How ‘Prehistoric Planet’ Used Chickens to Fabricate the Sound of Dinosaurs Mating

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor It took a village to build the costumes for Shonda Rhimes’ latest “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.” Costume designer Lyn Elizabeth Paolo and co-costume designer Laura Frecon paired up to tell young Queen Charlotte’s (India Amarteifio) story and her rise to power in Britain, after her marriage to King George III. But even though Rhimes told Paolo it was going to be a “small spin-off,” the costume designer who had worked with her on “Scandal” and “How to Get Away With Murder” knew that Rhimes would want “everything to be glorious.” There were going to be grand scenes, such as a funeral and a coronation. Frecon says, “We were told there were no balls,” referring to the grandiose costume fetes that marked almost every episode of “Bridgerton.”

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Jadakiss, Busta Rhymes and Lord Afrixana are just a few of the artists whose music is featured in thethird season of MGM+’s 1960s-set “Godfather of Harlem.” “I don’t pick artists based on their names, I pick artists based on what we’re trying to do,” says Swizz Beatz, who serves as the show’s music producer and creative director. In putting the show’s sonic landscape together, Beatz says he tried to be thoughtful when using a placement. “Music is so powerful and with this, I wanted to use it to give the characters an authentic landscape,” he says. He also didn’t want to put himself in a box by selecting music from the 1960s, rather, he was given creative liberties to use new artists which helped him find the right approach and voices.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Production designer Patrick O’Keefe drew inspiration from brutalist architecture, graphic artist Syd Mead and British punk band The Sex Pistols when animating the world of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” As Miles Morales crosses path with different Spider-People from other dimensions, it was up to O’Keefe and his team of animators to create visual worlds that reflect those counterparts. With Variety, he breaks down the looks of each world and shares his favorite easter eggs that pay homage to the Canadian animators who worked on the film. “Whenever it comes to developing anything for the film, I’m always asking myself, whose point of view are we seeing this from? And what does it need to do?

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Composer Daniel Pemberton pushed a few boundaries and “made something really creative and different” when he scored 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” When he returned to score the sequel, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” he knew he would have to “push it as far as we can go.” Pemberton says he had to build the score from the ground up, which was complicated. “You’re trying not to make a score that sounds like other film scores. You’re trying to invent your own language.” Inventing that language took experimentation, research and failure. He explains, “I spent two years researching and developing this score, going through ideas, coming up with concepts and throwing them out.”

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Rusicals have been a “RuPaul’s Drag Race” institution since Season 6 and something audiences look forward to each season. Executive producer Tom Campbell credits fellow producers John Polley and Michael Seligman for coming up with this year’s “Wigloose: The Rusical.” Says Campbell, “They said ‘Wigloose,’ like ‘Footloose,’ and it writes itself.” The maxi challenge puts the queens’ performing skills to the test, through song, dance and acting, as they tell a musical story. Previous challenges have included “Moulin Ru: The Rusical,” Madonna, Cher and even Donald Trump’s presidency. The idea is that audiences already know the story of the Rusical and condense that into a production that’s less than 12 minutes long.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Ruth Carter doesn’t need the prefix “costume designer” in front of her name; she is a household name. Carter made Oscar history when she became the first Black woman ever to win two Oscars,thanks to her work on the “Black Panther” films. With credits that include “Selma,” “Malcolm X,” “Coming 2 America” and being Spike Lee’s go-to, Carter has stories to tell.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Nominated for two Tony Awards in best choreography, Jennifer Weber describes “& Juliet” as a show filled with “music that makes you want to dance. It’s got music that everyone has danced to at some point in their lives.” The show uses memorable pop tunes from Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry and more as it flips the Shakespearean tale of “Romeo and Juliet” by reimagining a world where Juliet doesn’t die. In putting together Act II’s “Problem/Can’t Feel My Face” epic song battle, Weber collaborated closely with costume designer Paloma Young. “We had similar visions in terms of storytelling,” she says. “Her costumes fuse this Elizabethan aesthetic with contemporary pop. A corset and Adidas track pants have never looked better together. Each [look] is super individual.”

