “The West” and old-fashioned Hollywood Westerns — much as Richards did when capturing America’s sweeping vistas.
He, too, played with color and lighting, whether he was shooting a dusky sunrise, a snowy trek or capturing...
As for the forefront of the race, Richards won the Golden Frog from the prestigious Camerimage festival, the National Board of Review gong and has scored a slew of critics awards and nominations, but don’t discount Dariusz Wolski.
Wolski, who has framed such films as “The Crow,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Martian,” teamed up with Paul Greengrass for the Western “News of the World,” shot in New Mexico. Wolski relied on the Ken Burn doc “The West” and old-fashioned Hollywood Westerns — much as Richards did when capturing America’s sweeping vistas.
He, too, played with color and lighting, whether he was shooting a dusky sunrise, a snowy trek or capturing...
- 3/4/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
“We were giving it everything we had because we knew how important it was,” admits cinematographer Tami Reiker about working on “One Night in Miami,” which reflects on the social upheaval of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and presciently contemplates certain parallels to the current political and cultural landscape in America.
“There were moments where you were in that room on set and you could feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It was so powerful. Afterwards when [Regina] called cut, you hear a pin drop because everyone was frozen. As a person working on set, everyone really wanted to be there and wanted this to be the best it could be.” Watch our exclusive video interview with Reiker above.
See Exclusive Video Interview: Kemp Powers (‘One Night in Miami’ writer)
“One Night in Miami” is Oscar and four-time Emmy-winning actress Regina King‘s big-screen directorial debut,...
“There were moments where you were in that room on set and you could feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It was so powerful. Afterwards when [Regina] called cut, you hear a pin drop because everyone was frozen. As a person working on set, everyone really wanted to be there and wanted this to be the best it could be.” Watch our exclusive video interview with Reiker above.
See Exclusive Video Interview: Kemp Powers (‘One Night in Miami’ writer)
“One Night in Miami” is Oscar and four-time Emmy-winning actress Regina King‘s big-screen directorial debut,...
- 3/4/2021
- by Rob Licuria
- Gold Derby
At six of the last eight Oscars, Best Cinematography has gone hand-in-hand with Best Director: Claudio Miranda and Ang Lee for “Life of Pi” (2013); Emmanuel Lubezki and Alfonso Cuaron for “Gravity” (2014); Lubezki and Alejandro G. Inarritu for both “Birdman” (2015) and “The Revenant” (2016); Linus Sandgren and Damien Chazelle for “La La Land” (2017); and Cuaron doing double duty on “Roma” (2019). Will that trend hold true this year? (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2021 Oscars predictions for Best Cinematography.)
The academy usually regards award-winning cinematography as pretty pictures within an epic technical feat of filmmaking. While great lighting and framing are laudable on their own, having a movie that looks like it was difficult to shoot goes a long way to snagging an Oscar. Recent lensing winners “Avatar” (2009), “Inception” (2010), “Hugo” (2011), “Life of Pi” (2012), “Gravity” (2013), “Blade Runner 2049” (2018) and “1917” (2020) also took home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
While the lensers of “Inception...
The academy usually regards award-winning cinematography as pretty pictures within an epic technical feat of filmmaking. While great lighting and framing are laudable on their own, having a movie that looks like it was difficult to shoot goes a long way to snagging an Oscar. Recent lensing winners “Avatar” (2009), “Inception” (2010), “Hugo” (2011), “Life of Pi” (2012), “Gravity” (2013), “Blade Runner 2049” (2018) and “1917” (2020) also took home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
While the lensers of “Inception...
- 3/4/2021
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars from Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis. Following Academy Awards history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar predictions are updated regularly with the current year's contenders in all categories. Variety's Awards Circuit Prediction schedule consists of four phases, running all year long: Draft, Pre-Season, Regular Season and Post Season. Eligibility calendar and dates of awards will determine how long each phase lasts and will be displayed next to revision date.
To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Collective
Draft>>>Pre Season>>>Regular Season>>>Post Season
2021 Oscars Predictions:
Best Cinematography
Updated: Mar. 4, 2021
Awards Prediction Commentary: Łukasz Żal got into this race for “Cold War” and this category never has just newcomers so expect his work for “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” to make some headway, perhaps even with American Society of Cinematographers.
To see all the latest predictions, of all the categories, in one place, visit The Collective
Draft>>>Pre Season>>>Regular Season>>>Post Season
2021 Oscars Predictions:
Best Cinematography
Updated: Mar. 4, 2021
Awards Prediction Commentary: Łukasz Żal got into this race for “Cold War” and this category never has just newcomers so expect his work for “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” to make some headway, perhaps even with American Society of Cinematographers.
- 3/4/2021
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
The most important thing to director Regina King for her directorial debut on “One Night in Miami” was to have everything as historically accurate as possible.
Cinematographer Tami Reiker’s research bible was “Goat: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali” by Jeff Koons. Reiker whose credits include “The Old Guard” and “Beyond the Lights,” says this tome of Ali inspired her from the positioning of the cameras to selecting the lights she used to illuminate this historical recreation.
As the title indicates, the film takes place one night in Miami and centers around several discussions between the real life figures and friends Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge). It’s a what-if situation based on a real-life meeting. Nut none one knows what took place That was left to King’s vision and a script by Kemp Powers to imagine.
Cinematographer Tami Reiker’s research bible was “Goat: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali” by Jeff Koons. Reiker whose credits include “The Old Guard” and “Beyond the Lights,” says this tome of Ali inspired her from the positioning of the cameras to selecting the lights she used to illuminate this historical recreation.
As the title indicates, the film takes place one night in Miami and centers around several discussions between the real life figures and friends Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge). It’s a what-if situation based on a real-life meeting. Nut none one knows what took place That was left to King’s vision and a script by Kemp Powers to imagine.
- 2/27/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
As Oscar season gets into high gear – nomination voting opens March 5 — Variety has partnered with Women in Film to celebrate artisans and women behind the camera.
Over the next week, Variety will roll out one-to-one conversations with “Mank” costume designer Trish Summerville, “One Night in Miami” cinematographer Tami Reiker Asc, “Promising Young Woman” makeup head Angie Wells, singer and songwriter H.E.R and artist Janelle Monae. The conversations will be posted on Variety.com.
Senior Artisans Editor Jazz Tangcay will moderate each conversation to break down the process behind their craft and respective projects.
On March 4, a live discussion will be streamed via Women in Film’s platforms.
Meet The Panel H.E.R
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, a.k.a H.E.R., wrote the power anthem behind Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Fight for You.” A Grammy Award-winning artist, this marks H.E.R.’s first foray...
Over the next week, Variety will roll out one-to-one conversations with “Mank” costume designer Trish Summerville, “One Night in Miami” cinematographer Tami Reiker Asc, “Promising Young Woman” makeup head Angie Wells, singer and songwriter H.E.R and artist Janelle Monae. The conversations will be posted on Variety.com.
Senior Artisans Editor Jazz Tangcay will moderate each conversation to break down the process behind their craft and respective projects.
On March 4, a live discussion will be streamed via Women in Film’s platforms.
Meet The Panel H.E.R
Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, a.k.a H.E.R., wrote the power anthem behind Shaka King’s “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Fight for You.” A Grammy Award-winning artist, this marks H.E.R.’s first foray...
- 2/26/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
When editor Tariq Anwar first interviewed with Regina King to discuss “One Night in Miami,” they talked about transitions and music. Transitions were important to the first-time feature director, and temp music was important to the Oscar-nominated editor of “The King’s Speech” and “American Beauty.” It became part of a larger plan to get closer to Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) when they gather together in 1964 to celebrate Clay’s historic boxing defeat of Sonny Liston. But what transpired in Kemp Powers’ incisive adaptation of his acclaimed play was a soul-searching conversation about fame and activism.
“Regina was very focused on the transitions [to visually connect these four friends], and I love to use music when I’m editing because it helps me with the picture cutting,” Anwar said. “She had some reservation at first because music can be overly manipulative,...
“Regina was very focused on the transitions [to visually connect these four friends], and I love to use music when I’m editing because it helps me with the picture cutting,” Anwar said. “She had some reservation at first because music can be overly manipulative,...
