Below the Line Impact Report 2015

Impact: Arkapaw broke through on season one of HBO’s “True Detective,” where his camerawork captured the sense of dread that hangs over the characters. He then lensed “McFarland, USA” for Niki Caro and “Macbeth” for Justin Kurzel. The latter pic, he says, was a tough assignment: “We shot in Scotland, in winter, in hailstorms, with the wind howling at 90 mph.” Equally adept in film and digital, Arkapaw says, “We’re in a digital world now. It doesn’t feel like a compromise to be on that format.”

Upcoming: He’s prepping Kurzel’s “Assassin’s Creed,” with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, to be shot in Europe using large-format cameras.

Impact: With “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Davis set the current standard for effects blockbuster craftsmanship.
“The more real and documentary-style the shooting, the better the results,” he says. “That makes the guy leaping into the air with a hammer more believable. You’re laying the groundwork for visual effects, and the more that’s done in-camera, the better. You’re trying to shape something very big and unmalleable into a
single visual arc.”

Upcoming: Finishing up Michael Grandage’s “Genius,” about book editor Max Perkins and his famous roster of writers, and prepping Scott Derrickson’s “Doctor Strange,” about a brilliant but arrogant surgeon whose hands are injured.

Impact: The medieval noir of “Game of Thrones” has raised the bar in numerous ways, not least through its elegant visual design and team cinematography. The pros behind the camera include Franco, Haellmigk, Middleton, Wagner (who also made Variety’s Up Next list) and McLachlan. McLachlan’s first contribution came on “The Rains of Castamere,” a.k.a. the Red Wedding episode, and his latest on the most recent season’s finale. “The pressure to get every beat pitch-perfect was enormous,” McLachlan says. “In all my years in both features and TV, I’d never experienced such a complete lack of cynicism, and such dedication to really getting it right. We are inspired by our fellow d.p.s, our truly great camera operators, including Ben Wilson and Sean Savage, and by great scripts, locations, sets, costumes and acting.”

Upcoming: McLachlan, who has also been handling cinematography on “Ray Donovan,” has signed on to shoot Jonathan Nolan’s “Westworld” for HBO.

Impact: To give the colors in the Starz series “Outlander” an organic pre-industrial feel appropriate to its 18th century Scotland setting, Kidd avoided using gels and whiteboards, instead filtering his lights through colored fabrics and bouncing them off of 8’x4’ wooden panels. “They literally came from the hardware store,” Kidd says of the panels. Because fireproofing darkened the wood, “we had to choose lighter shades. Silver birch was the favorite. For season two, we’re going more with fabric. I’ve managed to find a fabric to cover all the major colors in my gel package — the blues, the oranges, the straw.”

Upcoming: Syfy miniseries “Childhood’s End”

Impact: To execute George Miller’s decades-in-the-planning vision in “Mad Max: Fury Road,” Seale was lured out of retirement for his first digital feature. The inventive result brings full-throttle fun back to the action/chase film. “I knew that George would add grunginess in post,” Seale says. “It was a very collaborative project, from my lighting and original ‘negative’ all the way through post and visual effects. With George’s innovative approach to editing and framing, the audience doesn’t need to search the frame to understand the shot.”

Upcoming: Seale says he has retired again — “At least for this year.”

Impact: “American Sniper,” director Clint Eastwood’s highest-grossing film ever, proves that straightforward, classic filmmaking technique and strong acting still work at the box office. “Clint generally abhors the close-up, but being in tighter than usual allowed us to understand the character’s intense concentration,” says Stern, a member of Eastwood’s crew for more than 30 years and who also shot the helmer’s “Jersey Boys.” “The sniper’s point of view through the scope was an extreme telephoto, which gave a coldness and alienation to his view of the environment. There’s an ambiguity that engages the audience.”

Upcoming: Finishing up a World War I film, “Cessez-le-feu,” in France, and starting prep on “Sully,” Eastwood’s portrayal of Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who heroically landed a damaged airliner on the Hudson River in 2009.

Impact: In “Inside Out,” the interior emotions of a child are brought to vivid life in an imagined world that contrasts with the “real” world outside. Pixar’s team went through countless iterations to create a state-of-the-art children’s film that is bold, funny and touching for all audiences — not to mention box office gold — while once again rejuvenating the genre. “The interior world was theatrical, and that gave us some license to make and break rules,” White says. “We can do almost anything, but you want to push the boundaries in a way that the audience feels, but doesn’t notice.” Lin adds, “In the ‘real’ world, it’s about discipline. We’re trying to ground ourselves so that the audience doesn’t get confused.”

Upcoming: Lin and White are helping to put the finishing touches on “The Good Dinosaur.” Next for Lin: “Toy Story 4.”