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor When costume designer Marina Toybina was tasked with building the Beast costume for ABC’s live action “Beauty and the Beast” broadcast, she looked beyond what Disney and the Broadway show had previously done. Instead, she found inspiration in puppetry. Josh Groban, who played the enchanted prince-turned-Beast, would not be relying on prosthetics and makeup for his transformation. Toybina instead built a hollowed-out puppet that stood at around 10 feet tall. Within that, she ensured there was enough mobility for Groban, and with the aid of rods, he would be able to move the arms and feet, all built via a backpack structure. Says Toybina of the contraption, “I wanted to lean into the narrative that there’s this prince trapped inside of a beast.”

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Production designers had their hands full the past year, recreating everything from an 18th century palace large enough for indoor badminton games to retro kitchens that looked like they were straight out of the 1970s. To achieve their period-accurate sets, they consulted books, photos and guild archives. For the third season of “The Great,” production designer Francesca Di Mottola a built a “gigantic games room where anything could happen and served many different purposes,” horse breeding among them. The production designer began scouting locations in the U.K., where the black comedy about Catherine the Great is filmed, but none quite fit what she was looking for, so she built the room on a soundstage.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “Prey” director Dan Trachtenberg wanted his “Predator” spinoff, which is set in 1719, to be shot in a naturalistic way, so cinematographer Jeff Cutter made use of available light whenever possible — especially from fire and the moon. In the movie, Comanche warrior Naru (Amber Midthunder) tracks and hunts down a killer alien through the woods. “I would use fire as much as possible and augment it if we had to,” says Cutter.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Transforming actors into well-known figures such as Tammy Wynette and Princess Diana was a challenge for artisans, who experimented with techniques to come up with hair and makeup that would look authentic to viewers. Cate Hall spent hours with Elizabeth Debicki while recreating Princess Diana’s sophisticated coiffure from the early 1990s for Season 5 of “The Crown.” Through a series of incremental adjustments to the wig — and plenty of patience from Debicki – Hall got the look she desired. “You hold one another’s hand as you keep slicing the wig with a razor and inching towards a shape that feels recognizable,” she recalls of her collaboration with Debicki.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Max will be celebrating Pride Month in June through a series of events, programming and partnerships highlighting LGBTQ+ voices. Among the initiatives will be partnerships with Them and Newfest to help amplify queer voices, stories and content. The streamer has planned an in-app Pride takeover of the LGBTQ+ Voices page which will highlight queer content premiering in June. Among the programs will be the premiere of the HBO documentary “The Stroll,” which tells the powerful and poignant history of transgender sex workers in New York’s pre-gentrified meatpacking district in the 1990s. The Max original documentary reality series “Naked. Loud. Proud.” will stream. HBO documentaries “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” and TaylorMac’s “24-Decade History of Popular Music” are set to air.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Nicholas Britell knew very early on that Brian Cox’s Logan Roy was going to be killed off in the final season of HBO’s “Succession.” It was up to him to figure out what the passing of a titan of industry would sound like musically. Britell, who won an Emmy for the show’s theme music in 2019, has been tasked with finding new ways to push the sound of obscene wealth each season. “I thought about Logan’s death and what that might feel like,” he says. “This is the death of a very complicated person. It’s going to leave a huge hole in everyone’s life, for better or worse. I was thinking about how that would impact the family.”