- 2/26/2021
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
The image of “One Night in Miami’s” Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), and Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) huddled together in the Hampton House is an evocative snapshot of Black Power in 1964. The four friends came to celebrate Clay’s historic heavyweight championship defeat of Sonny Liston, but the night evolved into a soul-searching conversation about race, success, and social responsibility. Yet the strongest visual impression that director Regina King wanted to convey was that they looked like friends, which crucially carried over into the costume design of Francine Jamison-Tanchuck (best known for “White Men Can’t Jump” and “Glory”).
“When production designer Barry Robison and cinematographer Tami Reiker and I met with Regina, we discussed the color palette to know that it’s going to work for each character, and certain colors had to be considered because of their complexion,...
“When production designer Barry Robison and cinematographer Tami Reiker and I met with Regina, we discussed the color palette to know that it’s going to work for each character, and certain colors had to be considered because of their complexion,...
- 2/19/2021
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
Regina King has built her award-winning acting career on a rock-solid foundation of memorable roles, and, after a host of small screen directing gigs on shows like Southland, This Is Us and Insecure, her smash directorial feature debut, One Night in Miami—which made its virtual premiere on King’s 50th birthday—shows she’s building just as sturdy a big screen directing career too. The film, adapted from Kemp Powers’ stage play, reimagines a night in which four icons meet—Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, Sam Cooke and Malcolm X—and discuss their roles in much-needed societal change.
Deadline: The film opens not in Miami, but at Wembley Stadium, for the bout with Henry Cooper. It’s how we are introduced to Muhammed Ali, as Cassius Clay, before meeting the others. How did these scenes help you to begin telling this story?
Regina King: The first draft that I read,...
Deadline: The film opens not in Miami, but at Wembley Stadium, for the bout with Henry Cooper. It’s how we are introduced to Muhammed Ali, as Cassius Clay, before meeting the others. How did these scenes help you to begin telling this story?
Regina King: The first draft that I read,...
- 2/9/2021
- by Nadia Neophytou
- Deadline Film + TV
Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge and Leslie Odom Jr. are the quartet at the center of “One Night in Miami,” but there is a fifth, unspoken star: the motel room. The Amazon film, based on the play of the same name, is a fictionalized account of a meeting between Cassius Clay (Goree), Malcolm X (Ben-Adir), Jim Brown (Hodge) and Sam Cooke (Odom) after the future Muhammad Ali defeated Sonny Liston (Aaron D. Alexander) for the heavyweight title in February 1964. The majority of the movie takes place inside the motel room, which is not exactly ideal from a production design standpoint. “Motel rooms are normally small and uninteresting for the most part. So the challenge was how to not have it be uninteresting,” Barry Robison tells Gold Derby at our Meet the Btl Experts: Film Production Design panel (watch above).
Robison first researched and sent his team to the real Hampton House in Miami,...
Robison first researched and sent his team to the real Hampton House in Miami,...
- 1/29/2021
- by Joyce Eng
- Gold Derby
“When I wanted to be a cinematographer, somebody said to me, ‘Girls don’t do that job,’ ” Disney’s Mulan director of photography Mandy Walker admits, adding that she’s recently seen an uptick in representation. “It’s a little slower in our world, but it’s definitely changing.” Agreeing with Walker at THR’s virtual Cinematographer Roundtable on Dec. 12 were DPs Damian Garcia of Netflix’s I’m No Longer Here; Erik Messerschmidt of Netflix’s Mank; Tami Reiker of Amazon’s One Night in Miami and Netflix’s The Old Guard; Joshua James Richards of Searchlight’...
- 1/29/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
“When I wanted to be a cinematographer, somebody said to me, ‘Girls don’t do that job,’ ” Disney’s Mulan director of photography Mandy Walker admits, adding that she’s recently seen an uptick in representation. “It’s a little slower in our world, but it’s definitely changing.” Agreeing with Walker at THR’s virtual Cinematographer Roundtable on Dec. 12 were DPs Damian Garcia of Netflix’s I’m No Longer Here; Erik Messerschmidt of Netflix’s Mank; Tami Reiker of Amazon’s One Night in Miami and Netflix’s The Old Guard; Joshua James Richards of Searchlight’...
- 1/29/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
After directing multiple TV episodes, Regina King makes her big-screen directing debut with Amazon’s “One Night in Miami.” Kemp Powers adapted his play about a 1963 meeting of Jim Brown, Cassius Clay (before he became Muhammad Ali), Sam Cooke and Malcolm X. King paid tribute to her colleagues behind the camera, saying, “They were my heroes.”
Tami Reiker, cinematographer
“Tami and I connected immediately. Even when I didn’t have a technical word for what I was looking for, she understood. For example, so much takes place in one motel room, and I didn’t want it to feel like a play; I wanted it to feel light and with an energy that matches the performances. And for me, color is a great way to represent Black people. In our sordid past as Americans, we still found a way to laugh and love, and color represents that vivaciousness. But I...
Tami Reiker, cinematographer
“Tami and I connected immediately. Even when I didn’t have a technical word for what I was looking for, she understood. For example, so much takes place in one motel room, and I didn’t want it to feel like a play; I wanted it to feel light and with an energy that matches the performances. And for me, color is a great way to represent Black people. In our sordid past as Americans, we still found a way to laugh and love, and color represents that vivaciousness. But I...
- 1/15/2021
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
With “One Night in Miami,” Regina King stands apart from many of her actor-turned-director peers, many of whom bring little with them behind the camera besides the emails of fellow A-listers who owe them a favor. King’s frequent episodic directorial gigs have clearly given her the wherewithal to make a feature film that’s ambitious in its storytelling, its visuals and its ideology.
For a first-timer to tackle a period piece featuring four cultural legends would be impressive enough, more so when said period piece is based on a four-guys-in-a room play that the screen adaptation livens up with musical performance, boxing sequences and massive crowd scenes. King doesn’t just take on these challenges; she succeeds at turning a property with a number of potential wrong turns into a vibrant historical tale tackling issues and controversies that remain tragically relevant nearly 60 years later.
There are plenty of plays...
For a first-timer to tackle a period piece featuring four cultural legends would be impressive enough, more so when said period piece is based on a four-guys-in-a room play that the screen adaptation livens up with musical performance, boxing sequences and massive crowd scenes. King doesn’t just take on these challenges; she succeeds at turning a property with a number of potential wrong turns into a vibrant historical tale tackling issues and controversies that remain tragically relevant nearly 60 years later.
There are plenty of plays...
- 1/15/2021
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
It feels like ages ago when Regina King’s “One Night in Miami” made history at the Venice Film Festival last summer, but the awards contender finally makes its consumer debut Friday on Amazon Prime Video buoyed by what has become a consistent drumbeat of support.
According to Gold Derby Experts, the drama — about the title evening in February 1964 when real-life friends Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) celebrated Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) becoming boxing’s heavyweight champion — remains firmly ensconced as a top-tier Best Picture contender. With 9/1 odds and rising of a nomination, 26 Experts have “One Night in Miami” pegged to score a nomination for the top Oscars prize, with USA Today entertainment reporter Brian Truitt and IMDb senior film editor Keith Simanton predicting a victory.
It’s easy to imagine a scenario where that becomes a reality, even in a crowded...
According to Gold Derby Experts, the drama — about the title evening in February 1964 when real-life friends Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) celebrated Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) becoming boxing’s heavyweight champion — remains firmly ensconced as a top-tier Best Picture contender. With 9/1 odds and rising of a nomination, 26 Experts have “One Night in Miami” pegged to score a nomination for the top Oscars prize, with USA Today entertainment reporter Brian Truitt and IMDb senior film editor Keith Simanton predicting a victory.
It’s easy to imagine a scenario where that becomes a reality, even in a crowded...
- 1/14/2021
- by Christopher Rosen
- Gold Derby
The Alliance of Women Film Journalists has announced its 2020 AWFJ Eda winners, where the most-nominated film “Nomadland” walked away with six categories including best film, actress (Frances McDormand) and cinematography (Joshua James Richards). Filmmaker Chloé Zhao won three individual prizes for directing, adapted screenplay and editing.
The AWFJ recognizes the year’s best regardless of gender in the conventional “best of” categories and this year, women dominated on both sides. In a change from years prior, Jennifer Merin, founder and film critic, says, “we decided to exclude women who won Best Of Awards from competition in our Female Focus Award categories.”
Other winners included Chadwick Boseman (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) and Leslie Odom Jr. (“One Night in Miami”) in lead and supporting actor while Yuh-Jung Youn (“Minari”) won best supporting actress, surpassing Maria Bakalova (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”) in wins so far this awards season.
