How the ‘Yellowjackets’ Production Designer Built Lottie’s Wellness Center With [SPOILER] in Mind

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “Prehistoric Planet” is back on Apple TV+ with over two dozen new extinct species to explore. Given the amount of dinosaurs and birds, the biggest challenge for supervising sound editor Jonny Crew was “capturing those prehistoric sounds.” Without a library of extinct sounds to pull from, Crew, who also worked on the first season, says the trickiest task was distinguishing the sounds of different birds. That’s where chickens helped crack an important moment in the show’s first episode, titled “Islands,” in which audiences are exposed to the behavior of the Hatzegopteryx, a stork-like reptile. A key scene focused on two dinosaurs mating.

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.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This contains spoilers from “Yellowjackets” Season 2, now streaming on Showtime. Is adult Lottie Matthews OK? That’s the question asked by viewers at the start of Showtime’s “Yellowjackets” Season 2. Charlotte, as she calls herself, played by Simone Kessell (“Obi-Wan Kenobi,” “The Night Agent”), runs a “wellness center” or mental health retreat. She seems to be on a path to recovery after teen Lottie and her fellow Yellowjackets survived for 19 months in the wilderness. But, a closer look at Kessell’s character, who clads herself in lush silk caftans, visually reflects her descent into madness through the transition from marigolds and yellow to blue and darker shades.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from “It Chooses,” Episode 8 of “Yellowjackets” Season 2, now streaming on Showtime. In the last moments of the Season 1 finale of “Yellowjackets,” viewers were tipped to the fact that Lottie was alive and well, and out there somewhere in the world. In the show’s second season, the adult version of Lottie, played by Simone Kessell, is revealed to be running a wellness center in Upstate New York — and there’s been an air of doubt around her. Can she be trusted or not? As it turns out, not. Lottie’s sessions with her therapist have been purely a figment of her imagination, and she’s still haunted by the Antler Queen, as well as her past in the wilderness.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Ari Aster‘s three-hour surrealist drama “Beau Is Afraid” marked a tonal shift from his nightmare-inducing films “Midsommar” and “Hereditary.” In the feature, which tackles inherited trauma and mommy issues, Joaquin Phoenix plays Beau, who finds himself on an Odyssean journey to return home after his mother’s untimely death. To score the film, Aster recruited “Midsommar” composer Bobby Krlic, but, unlike their last collaboration, creating the music of “Beau Is Afraid” was a “long and arduous process” as they worked to crack the sound of Beau’s journey. Here, the two discuss their collaboration and how one cue, “Suburban Dream,” helped unlock the film’s sonic landscape.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor If anyone knows the musical world of the “Fast and Furious” franchise, it’s composer Brian Tyler. Over the years, he’s created themes and cues for Dom (Vin Diesel), Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Cipher (Charlize Theron), and with “Fast X” he gets to dabble with Jason Momoa’s brilliant baddie, Dante. “Instead of creating a dark energy theme, I went for alluring,” Tyler says. In the film, Dante seeks to avenge his father’s death, Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) from 2011’s “Fast Five.” Dante lures the Fast Family to Rome, which leads to an action-packed chase through the cobbled streets of the Eternal City as Dom, Letty and their crew attempt to stop Dante from blowing up the Vatican. “Dante is charming and he makes you laugh. So, I used high strings such as the harp, and then we get into bass music with modern instruments,” says Tyler. “It gives you this feeling that you can’t look away. There’s a sense [in his music] of empathizing with him, and why he becomes this villain.”

William Earl Variety will present its inaugural “A Night With Artisans” event on Thursday, June 1 with senior artisans editor Jazz Tangcay serving as the night’s emcee and moderator. The evening, which follows the format of Variety’s tentpole “A Night in the Writers’ Room,” will feature three panels with leading Emmy-contending artisans from across various disciplines. The night will spotlight these behind-the-scenes artists from shows such as “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,” “The Last of Us”, “Daisy Jones & the Six”, “What We Do in the Shadows”, “Mrs. Davis” and many more, discussing how their craft has shaped the most exciting shows of television this Emmys season.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor It took a village of 10 visual effects houses, including Weta FX and Framestore, and 3066 visual effects shots to help bring James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” to life over 15 months of post-production. From studying baby raccoons for the backstory of Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) to golden retrievers for talking dog Cosmo, the VFX supervisors spent months putting together the sequences — some with explosions and complex action, including the film’s already iconic two-minute one-shot scene timed perfectly to the beats of the Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.” The teams break down the process behind some of their VFX magic and how they navigated some of the most challenging scenes.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There has never been a compilation album in the history of rock as influential as “Nuggets,” a 1972 double-LP that revived a period and style that was seen as having ended about five years before. It was nostalgia of a sort for the very recent past — as opposed to the very distant past that’s now being celebrated with fondness as “Nuggets” itself surpasses the half-century, arguably no less central to a certain rock ‘n’ roll ethos than ever. Lenny Kaye, now best known as the guitarist for Patti Smith’s band, but then highly regarded as a rock critic, compiled the original “Nuggets” for Elektra and may have saved an early wave of garage-rock for the ages … although some would give the collection even more credit, for helping invent, or at least bring into focus, the burgeoning punk-rock movement in the 1970s.