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Twists and turns, double-dealing and death are just some of the themes at the heart of HBO’s fourth and final season of “Succession.” With that, composer Nicholas Britell has released a 25-piece original soundtrack that accompanied the season, which will drop at midnight after Sunday’s series finale. Among the cues are: “Phone Call,” the music piece that plays in the shocking third episode “Connor’s Wedding” as the Roy children, Kendall (Jeremy Strong,) Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) learn that family patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) has died aboard the Waystar Royco plane, where Logan was flying with his executive team to Sweden.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor With the “Star Wars” universe serving as the DNA for Disney+’s “Andor,” costume designer Michael Wilkinson could honor a legacy while leaning into a new world. For Diego Luna’s Cassian, Wilkinson draped him in warm, earthy tones with fabrics that were textural. When audiences first meet him, he’s in “beautiful oilcloth from old leather jackets with iconic details such as a high neckline and a hood.” By the end, the silhouettes become leaner and streamlined.  “He has a beautiful tailored long-length linen coat that we made for him that moves beautifully for all the action sequences. It’s a grown-up silhouette.”

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor To bring Disney’s iconic mermaid princess Ariel to life in “The Little Mermaid,” costume designer Colleen Atwood constructed a life-sized tail that went from star Halle Bailey’s chest all the way down past her legs. “We made it to scale and 3D silk-screened the tail and painted onto that so you could get the nuance of the colors,” Atwood says. “We used different layers of sheer material, which gave the tail and scales an iridescent effect.” Her biggest challenge was blending the tail’s scales into Bailey’s skin. “I solved that by putting little fins made of fabric so there was a delineation between where the fish ended and the skin began,” she says.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Broadway designer Dane Laffrey and director Michael Arden often dive into conversations about projects long before a show is greenlit. Says Laffrey, who is nominated for best scenic design for “A Christmas Carol,” “We are extensively consistent collaborators.” Having worked on shows including “Once on This Island” and the Broadway revival of “Parade” — about the lynching of Jewish American Leo Frank in 1915 — the two often discuss visual research and organizing space through “snatches of conversations.” For “Parade,” which earned Arden a Tony nod for best direction of a musical, the duo was looking at visual reference points and political rallies from the period. Says Laffrey, “We looked at grandstands or viewing stands, and things that were constructed hastily. There were also contemporary reference points from Jan. 6, touch points that mean something to us because then they will mean something to an audience.”

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor If anyone knows how to get the right shade of red for Black hair, it’s Camille Friend. The Oscar-nominated hair department head, whose credits include “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” experimented with adding color into Lupita Nyong’o’s hair, and now she’s doing it again. This time, it was for Halle Bailey in Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid.” But doing so didn’t come cheap. Her challenge was taking Disney’s most famous redhead, Princess Ariel, and creating a look for Bailey that would work. On top of that, maintaining Bailey’s natural hair was an important requirement she needed to meet. Bailey, who sports long locs, wanted to stay true to her Black heritage. And maintaining them without a wig would herald an important moment for representation and Bailey’s identity, as the movie presents Disney’s first Black Ariel (and first Black princess in a live-action movie.)

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Hulu’s football docuseries “Algiers, America” reaches both an emotional and musical peak in its fifth and final episode. As the students of Edna Karr High School near graduation, one of their classmates, Keyron Ross, is killed by gun violence. The series profiles the New Orleans high school’s football team while also looking at the reality of gun violence, which has caused the players to lose both family members and teammates. For the show’s score, composer Chad Cannon threaded in a whirlwind of sound and emotion, with Labrinth’s “Euphoria” soundtrack serving as inspiration in the way that it fuses gospel, orchestral and electronic music. The importance of music in the series was particularly highlighted during Ross’ funeral.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for “Fast X” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”, which are now playing in theaters. Louis Leterrier’s “Fast X” drives into movie theaters this weekend, delivering plenty of action and a few surprise cameos. As previously revealed, the film’s credit scenes mark the return of Dwayne Johnson’s Hobbs and Gal Gadot’s Gisele. The third cameo is none other than Pete Davidson, who plays Bowie. Davidson’s cameo comes after the “Fast” fam — Dom (Vin Diesel), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Han (Sung Kang), Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) — head to Rome on a mission led by Roman (Tyrese Gibson). Turns out, they’ve been lured into a trap set by Jason Momoa’s badass Dante, who wants revenge on the crew and threatens to get it by blowing up the Vatican.