See the full winners list below.
The AWFJ recognizes the year’s best regardless of gender in the conventional “best of” categories and this year, women dominated on both sides. In a change from years prior, Jennifer Merin, founder and film critic, says, “we decided to exclude women who won Best Of Awards from competition in our Female Focus Award categories.”
Other winners included Chadwick Boseman (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) and Leslie Odom Jr. (“One Night in Miami”) in lead and supporting actor while Yuh-Jung Youn (“Minari”) won best supporting actress, surpassing Maria Bakalova (“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”) in wins so far this awards season.
See the full winners list below.
- 1/4/2021
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
The Alliance of Women Film Journalists has announced their nominees for their 2020 Eda awards, with Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” leading with nine nominations including best film and director. With 25 individual categories, their awards are divided into three sections: the standard “Best Of” section, the “Female Focus” awards and “Eda Special Mentions.” Women dominated the “best of” section, with four of the five slots occupied by women.
Regina King’s “One Night in Miami” was the second-highest nomination leader with eight, and Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman” nabbed six mentions. “Our Eda Awards always honor the year’s best regardless of gender,” says Awfj and Eda Awards founder Jennifer Merin. “We are thrilled that in 2020 three female-directed films have emerged as our most-nominated films. Even better, two of these and several other multi-nominated films tell stories centering on strong and complex female characters from diverse backgrounds.”
The Awfj will announce their winners on Jan.
Regina King’s “One Night in Miami” was the second-highest nomination leader with eight, and Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman” nabbed six mentions. “Our Eda Awards always honor the year’s best regardless of gender,” says Awfj and Eda Awards founder Jennifer Merin. “We are thrilled that in 2020 three female-directed films have emerged as our most-nominated films. Even better, two of these and several other multi-nominated films tell stories centering on strong and complex female characters from diverse backgrounds.”
The Awfj will announce their winners on Jan.
- 12/30/2020
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
For the longest time, cinematographers have referenced paintings and still photography, whether recreating those images or riffing on them to create the moving images in films. It was no different for Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” which captured the beauty of America, and Regina King’s “One Night in Miami,” which was influenced by historical events. Even more impressive is the fact that some of the lensers behind this year’s top films are somewhat new to the circuit.
For his fourth feature film, “Nomadland” cinematographer Joshua James Richards traveled across the Badlands of South Dakota; Empire, Nev.; and western Nebraska, venturing into real-life nomad territory to tell the story of Fern (Frances McDormand), who lives on the road in her van.
The main visual reference, he says, was Andrew Wyeth’s Miss Olson. That painting served as the “texture and palette of the interior of Fern’s van.”
It wasn...
For his fourth feature film, “Nomadland” cinematographer Joshua James Richards traveled across the Badlands of South Dakota; Empire, Nev.; and western Nebraska, venturing into real-life nomad territory to tell the story of Fern (Frances McDormand), who lives on the road in her van.
The main visual reference, he says, was Andrew Wyeth’s Miss Olson. That painting served as the “texture and palette of the interior of Fern’s van.”
It wasn...
- 12/24/2020
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
Earlier on in the week, Amazon Studios dropped a Trailer for Regina King’s directorial debut, One Night in Miami…The movie is a dramatized look at an amazing evening spent between four huge historical figures. Since its film festival debut, King and the cast have gotten raves, with massive Oscar attention paid to it, and rightly so. Now, a Trailer is here to showcase how the flick truly has the goods. It won’t be out until Christas Day, but consider your appetite more than whetted. Give it a look below, but first, a bit of info can be found, as per the usual… The film is a drama, taking on the feel of a play. Here is the synopsis from IMDb: “One Night in Miami is a fictional account of one incredible night where icons Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown gathered discussing their...
- 11/21/2020
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Meet the artisans behind the best looks, VFX, lenses and designs in film and TV in the last year, from sci-fi to contemporary productions, these behind the scenes craftspeople add dimensions and layers to the directors’ vision.
Mandy Moore
Showrunner Austin Winsberg found in Moore a choreographer who took his concept of a woman who can hear people’s innermost thoughts in song and give it kinetic life and depth. One particularly powerful segment involved the Deaf West Theater, which signed “Fight Song” while dancing in a university library. “The biggest challenge for me was determining how cinematic dance and movement would be used as a vehicle for storytelling. Dance would not just be a visual spectacle on ‘Zoey’s,’ we would use dance to evoke emotion and further explain what a character is feeling,” says Moore, who earned an Emmy this year for her work on “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.
Mandy Moore
Showrunner Austin Winsberg found in Moore a choreographer who took his concept of a woman who can hear people’s innermost thoughts in song and give it kinetic life and depth. One particularly powerful segment involved the Deaf West Theater, which signed “Fight Song” while dancing in a university library. “The biggest challenge for me was determining how cinematic dance and movement would be used as a vehicle for storytelling. Dance would not just be a visual spectacle on ‘Zoey’s,’ we would use dance to evoke emotion and further explain what a character is feeling,” says Moore, who earned an Emmy this year for her work on “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.
- 11/5/2020
- by Carole Horst, Andrew Barker, Shalini Dore, Eli Countryman, Tomris Laffly, Janet W. Lee, Danielle Turchiano, Jazz Tangcay and Natalie Oganesyan
- Variety Film + TV
After its rapturous Venice premiere, Regina King’s feature film directing debut, “One Night in Miami,” emerges as Amazon Studios’ likeliest Oscars 2021 contender. It could be the right film at the right time. Adapted by Kemp Powers from his Olivier Award-nominated play, the movie is set on the sultry Miami night in February 1964 when Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) defeated heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. The movie takes us inside the boxer’s celebratory after-party with pals Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown as the men debate the best ways to use their respective stardom to affect change in the segregated South.
Malcolm X is struggling with Elijah Muhammed and his top brass at the Nation of Islam, checking the lamps at the Hampton House for bugs, and criticizing pop star Cooke for catering to white folks. (They go toe-to-toe in a tense exchange that pays off late in the movie.
Malcolm X is struggling with Elijah Muhammed and his top brass at the Nation of Islam, checking the lamps at the Hampton House for bugs, and criticizing pop star Cooke for catering to white folks. (They go toe-to-toe in a tense exchange that pays off late in the movie.
- 9/8/2020
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
After its rapturous Venice premiere, Regina King’s feature film directing debut, “One Night in Miami,” emerges as Amazon Studios’ likeliest Oscars 2021 contender. It could be the right film at the right time. Adapted by Kemp Powers from his Olivier Award-nominated play, the movie is set on the sultry Miami night in February 1964 when Cassius Clay (Eli Goree) defeated heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. The movie takes us inside the boxer’s celebratory after-party with pals Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown as the men debate the best ways to use their respective stardom to affect change in the segregated South.
Malcolm X is struggling with Elijah Muhammed and his top brass at the Nation of Islam, checking the lamps at the Hampton House for bugs, and criticizing pop star Cooke for catering to white folks. (They go toe-to-toe in a tense exchange that pays off late in the movie.
Malcolm X is struggling with Elijah Muhammed and his top brass at the Nation of Islam, checking the lamps at the Hampton House for bugs, and criticizing pop star Cooke for catering to white folks. (They go toe-to-toe in a tense exchange that pays off late in the movie.
- 9/8/2020
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
“One Night in Miami,” the feature directorial debut of Academy Award winner Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) dropped at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 7, the first film by a Black woman to ever premiere at the 77-year festival.
Variety has an exclusive clip from the upcoming Amazon Studios release, which is already receiving strong reviews and Oscars buzz.
Taking place in Miami, Florida on Feb. 25, 1964, the film is a fictional account of an evening with prolific figures Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), Sam Cooke and Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), as they gather to discuss civil rights and the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. The clip shows the four men celebrating Ali’s championship win before Malcolm reveals his plans with the gentlemen for the evening.
“I put my heart and soul into these projects,” said screenwriter Kemp Powers. “I wanted to connect on a human level.
Variety has an exclusive clip from the upcoming Amazon Studios release, which is already receiving strong reviews and Oscars buzz.
Taking place in Miami, Florida on Feb. 25, 1964, the film is a fictional account of an evening with prolific figures Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge), Sam Cooke and Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), as they gather to discuss civil rights and the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. The clip shows the four men celebrating Ali’s championship win before Malcolm reveals his plans with the gentlemen for the evening.