The grand final of the Eurovision song contest hit our screens last night, broadcasting live from Liverpool to millions all over the world.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Four-time Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood will reunite with Tim Burton for “Beetlejuice 2.” Atwood confirmed the news to Variety in an interview on Friday. Atwood is currently in London at work on the film, which is set to arrive in movie theaters next year. The costume designer said she had just finished her first week of production. As previously announced, Michael Keaton will be back as Beetlejuice, and Winona Ryder is reprising her role as Lydia Deetz. Additional cast members include “Wednesday” star Jenna Ortega as the daughter of Ryder’s character, as well as Justin Theroux in a yet-to-be-revealed role.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” now playing in theaters. Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” was a huge undertaking for makeup head Alexei Dmitriew and hair department head Cassie Russek, who used over 22,500 prosthetics, 500 wigs and 130 facial hairpieces to create the movie’s galactic creatures. That number broke the world record for most prosthetics used in a film, previously held by “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” From Will Poulter’s Adam Warlock to villain The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) to the new hybrid humanimals, the duo were tasked with creating original looks as the Guardians set out on their newest mission.

By On a particularly wet, frigid afternoon in New York, I was home in my apartment with just two things on the menu: my Chipotle bowl and Sex and the City. I’ve seen every episode of about 67 times, so picking an episode to watch these days is a bit laboring. Do I watch Carrie wear that red cowboy hat in the Hamptons for the umpteenth time? Or recite Lexi Featherston’s, “New York is over!” speech yet again? Faced with such boundless options, I left my episode choice up to fate.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor She’s back! “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 6 winner Bianca Del Rio will return to host the “All Stars” Season 8 weekly recap series “The Pit Stop.” Each week, Del Rio and her guest will recap and review the most recent episode of “All Stars” Season 8, which begins streaming on May 12 exclusively on Paramount+. New episodes of “The Pit Stop” will premiere Saturdays on the “RuPaul’s Drag Race” YouTube channel. “Like a bad rash… I’m baaaack! The greatest thing about a new season of ‘All Stars’ is I don’t have to compete but get to judge all of them by hosting ‘The Pit Stop,'” Del Rio said in a statement to Variety.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan was honored with the Gold House Leading Man award at the second annual Gold House Gold Gala on Saturday in Los Angeles. “When I think of a leading man, I think of someone who is six feet tall with big muscles, good-looking, and a ladies’ man,” the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star said before cracking, “That practically screams me, right?” While the gala honored the most impactful Asians on the company’s A100 list, which recognizes the 100 AAPI individuals who impacted American culture and society in the last year, the night remained focused on celebrating Asian visibility and achievements. There was little talk of the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike currently impacting the industry.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “Qui,” the sixth episode of “Yellowjackets” Season 2, now streaming on Showtime. One of the most compelling mysteries in Showtime’s “Yellowjackets” is finally solved in this week’s episode — what happened to teen Shauna’s (Sophie Nélisse) baby? The episode sees Shauna in labor, with her fellow Yellowjackets surrounding and supporting her as she experiences contractions before finally giving birth. She passes out, before coming to and holding her baby. Things aren’t going smoothly, though, since a starving Shauna isn’t able to produce enough milk. Later, she wakes from her sleep, with her baby not in his bed. She freaks out, and looks for the Yellowjackets — and stumbles into a nightmare of them eating the baby.

Prince William and Princess Catherine (aka Kate Middleton) provided an update on their family ahead of King Charles‘ coronation.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor HBO’s “Succession” series finale will be 90 minutes long, according to one of the key members of its creative team. Variety confirmed. “It’s 90 minutes,” Emmy winning composer Nicholas Britell said. “It’s a huge episode — like a movie.” The episode will be directed by “Succession” executive producer Mark Mylod, and will air on the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, May 28. While little else is known about what to expect, Variety previously reported in a cover story with HBO chief Casey Bloys that the network is not developing any spinoffs.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Aaron Tveit has been a fixture on New York stages, appearing in shows including “Wicked,” “Next to Normal” and “Catch Me if You Can,” and he recently wrapped a second run as Christian in “Moulin Rouge!,” which bowed before the pandemic arrived and returned after Broadway reopened. But it’s television that has been helping him most rapidly expand his repertoire. Tveit takes on a cavalcade of roles in Apple TV+’s “Schmigadoon!,” a parodical love letter to musicals, created by Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio and starring Keegan Michael-Key and Cecily Strong as a couple working out the kinks in their relationship in a magical land populated by characters from the stage. The series, which focused on musicals of the ’40s and ’50s in its first season, sends up shows ofthe ’60s and ’70s in its second, set in the magical land of “Schmicago.”