Old-Fashioned Filmmaking

By Michael Goldman

As he releases his dark character study about the rise and fall of a turn-of-the-century oil baron, Director Paul Thomas Anderson proudly touts his strict adherence to traditional filmmaking techniques while making Paramount Vantage's There Will Be Blood ...

From Spare to Spectacular

By Blair Jackson

This is a slightly unusual year in the two Academy Award categories devoted to sound (Achievement in Sound Editing and Achievement in Sound Mixing). Of...

Fade to Black: Julian Schnabel, Director

By Darroch Greer

Jean-dominique Bauby, the Editor of French Elle, had a Massive Stroke in 1995 that left him completely and permanently paralyzed...

True Colors

By Michael Goldman

The principal architects for three prominent summer CG animated movies— Ratatouille, Shrek the Third, and Surf's Up—talk with millimeter about the process of designing, building, and executing complicated color palettes for such movies...

Fade To Black

By Darroch Greer

Charles Ferguson is the director of the Oscar-nominated No End in Sight — the trenchant, definitive documentary on the run up to the war in Iraq and the mishandling of its aftermath by the Bush Administration...

Wartime Ambience

By Dan Daley

There's a lot more to the audio for Charlie Wilson's War than meets the ear. The Mike Nichols-directed film about America's first experience with Afghanistan was penned by Aaron Sorkin, whose rapid-fire dialogue style, honed on his television hit The West Wing, is reprised — and then some — in the film...

Foreign Realism

By Darroch Greer

Communists are making good villains again. Former communist countries and satellites provide both settings and breeding grounds for some of the most potent...

Exclusive: The Muren Factor

By Michael Goldman

When legendary visual effects pioneer and eight-time Academy Award winner Dennis Muren received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Visual Effects Society...

Exclusive:
Scorsese: Gangster Style

By Michael Goldman

Like many intense relationships, Martin Scorsese's love affair with what he fondly calls gangster pictures never quite ends. Occasionally, he moves into...

Story Supportive

By Jon Silberg

The four cinematographers nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Oscars this year Robert Elswit for There Will Be Blood; Seamus...

Integrated Team Effort

By Ellen Wolff

“Collegial” isn't usually the first word that springs to mind when describing the competition for Academy Awards, but in this year's visual-effects category, that...

Water, Water Everywhere

By Ellen Wolff

If the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Scientific and Technical Awards had a mantra this year, it would be, Water, water everywhere and not...

VES Awards 2008

The Visual Effects Society (VES) held its annual gala on Feb. 10 at the Kodak Ballroom. Millimeter offers photos and interviews from the 2008 VES Awards...

Fade to Black: Stefan Ruzowitzky, Director

By Darroch Greer

Although Austria has Given Us Many Great Filmmakers Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Otto Preminger Stefan Ruzowitzky is the first to pick up an Academy...

Wild Ride

By Michael Goldman

When Sean Penn's long-held desire to make a movie of Jon Krakauer's novel about iconoclastic adventurer Chris McCandless finally came true, the question...

Step by Step: The Golden Compass

By Ellen Wolff

A photoreal polar bear wearing elaborate armor is a signature image in director Chris Weitz's fantasy film for New Line Cinema, The Golden Compass (recently...

Lumet Goes Genesis

By Michael Goldman

Because 83-year-old Sidney Lumet is among cinema's most veteran high-definition players, having first jumped into the fray in 2001 for several episodes...

Enabling Mike Nichols

By Michael Goldman

Visual effects guru Richard Edlund says his second collaboration with director Mike Nichols on Universal Pictures' Charlie Wilson's War had a “much different gestalt” than their first gig together, on HBO's Angels in America in 2003...

Step by Step: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

By Ellen Wolff

Diseny's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has been rightfully praised for dazzling character animation, but its CG cast isn't the only advanced animation...