“I put my heart and soul into these projects,” said screenwriter Kemp Powers. “I wanted to connect on a human level.
- 9/8/2020
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
At least in 2020, going to the theater for a rollicking summer blockbuster is not a thing. It just isn’t. Part of the summer movie season is the feeling of watching a big budget flick with a cold drink, some popcorn, and the air-conditioning blasting as a refrain from the heat. Without that, there does seem to be a gaping hole for cinema lovers. Well, Netflix is stepping up, not with the feeling of being in a theater, but with a quality would-be blockbuster in The Old Guard, which fits just what you want out of a July release. The film is an action epic, based on the comic book of the same name. The title refers to a small group of covert mercenaries with a secret that has made them unbeatable in battle. Simply put, they don’t seem to be able to die, allowing them, under the leadership...
- 7/11/2020
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Former atomic blonde Charlize Theron goes nuclear brunette to play Andromache the Scythian (call her Andy for short), a centuries-old warrior who’s getting weary of fighting the good fight into the violent present. As per screenwriter Greg Rucka’s graphic novel, Andy leads a tight group of dedicated immortal mercenaries that include Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), a member since 1817, and Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli), a gay couple who’ve been head over heels in love since the Crusades. Though the quartet can recover from wounds in minutes,...
- 7/7/2020
- by Peter Travers
- Rollingstone.com
When director Gina Prince-Bythewood took the helm of Netflix’s “The Old Guard,” bowing on the streaming service July 10, one of the first people she called was longtime collaborator and editor Terilyn Shropshire — the two have a partnership that dates back 20 years, along the way collaborating on “Love & Basketball,” “The Secret Life of Bees,” “Beyond the Lights” and “Shots Fired.”
Prince-Bythewood knew what production company Skydance wanted when it entrusted her with the film, starring Charlize Theron as the leader of a secret band of immortal mercenaries who have been protecting the world — and their own identities — for centuries, and must now be even more vigilant as they bring on a new member (played by KiKi Layne of “If Beale Street Could Talk”).
“They said, ‘We love “Love & Basketball” and “Beyond the Lights,” and what you did with the characters,’” the director explains. “They wanted to bring that kind...
Prince-Bythewood knew what production company Skydance wanted when it entrusted her with the film, starring Charlize Theron as the leader of a secret band of immortal mercenaries who have been protecting the world — and their own identities — for centuries, and must now be even more vigilant as they bring on a new member (played by KiKi Layne of “If Beale Street Could Talk”).
“They said, ‘We love “Love & Basketball” and “Beyond the Lights,” and what you did with the characters,’” the director explains. “They wanted to bring that kind...
- 7/7/2020
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
If you like your superhero comic-book movies with a truckload of angst on the side, “The Old Guard” might be just what you’re looking for. Or if you like your brooding dramas best when they come with a high body count, this could be the movie for a nice punchy weekend.
“The Old Guard,” which premieres on Netflix on July 10, is a formidable hybrid. It’s based on a comic book series by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez about a group of immortal warriors who have been spent centuries quietly dueling the worst people they can find on the planet, but for much of its two-hour running time it focuses not on the battles but on their melancholic aftermaths. It gives Charlize Theron another chance to kick serious butt, which we know she does very, very well, but what you might take away from her performance isn’t her...
“The Old Guard,” which premieres on Netflix on July 10, is a formidable hybrid. It’s based on a comic book series by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez about a group of immortal warriors who have been spent centuries quietly dueling the worst people they can find on the planet, but for much of its two-hour running time it focuses not on the battles but on their melancholic aftermaths. It gives Charlize Theron another chance to kick serious butt, which we know she does very, very well, but what you might take away from her performance isn’t her...
- 7/3/2020
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Exclusive: Regina King has started production in New Orleans on One Night In Miami, with Kingsley Ben-Adir (The Oa) as civil rights activist Malcolm X, Eli Goree (Riverdale) as Cassius Clay right before he became Muhammad Ali, Aldis Hodge (Clemency) as gridiron great Jim Brown, and Grammy and Tony Award winner Leslie Odom, Jr. (Harriet) playing singer Sam Cooke.
The film is an adaptation of the Olivier-nominated stage play by Kemp Powers, who wrote the script. Set on the night of February 25, 1964, the drama follows the brash young Cassius Clay after he shocked the world by knocking out seemingly invincible Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion. While crowds of people swarm Miami Beach to celebrate the match, Clay – unable to stay on the island because of Jim Crow-era segregation laws – spends the evening at the Hampton House Motel in Miami’s African American Overtown neighborhood celebrating with three of his closest friends: Malcolm X,...
The film is an adaptation of the Olivier-nominated stage play by Kemp Powers, who wrote the script. Set on the night of February 25, 1964, the drama follows the brash young Cassius Clay after he shocked the world by knocking out seemingly invincible Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion. While crowds of people swarm Miami Beach to celebrate the match, Clay – unable to stay on the island because of Jim Crow-era segregation laws – spends the evening at the Hampton House Motel in Miami’s African American Overtown neighborhood celebrating with three of his closest friends: Malcolm X,...
- 1/7/2020
- by Mike Fleming Jr
- Deadline Film + TV
Here’s how studios say they see it: Sure, we really want to hire women directors. But there’s almost no studio movie that isn’t big budget, and we can’t find women who have the experience necessary to handle the really big movies. (Never mind Colin Trevorrow. Or Marc Webb. Or Gareth Edwards. Or Jon Watts.)
Of course, that logic is a vicious cycle at best, but here’s a chance to break it. Director Reed Morano’s dazzling execution of the first three episodes of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” suggests another excellent source for future women directors: top cinematographers.
Read More: 7 Female Genre Filmmakers You Should Get to Know Right Now
Women cinematographers work harder, longer, and have to be gifted and tough in order to keep landing jobs. As a cinematographer, make one mistake and you’re through. Any working cinematographer has more than...
Of course, that logic is a vicious cycle at best, but here’s a chance to break it. Director Reed Morano’s dazzling execution of the first three episodes of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” suggests another excellent source for future women directors: top cinematographers.
Read More: 7 Female Genre Filmmakers You Should Get to Know Right Now
Women cinematographers work harder, longer, and have to be gifted and tough in order to keep landing jobs. As a cinematographer, make one mistake and you’re through. Any working cinematographer has more than...
- 5/10/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Here’s how studios say they see it: Sure, we really want to hire women directors. But there’s almost no studio movie that isn’t big budget, and we can’t find women who have the experience necessary to handle the really big movies. (Never mind Colin Trevorrow. Or Marc Webb. Or Gareth Edwards. Or Jon Watts.)
Of course, that logic is a vicious cycle at best, but here’s a chance to break it. Director Reed Morano’s dazzling execution of the first three episodes of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” suggests another excellent source for future women directors: top cinematographers.
Read More: 7 Female Genre Filmmakers You Should Get to Know Right Now
Women cinematographers work harder, longer, and have to be gifted and tough in order to keep landing jobs. As a cinematographer, make one mistake and you’re through. Any working cinematographer has more than...
Of course, that logic is a vicious cycle at best, but here’s a chance to break it. Director Reed Morano’s dazzling execution of the first three episodes of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” suggests another excellent source for future women directors: top cinematographers.
Read More: 7 Female Genre Filmmakers You Should Get to Know Right Now
Women cinematographers work harder, longer, and have to be gifted and tough in order to keep landing jobs. As a cinematographer, make one mistake and you’re through. Any working cinematographer has more than...
- 5/10/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Exclusive: A number of promotions and changes were just made at Dattner Dispoto and Associates, a talent agency founded in 1987 that represents below-the-line crew. nm2374492 autoJuanita Tiangco[/link] was named VP Commercials and Music Videos. Tiangco ran Dda's New York office for five years, repping such talent as Harris Savides, Lance Acord, Salvatore Totino, Tami Reiker and Jim Fealy. She returned to Dda in Los Angeles in 2005. She has been an agent for 26 years, including 16 at…...
- 7/12/2016
- Deadline TV
Exclusive: A number of promotions and changes were just made at Dattner Dispoto and Associates, a talent agency founded in 1987 that represents below-the-line crew. nm2374492 autoJuanita Tiangco[/link] was named VP Commercials and Music Videos. Tiangco ran Dda's New York office for five years, repping such talent as Harris Savides, Lance Acord, Salvatore Totino, Tami Reiker and Jim Fealy. She returned to Dda in Los Angeles in 2005. She has been an agent for 26 years, including 16 at…...
- 7/12/2016
- Deadline
What does it take to succeed in a man’s world? A Los Angeles Film Festival panel of women cinematographers ivealed what it took to make it to the top of a competitive industry.
1. A shot of LSD. Cinema verite shooter Joan Churchill (“Last Days in Vietnam”) started out by recovering from an eight-hour acid trip, she admitted, to shoot some of the most iconic images from the Rolling Stones Altamont doc, “Gimme Shelter.” That led to the assignment of shooting the Louds in PBS’s “An American Family.” A documentary cameraperson, often working with a hand-held camera and natural light, has to have “people skills,” she said. “You have to be interested in your subjects.” When she moved to London, she couldn’t get work until she joined the Asc—and became its first woman member. Her membership card read: “Lady Cameraman.”
2. Read and reread the script. French-born Maryse Alberti...
1. A shot of LSD. Cinema verite shooter Joan Churchill (“Last Days in Vietnam”) started out by recovering from an eight-hour acid trip, she admitted, to shoot some of the most iconic images from the Rolling Stones Altamont doc, “Gimme Shelter.” That led to the assignment of shooting the Louds in PBS’s “An American Family.” A documentary cameraperson, often working with a hand-held camera and natural light, has to have “people skills,” she said. “You have to be interested in your subjects.” When she moved to London, she couldn’t get work until she joined the Asc—and became its first woman member. Her membership card read: “Lady Cameraman.”
2. Read and reread the script. French-born Maryse Alberti...
- 6/6/2016
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Toronto — Hollywood has long embraced the trope of the suffering superstar. You know the story, don’t you? A talented but misunderstood singer or actor struggles with the downside of living in the spotlight. Often there is a parent trying to live dreams through his or her child’s adult career. There might even be a hero who will appear from outside the creative world to protect the artist from the perils of fame and fortune. Yes, this is a narrative idea that has been explored countless times in movies and TV shows. It’s also the very simple logline for the new Relativity Media drama "Beyond the Lights." Thanks to the masterful direction of Gina Prince-Bythewood, however, the film shatters these cliché origins and turns into an unexpectedly electric and moving romantic drama. “Lights” has three stars that allow it to transcend the genre. The first is British born actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw,...
- 9/8/2014
- by Gregory Ellwood
- Hitfix
Will Scheffer speaks candidly with Susan Kouguell about the Getting On series, adapting material, collaborations, and more.
With their fingers on the pulse -- actually ten steps ahead of -- societal happenings and hot button topics, co-creators, executive producers, and writers on their Emmy and Golden Globe-winning HBO series Big Love, Will Scheffer and his partner Mark V. Olsen are fearless when tackling “difficult” subject matters in their television and film projects. With humor and pathos, Scheffer and Olsen continue to confront timely and challenging issues with their new series for HBO’s Getting On.
Will Scheffer is a playwright, writer/producer and filmmaker. His plays have been produced and developed across the country, including Playwright's Horizons, Naked Angels, The Public Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theater, where he’s had four plays in The Marathon. His first screenplay In the Gloaming, starring Glenn Close and directed by Christopher Reeve, was produced by HBO in 1997, and won many awards, including five Emmys. An attorney and member of the New York Bar, Mark V. Olsen has created, written, and produced several screenplays, teleplays, pilots and miniseries. For HBO, he wrote Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, Cabrina USA. In 2010, after being published in Best Plays of 1999, Olsen’s play Cornelia opened at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. Together, Scheffer and Olsen produced the independent feature based on Scheffer’s play by the same name, Easter in 2002, and that same year they created HBO’s acclaimed drama Big Love.
Kouguell: The HBO Web site synopsis describes Getting On: ‘The show follows the daily lives of overworked nurses and doctors as they struggle with the darkly comic realities of tending compassionately to their aging charges in a rundown, red-tape-filled hospital extended-care wing, blending outrageous humor with unexpected moments of tenderness.’ Anything else you would add to this description?
Scheffer: The show is about relationships -- as all our shows are -- the power struggles that come out of marriages between couples, or among small groups of individuals that work together out of choice or necessity. Getting On is about healthy and unhealthy codependence. It’s about love. It’s about how women in largely patriarchal systems learn to take their own power. It’s about class struggle and how it goes largely pushed into unconsciousness in our society and it’s about how the elderly, illness and the death experience is also compartmentalized in our society.
Getting On is largely about how we all deal with the process of aging and how we all care for the elderly. Like taxes and death, Mark and I think eldercare is becoming an unavoidable reality in our lives whether we like to deal with it or not. It’s becoming a shared fact of our existence, and Getting On tries to create a funny, safe place where an audience can find humor and compassion in that reality.
Kouguell: British television series like The Office have been successfully adapted for American TV. Getting On ran in Britain from 2009 – 2012. How did you come upon this show?
Scheffer: Mark and I had seen it in London while we were taking a vacation from our last season of Big Love and we were both dealing with caring for our aging mothers. We fell madly in love with the series and coincidentally had been working up a show of our own, set in the world of American eldercare. When we saw it we thought we should just adapt this series for American television. It’s an easier way to pitch an idea, and of course it gives us all this glorious material to work with.
Joanna Scanlon, Vicki Pepperdine, Jo Brand and Peter Capaldi, created an amazing show about the healthcare system in Great Britain and we felt it docked in perfectly with the kind of dark comedy we had in our heads about managed care in America and all the firsthand experiences we were going through with our moms.
Kouguell: What challenges and inspirations have you found while adapting this series?
Scheffer: The largest challenge, of course, is how to reimagine the characters and situations of the British version for an American audience and not to just “do a translation.” I think it was harder to translate a British show into American English than it might be to translate a Danish format such as The Killing or an Israeli format, such as In Treatment or Homeland.
You can be deceived into thinking you can just Americanize the dialogue and that is a huge trap when you love the original material. We had to fight that impulse. Also, we had to take the style of the British version, which is extremely “jump-cutty” and roughly assembled and improvised, and work backwards, almost to create our own “docu-comedy” style. We knew we weren’t going to do The Office but we didn’t know how challenging it would be to structure a script and a season the way we do and then make it look rougher. We love the result but it was extremely challenging for us as writers and for our entire creative team to discover our own style.
Our inspiration was largely drawn from our own ongoing experiences and then the actors we cast and the creative team we assembled. Adapting for these actors became a sublime treat and working with artists like Migel Arteta, Pam Martin, Tami Reiker, Jim Denault, Heather Persons, and also a lot of our Big Love team also was invaluable. And we had Jane Tranter, Julie Gardner, and Amy Hodge from BBC Worldwide as producing partners and they were incredible to work with. We got so much creative support from them.
This show (more than any other we’ve worked on) was a collaborative effort. Michael Lombardo, Casey Bloys and Francesca Orsi were very involved in our editorial process and I think this (sometimes uncomfortable) creative mix of smart people actually made the show different and better than what our vision alone foresaw. This was a rare instance of a lot of chefs in the kitchen actually producing a better stew.
Kouguell: How have you made it your own?
Scheffer: It was impossible not to make it our own. We lived a lot of what is seen on the show. Mark’s mom was in a small boarding care facility, which we were lucky to land her in when she developed dementia, and we had to bring her out to Pasadena to be near us. The caregivers and women there infuse our show. That was where we found tenderness and compassion. My mom was in the New York City healthcare system. She lived in a great assisted living apartment building, but when she got kicked out of hospitals and into Medicare “Rehabs” or what they call “skilled nursing facilities” the experience wasn’t so compassionate.
We used all of our personal knowledge of hospital life (which is considerable) and researched the hell of American geriatric care. We also imbued the show with our style and taste, which I would call simply: “Laughing and crying is good to do at the same time.” We cast actors who were vivid and real and very un-tv. They were all so talented and fiercely brave. We shot each episode in only three days. It’s unlike any TV show or film we’ve ever done.
Kouguell: Talk about your adaptation process.
Scheffer: We definitely started with all of the original material. We had no scripts though, so we had to first transcribe all the episodes from film (or video, as it were). We then picked and chose the material we knew was gold and worked endlessly on how we could compose a season structure -- knowing we had to compress their first two seasons of nine episodes into our first season of six.
We had some strong ideas of what we needed to do in order to achieve an American version as we had our ‘make someone happy campaign,’ which was based on our research of the Disneyfication of hospitals. We also knew we wanted to shake up the pilot and create a real dramatic reason of why there was a new head nurse (Patsy) coming into the ward and why Dr. Jenna James was stuck over here.
The British show has all these gold nuggets but since they worked in a more improvisational mode and we’re much more scripted, we had to take their nuggets and weave them into our structural considerations. Also, once we saw how the pilot worked with our cast, we identified a kind of idea of what each episode should have in it, to fulfill what we saw as a winning episode structure.
Our cast was so talented we knew we could always have a physical slapstick element and real emotional stakes side-by-side. We wanted each episode to have a laugh out loud scene that played against the dark comedy and realities of what happens in an extended care wing.
Also, the show was rebuilt in the editing room. We actually took more time to edit an episode than we did to shoot it. We had plenty of material but we essentially rewrote the show many, many times from before production, through rehearsals, and then in the editing room. When we completed the first episode I turned to Mark and said, “Oh my God, we actually made a black comedy.” Something which we knew was really hard to do and we made one that had a heart.
Kouguell: How do your characters in Getting On depart from the original British series?
Scheffer: The characters are very similar to the original ones except of course they are completely different. Jenna James is Doctor Moore in principal, but Laurie Metcalfe brings a fierceness and virtuosity to the role that makes the character’s inner life more roiling with insecurity. We began to see that in the world of the show, all the other characters saw Dr. James as imperious and incompetent at the same time, but failed to see what the audience saw -- a woman who is falling apart inside.
Nurse Dawn, as played by the multi-talented Alex Borstein, became more co-dependent, needing to always please Jenna, and also blatantly psychologically immature. Her core is the same as Joanna’s wonderful Den, a woman without an inherent self-esteem but I think our Dawn became more outrageously confused.
All our characters are less constrained and polite than the British cast. I would say that you see “America versus our British cousins” in the way all the characters become more visceral. Didi differs the most. In the British show she’s played by the amazing comedienne Jo Brand, as a retiree coming back into the workforce. Niecey, in what I think is a transformative role for her, is younger and of color. I think she retains what Kim (Jo Brand) is to the show, its tender heart, but somehow Niecey manages to bring her comedy skills yet delivers such a subtle earthiness to her performance; she is the beating heart at the center of the show.
It’s a hard question when I answer it, because in a way I see that the characters essentially are the same but completely different at the same time. It’s in the writing but it’s what these actors brought to all their roles. There was only one right actor for each of these roles and they all give award-worthy performances in my book. They just made the characters their own, which is what you want from an actor and we began to write to who we saw they were becoming in the parts. I think the old saying about casting being 99 percent of a successful production was what we knew we had to achieve for this show. It was really hard to cast, but we held out for the perfect actor for each role and they delivered.
Kouguell: What drew you to this material and why did you feel that it could be ‘translated’ for an American audience?
Scheffer: The British show is about the “National Health” and three women who are “getting on” in years, and also together. Our show translated that into eldercare, a women’s ward. It’s a subtle but profound translation. If you compare the shows they look like -- well sisters.
We just knew that we had to do this show. We wanted to create a place where our friends and family, our audience who we knew was aging and dealing with dementia and death in their loved ones, could come and laugh. Even if they were afraid to watch us, we knew once they did, they would want to be in our world with these characters. It’s scary but it’s life. And it can be funny and sad at the same time. It hits close to home and that’s a good thing.
Kouguell: This is the second HBO series you and Mark have collaborated on as executive producers and writers. Describe your work process and collaboration.
Scheffer: We are a married team so when we do a show we are with each other 24/7 365 days a year. Mark and I talk everything through but don't actually write together. We take turns on drafts, passing them back and forth for multiple revisions. Sometimes I'll write the first draft and he'll revise and sometimes he'll write the first draft. On set it's looser and we'll have to revise together but we prefer to actually write in our own space. The "fantasy" image of having desks facing each other and tossing lines back and forth doesn't work for us.
We definitely complement each other and make a good team. And we’ve survived thus far. The marriage seems to get stronger in the roil of collaboration. It does test our mettle, though.
In production we do everything -- from writing, to casting, to directing, to editing, to selling the show -- we’re there and uber-controlling. But we’re also extremely collaborative. We want to create a “safe set” and work environment where everyone wants to be. When people enjoy coming to work they do their best work. We make sure that condition is met. We treat everyone the same, including ourselves. Even though we get to be the auteurs, as it were, we treat our PAs the same way we treat our Dp, and we submit ourselves to the same conditions we expect from our team. We give ourselves over completely to a show. I credit Mark with expecting a standard of excellence. We depend on each other for different aspects of the work, but Mark’s ability to focus and dig is one of the things that make our collaborations successful. He’s my “closer.”
Kouguell: You describe the show as a ‘docu-comedy’ – please detail.
Scheffer: The British version was so raw and the camera just followed the actors and it was all done 360 degrees, with natural light and there was no worry about continuity and we loved that feel. So in principal, we tried to recreate that. We shot the same way in a real location. We used only two cameras and our Dp’s operated one and moved constantly around a 360 space with natural lighting. We felt that the show’s essence was in that “seed.” It felt like a documentary. We wanted the audience to feel like they were observers of life.
It turned out that we had to do a lot of “reverse engineering” to make our show. It became a different beast. Our show still is very gritty and it jump cuts -- but we learned we had to write in the jumps. We had to structure them. That was really hard to figure out because the British show was more “assembled.” We had to write in those moments when the scene was jumping and we began to have a principal that the jumps furthered the dramatic action of the scene. We did this in the editing room, too.
Our show had to become its own animal, and the “docu-comedy” style that we identified in the original became a different kind of “docu-comedy.” I think the two versions complement each other. In a way, we did with the British show what we do together as writers. We collaborated with it. We make a good team.
“Docu-comedy” is not The Office; it’s not an imposed, hand-held camera style. It’s an ethic. It’s more about trying to capture the truth of what it feels like to be in the midst of the insanity of crisis. What it feels like to be in that world that lives between life and death all the time. It’s about surrendering to it and reveling in the surreal quality of it all. Finding death as being a vital part of life. Not shying away from it. Living into it.
To learn more about Getting On go to: http://www.hbo.com/getting-on
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting and film at Tufts University and presents international seminars. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com .
With their fingers on the pulse -- actually ten steps ahead of -- societal happenings and hot button topics, co-creators, executive producers, and writers on their Emmy and Golden Globe-winning HBO series Big Love, Will Scheffer and his partner Mark V. Olsen are fearless when tackling “difficult” subject matters in their television and film projects. With humor and pathos, Scheffer and Olsen continue to confront timely and challenging issues with their new series for HBO’s Getting On.
Will Scheffer is a playwright, writer/producer and filmmaker. His plays have been produced and developed across the country, including Playwright's Horizons, Naked Angels, The Public Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theater, where he’s had four plays in The Marathon. His first screenplay In the Gloaming, starring Glenn Close and directed by Christopher Reeve, was produced by HBO in 1997, and won many awards, including five Emmys. An attorney and member of the New York Bar, Mark V. Olsen has created, written, and produced several screenplays, teleplays, pilots and miniseries. For HBO, he wrote Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, Cabrina USA. In 2010, after being published in Best Plays of 1999, Olsen’s play Cornelia opened at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. Together, Scheffer and Olsen produced the independent feature based on Scheffer’s play by the same name, Easter in 2002, and that same year they created HBO’s acclaimed drama Big Love.
Kouguell: The HBO Web site synopsis describes Getting On: ‘The show follows the daily lives of overworked nurses and doctors as they struggle with the darkly comic realities of tending compassionately to their aging charges in a rundown, red-tape-filled hospital extended-care wing, blending outrageous humor with unexpected moments of tenderness.’ Anything else you would add to this description?
Scheffer: The show is about relationships -- as all our shows are -- the power struggles that come out of marriages between couples, or among small groups of individuals that work together out of choice or necessity. Getting On is about healthy and unhealthy codependence. It’s about love. It’s about how women in largely patriarchal systems learn to take their own power. It’s about class struggle and how it goes largely pushed into unconsciousness in our society and it’s about how the elderly, illness and the death experience is also compartmentalized in our society.
Getting On is largely about how we all deal with the process of aging and how we all care for the elderly. Like taxes and death, Mark and I think eldercare is becoming an unavoidable reality in our lives whether we like to deal with it or not. It’s becoming a shared fact of our existence, and Getting On tries to create a funny, safe place where an audience can find humor and compassion in that reality.
Kouguell: British television series like The Office have been successfully adapted for American TV. Getting On ran in Britain from 2009 – 2012. How did you come upon this show?
Scheffer: Mark and I had seen it in London while we were taking a vacation from our last season of Big Love and we were both dealing with caring for our aging mothers. We fell madly in love with the series and coincidentally had been working up a show of our own, set in the world of American eldercare. When we saw it we thought we should just adapt this series for American television. It’s an easier way to pitch an idea, and of course it gives us all this glorious material to work with.
Joanna Scanlon, Vicki Pepperdine, Jo Brand and Peter Capaldi, created an amazing show about the healthcare system in Great Britain and we felt it docked in perfectly with the kind of dark comedy we had in our heads about managed care in America and all the firsthand experiences we were going through with our moms.
Kouguell: What challenges and inspirations have you found while adapting this series?
Scheffer: The largest challenge, of course, is how to reimagine the characters and situations of the British version for an American audience and not to just “do a translation.” I think it was harder to translate a British show into American English than it might be to translate a Danish format such as The Killing or an Israeli format, such as In Treatment or Homeland.
You can be deceived into thinking you can just Americanize the dialogue and that is a huge trap when you love the original material. We had to fight that impulse. Also, we had to take the style of the British version, which is extremely “jump-cutty” and roughly assembled and improvised, and work backwards, almost to create our own “docu-comedy” style. We knew we weren’t going to do The Office but we didn’t know how challenging it would be to structure a script and a season the way we do and then make it look rougher. We love the result but it was extremely challenging for us as writers and for our entire creative team to discover our own style.
Our inspiration was largely drawn from our own ongoing experiences and then the actors we cast and the creative team we assembled. Adapting for these actors became a sublime treat and working with artists like Migel Arteta, Pam Martin, Tami Reiker, Jim Denault, Heather Persons, and also a lot of our Big Love team also was invaluable. And we had Jane Tranter, Julie Gardner, and Amy Hodge from BBC Worldwide as producing partners and they were incredible to work with. We got so much creative support from them.
This show (more than any other we’ve worked on) was a collaborative effort. Michael Lombardo, Casey Bloys and Francesca Orsi were very involved in our editorial process and I think this (sometimes uncomfortable) creative mix of smart people actually made the show different and better than what our vision alone foresaw. This was a rare instance of a lot of chefs in the kitchen actually producing a better stew.
Kouguell: How have you made it your own?
Scheffer: It was impossible not to make it our own. We lived a lot of what is seen on the show. Mark’s mom was in a small boarding care facility, which we were lucky to land her in when she developed dementia, and we had to bring her out to Pasadena to be near us. The caregivers and women there infuse our show. That was where we found tenderness and compassion. My mom was in the New York City healthcare system. She lived in a great assisted living apartment building, but when she got kicked out of hospitals and into Medicare “Rehabs” or what they call “skilled nursing facilities” the experience wasn’t so compassionate.
We used all of our personal knowledge of hospital life (which is considerable) and researched the hell of American geriatric care. We also imbued the show with our style and taste, which I would call simply: “Laughing and crying is good to do at the same time.” We cast actors who were vivid and real and very un-tv. They were all so talented and fiercely brave. We shot each episode in only three days. It’s unlike any TV show or film we’ve ever done.
Kouguell: Talk about your adaptation process.
Scheffer: We definitely started with all of the original material. We had no scripts though, so we had to first transcribe all the episodes from film (or video, as it were). We then picked and chose the material we knew was gold and worked endlessly on how we could compose a season structure -- knowing we had to compress their first two seasons of nine episodes into our first season of six.
We had some strong ideas of what we needed to do in order to achieve an American version as we had our ‘make someone happy campaign,’ which was based on our research of the Disneyfication of hospitals. We also knew we wanted to shake up the pilot and create a real dramatic reason of why there was a new head nurse (Patsy) coming into the ward and why Dr. Jenna James was stuck over here.
The British show has all these gold nuggets but since they worked in a more improvisational mode and we’re much more scripted, we had to take their nuggets and weave them into our structural considerations. Also, once we saw how the pilot worked with our cast, we identified a kind of idea of what each episode should have in it, to fulfill what we saw as a winning episode structure.
Our cast was so talented we knew we could always have a physical slapstick element and real emotional stakes side-by-side. We wanted each episode to have a laugh out loud scene that played against the dark comedy and realities of what happens in an extended care wing.
Also, the show was rebuilt in the editing room. We actually took more time to edit an episode than we did to shoot it. We had plenty of material but we essentially rewrote the show many, many times from before production, through rehearsals, and then in the editing room. When we completed the first episode I turned to Mark and said, “Oh my God, we actually made a black comedy.” Something which we knew was really hard to do and we made one that had a heart.
Kouguell: How do your characters in Getting On depart from the original British series?
Scheffer: The characters are very similar to the original ones except of course they are completely different. Jenna James is Doctor Moore in principal, but Laurie Metcalfe brings a fierceness and virtuosity to the role that makes the character’s inner life more roiling with insecurity. We began to see that in the world of the show, all the other characters saw Dr. James as imperious and incompetent at the same time, but failed to see what the audience saw -- a woman who is falling apart inside.
Nurse Dawn, as played by the multi-talented Alex Borstein, became more co-dependent, needing to always please Jenna, and also blatantly psychologically immature. Her core is the same as Joanna’s wonderful Den, a woman without an inherent self-esteem but I think our Dawn became more outrageously confused.
All our characters are less constrained and polite than the British cast. I would say that you see “America versus our British cousins” in the way all the characters become more visceral. Didi differs the most. In the British show she’s played by the amazing comedienne Jo Brand, as a retiree coming back into the workforce. Niecey, in what I think is a transformative role for her, is younger and of color. I think she retains what Kim (Jo Brand) is to the show, its tender heart, but somehow Niecey manages to bring her comedy skills yet delivers such a subtle earthiness to her performance; she is the beating heart at the center of the show.
It’s a hard question when I answer it, because in a way I see that the characters essentially are the same but completely different at the same time. It’s in the writing but it’s what these actors brought to all their roles. There was only one right actor for each of these roles and they all give award-worthy performances in my book. They just made the characters their own, which is what you want from an actor and we began to write to who we saw they were becoming in the parts. I think the old saying about casting being 99 percent of a successful production was what we knew we had to achieve for this show. It was really hard to cast, but we held out for the perfect actor for each role and they delivered.
Kouguell: What drew you to this material and why did you feel that it could be ‘translated’ for an American audience?
Scheffer: The British show is about the “National Health” and three women who are “getting on” in years, and also together. Our show translated that into eldercare, a women’s ward. It’s a subtle but profound translation. If you compare the shows they look like -- well sisters.
We just knew that we had to do this show. We wanted to create a place where our friends and family, our audience who we knew was aging and dealing with dementia and death in their loved ones, could come and laugh. Even if they were afraid to watch us, we knew once they did, they would want to be in our world with these characters. It’s scary but it’s life. And it can be funny and sad at the same time. It hits close to home and that’s a good thing.
Kouguell: This is the second HBO series you and Mark have collaborated on as executive producers and writers. Describe your work process and collaboration.
Scheffer: We are a married team so when we do a show we are with each other 24/7 365 days a year. Mark and I talk everything through but don't actually write together. We take turns on drafts, passing them back and forth for multiple revisions. Sometimes I'll write the first draft and he'll revise and sometimes he'll write the first draft. On set it's looser and we'll have to revise together but we prefer to actually write in our own space. The "fantasy" image of having desks facing each other and tossing lines back and forth doesn't work for us.
We definitely complement each other and make a good team. And we’ve survived thus far. The marriage seems to get stronger in the roil of collaboration. It does test our mettle, though.
In production we do everything -- from writing, to casting, to directing, to editing, to selling the show -- we’re there and uber-controlling. But we’re also extremely collaborative. We want to create a “safe set” and work environment where everyone wants to be. When people enjoy coming to work they do their best work. We make sure that condition is met. We treat everyone the same, including ourselves. Even though we get to be the auteurs, as it were, we treat our PAs the same way we treat our Dp, and we submit ourselves to the same conditions we expect from our team. We give ourselves over completely to a show. I credit Mark with expecting a standard of excellence. We depend on each other for different aspects of the work, but Mark’s ability to focus and dig is one of the things that make our collaborations successful. He’s my “closer.”
Kouguell: You describe the show as a ‘docu-comedy’ – please detail.
Scheffer: The British version was so raw and the camera just followed the actors and it was all done 360 degrees, with natural light and there was no worry about continuity and we loved that feel. So in principal, we tried to recreate that. We shot the same way in a real location. We used only two cameras and our Dp’s operated one and moved constantly around a 360 space with natural lighting. We felt that the show’s essence was in that “seed.” It felt like a documentary. We wanted the audience to feel like they were observers of life.
It turned out that we had to do a lot of “reverse engineering” to make our show. It became a different beast. Our show still is very gritty and it jump cuts -- but we learned we had to write in the jumps. We had to structure them. That was really hard to figure out because the British show was more “assembled.” We had to write in those moments when the scene was jumping and we began to have a principal that the jumps furthered the dramatic action of the scene. We did this in the editing room, too.
Our show had to become its own animal, and the “docu-comedy” style that we identified in the original became a different kind of “docu-comedy.” I think the two versions complement each other. In a way, we did with the British show what we do together as writers. We collaborated with it. We make a good team.
“Docu-comedy” is not The Office; it’s not an imposed, hand-held camera style. It’s an ethic. It’s more about trying to capture the truth of what it feels like to be in the midst of the insanity of crisis. What it feels like to be in that world that lives between life and death all the time. It’s about surrendering to it and reveling in the surreal quality of it all. Finding death as being a vital part of life. Not shying away from it. Living into it.
To learn more about Getting On go to: http://www.hbo.com/getting-on
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting and film at Tufts University and presents international seminars. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com .
- 1/2/2014
- by Susan Kouguell
- Sydney's Buzz
Women in Film will honor creative teams in the entertainment industry at its annual awards evening, dubbed "Women in Film presents: Fusion, the 2005 Crystal + Lucy Awards: An Evening Celebrating Partnership." Iris Grossman, Los Angeles president, Women in Film, announced the honors Friday. They will be presented June 10 at the Beverly Hilton. The honorees include Sandra Bullock and Gesine Prado; Jamie Foxx, Jaime Rucker King and Nina Shaw; and Debra Messing and Megan Mullally. Tami Reiker will receive the Kodak Vision Award for her cinematography on HBO's "Carnivale". Bruce Willis and Arnold Rifkin, partners in Cheyenne Enterprises ("Hostage", "The Whole Ten Yards", "Tears of the Sun") will serve as honorary chairs of the event, which Deborah Miller will chair.
Women in Film will honor creative teams in the entertainment industry at its annual awards evening, dubbed "Women in Film presents: Fusion, the 2005 Crystal + Lucy Awards: An Evening Celebrating Partnership." Iris Grossman, Los Angeles president, Women in Film, announced the honors Friday. They will be presented June 10 at the Beverly Hilton. The honorees include Sandra Bullock and Gesine Prado; Jamie Fox, Jaime Rucker King and Nina Shaw; and Debra Messing and Megan Mullally. Tami Reiker will receive the Kodak Vision Award for her cinematography on HBO's Carnivale. Bruce Willis and Arnold Rifkin, partners in Cheyenne Enterprises (Hostage, The Whole Ten Yards, Tears of the Sun) will serve as honorary chairs of the event, which Deborah Miller will chair.
- 4/29/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Writer-director John Huddles is clearly working out psychological issues in his debut feature, "Far Harbor", which opened exclusively Friday at New York's Quad Cinema.
In this tale of a bunch of Generation X-ers hanging during a weekend marked by emotional confrontations, the central character is a filmmaker filled with bitter resentment at the mega-director whose 120-foot yacht berthed in the town's harbor is a visual symbol of unattainable success. This unseen figure is referred to as "Mr. Spreckman", a name that was used after Steven Spielberg expressed his displeasure over the film's original title, "Mr. Spielberg's Boat".
The boat reminds the bitter young English filmmaker Frick (Edward Atterton) of his own recent failures in the movie business. He finds his friends little comfort. They include: Ellie (Jennifer Connelly), a young woman of fragile emotional stability; her husband Ry (Jim True), and her tough-talking, protective sister, Arabella (Marcia Gay Harden); Bradley (Dan Futterman), a successful New York surgeon, and his younger girlfriend Kiki Tracee Ellis Ross, Diana's daughter); Jordan (George Newbern), an heir to a dairy farm fortune; and his free-spirited friend Trey (Andrew Lauren, Ralph's son).
Feel-good emotions are little evident in this modern-day "Big Chill"; these friends are more likely to attack than comfort each other. Frick, the central character, is a particularly unpleasant creation, a thoroughly repugnant sort who uses hostility as a way to counter his own insecurities. The film is an endless cycle of nasty comments, veiled insults and bitter recriminations, with a minimum of comic relief.
The chief virtue of this laborious effort is the outstanding ensemble cast of future stars. Some -- such as Connelly, Futterman ("The Birdcage") and Harden -- already have extensive film credits but haven't yet hit the right break. Others are newcomers; Ross is just as beautiful as her mother and has an impressive naturalness in front of the camera. And Atterton, a British stage actor, manages the difficult feat of making the obnoxious Frick a compelling character.
FAR HARBOR
Castle Hill Prods.
Director-screenplay John Huddles
Producer Gigi De Pourtales Davis
Executive producers John Huddles,
Gary Huddles, John Wolstenholme
Co-producer Laura Barnett
Director of photography Tami Reiker
Editors Wilton Henderson, Margaret Guinee,
Janice Keuhnelian
Cast:
Frick Edward Atterton
Ellie Jennifer Connelly
Brad Dan Futterman
Arabella Marcia Gay Harden
Trey Andrew Lauren
Jordan George Newbern
Kiki Tracee Ellis Ross
Ryland Jim True
Running time -- 101 minutes
No MPAA rating...
In this tale of a bunch of Generation X-ers hanging during a weekend marked by emotional confrontations, the central character is a filmmaker filled with bitter resentment at the mega-director whose 120-foot yacht berthed in the town's harbor is a visual symbol of unattainable success. This unseen figure is referred to as "Mr. Spreckman", a name that was used after Steven Spielberg expressed his displeasure over the film's original title, "Mr. Spielberg's Boat".
The boat reminds the bitter young English filmmaker Frick (Edward Atterton) of his own recent failures in the movie business. He finds his friends little comfort. They include: Ellie (Jennifer Connelly), a young woman of fragile emotional stability; her husband Ry (Jim True), and her tough-talking, protective sister, Arabella (Marcia Gay Harden); Bradley (Dan Futterman), a successful New York surgeon, and his younger girlfriend Kiki Tracee Ellis Ross, Diana's daughter); Jordan (George Newbern), an heir to a dairy farm fortune; and his free-spirited friend Trey (Andrew Lauren, Ralph's son).
Feel-good emotions are little evident in this modern-day "Big Chill"; these friends are more likely to attack than comfort each other. Frick, the central character, is a particularly unpleasant creation, a thoroughly repugnant sort who uses hostility as a way to counter his own insecurities. The film is an endless cycle of nasty comments, veiled insults and bitter recriminations, with a minimum of comic relief.
The chief virtue of this laborious effort is the outstanding ensemble cast of future stars. Some -- such as Connelly, Futterman ("The Birdcage") and Harden -- already have extensive film credits but haven't yet hit the right break. Others are newcomers; Ross is just as beautiful as her mother and has an impressive naturalness in front of the camera. And Atterton, a British stage actor, manages the difficult feat of making the obnoxious Frick a compelling character.
FAR HARBOR
Castle Hill Prods.
Director-screenplay John Huddles
Producer Gigi De Pourtales Davis
Executive producers John Huddles,
Gary Huddles, John Wolstenholme
Co-producer Laura Barnett
Director of photography Tami Reiker
Editors Wilton Henderson, Margaret Guinee,
Janice Keuhnelian
Cast:
Frick Edward Atterton
Ellie Jennifer Connelly
Brad Dan Futterman
Arabella Marcia Gay Harden
Trey Andrew Lauren
Jordan George Newbern
Kiki Tracee Ellis Ross
Ryland Jim True
Running time -- 101 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 11/25/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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