Impact: Eight years ago, before “Mad Men” made retro cool again, TV series avoided period dramas like the plague. But thanks in part to the spot-on visual acuity of Bishop and Bryant, who worked on the vast majority of the AMC series’ episodes, all that has changed. It was key for Bishop that they keep things authentic and avoid clichés: “We tried to restrain ourselves from textbook mid-century modern,” says the designer, nominated four times for his efforts on the show. “We always had the best kind of psychic, telepathic connection,” adds Bryant, nominated three times for hers. The two designers’ own lives have been touched by their work: Don Draper’s dining room table now graces Bishop’s home; Bryant owns two Pete Campbell suits she designed.

Upcoming: A fashion designer first, Bryant now has a clothing and shoe line coming out, and is creating uniforms for the soon-to-reopen Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., and for Eva Longoria’s “Hot and Bothered.” Bishop designed the pilot for “Minority Report” and is now working on “something so top-secret that even the tax incentive people don’t know about it” for TV.

Impact: DiGerlando shifted gears when he moved from the first to the second season of HBO’s “True Detective,” just as the dark series moved from the mysteries of Louisiana to the harsh realities of Los Angeles. “There’s a magic to the bayous, and season one had elements of the occult,” he says. Season two, shot in decaying industrial neighborhoods, “feels more like the things you drive past every day on your way to work in L.A.”

Upcoming: Just wrapped “Chi-Raq” for Spike Lee, Amazon Studios’ first feature.

Impact: The frequent Coen brothers collaborator (“The Hudsucker Proxy,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) was Oscar-nommed for his work on “Into the Woods” — “my first musical,” he says. “I was interested in translating the theater proscenium into the 3D of movies, and Rob Marshall was the perfect director. It was very choreographed, which also drove the design.”

Upcoming: “Spectre,” his third Bond film, which reteamed him with “Skyfall’s” Sam Mendes.

Impact: Though he started out designing for David Copperfield specials, today Shaffner largely dedicates himself to Chuck Lorre programs (he won a 2015 Art Directors Guild award for “The Big Bang Theory”). The four-time Emmy winner recently ended 12 years with “Two and a Half Men” and says his contribution to the profession has been insisting on keeping his sets looking realistic and uncurated. “Audiences are
so sophisticated,” he says.

Upcoming: “The Carmichael Show,” which premieres Aug. 5 on NBC; a Charlie Brown holiday special for December.

Impact: Having started out as an architect, Thompson has a unique understanding of sets and structures that undoubtedly came into play with “Birdman,” with its roaming camera and inquisitive gaze; he won his first Art Directors Guild prize for that film this year. Whether working in TV (“The Affair”) or features, he prefers contemporary projects so he can show audiences how the modern day can also be transportive. “You don’t have to go back in time to enter a different world,” he says. Thompson also designed Judd Apatow’s “Trainwreck.”

Upcoming: Jodie Foster’s “Money Monster”; an adaptation of “The Girl on the Train”

Impact: “Everything is rocket science” when designing sets for HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” says production designer Richard Toyon, Emmy-nommed for his work on the show. In dealing with the complexities of the tech community, he takes care of minute details, such as having correct coding language on the onscreen whiteboards. “My job is to tell the truth as much as possible so that the comedy can take place,” he says. Toyon even checks the show’s Reddit page to stay up-to-date on tech trends and technical errors found by fans.

Upcoming: “American Crime” and “Code Black”

Impact: Films like “Guardians of the Galaxy” are so packed with visual effects it can be easy to underestimate the production designer’s job. “But the truth is, we actually end up building a huge amount of what you see onscreen,” Wood says. “Everything has a physical space.” With that in mind, Wood’s detail work and close collaboration with the vfx department made the No. 1 box office earner in 2014 a seamless product that he hopes “elevated” expectations for what major blockbusters can accomplish.

Upcoming: Marvel’s “Doctor Strange” goes into production in November. No details, though: “I’d get murdered.”

Impact: Hays has been with the “Furious” franchise since its inception, working on all seven installments. “It’s been an incredible journey,” she says. “I designed the look, followed the characters through 15 years, saw them mature, from the streets of East L.A. to Abu Dhabi.” Her most gratifying design challenge: creating the sexy red evening gown Michelle Rodriguez wore in a fight scene in “Furious 7” and engineering it to make sure it didn’t fall off during the action.

Upcoming: “Star Trek Beyond,” with Justin Lin. “Everything gets sketched — humans, aliens, the whole universe.”

Impact: Cox and Roach both have a long history with Clint Eastwood. Cox, Oscar winner for “Unforgiven,” began as an assistant editor on the helmer’s “The Outlaw Josey Wales” in 1976. Roach has worked with the director since 1996. They recently cut what Cox calls “two very different films” — “American Sniper” and “Jersey Boys” — back to back. “It was a lot of fun dealing with all the music in the latter, which helps drive the edit, and then dealing with a completely different style of editing for ‘Sniper,’ ” Roach says. The team says the big challenge on the latter was finding the right balance between the domestic scenes and the war arena, creating a different tempo for each.

Upcoming: Cox is taking a break, Roach is cutting “The Patriot,” a TV pilot for Amazon and writer-director Steve Conrad.

Impact: “Whiplash” director Damien Chazelle told Cross he wanted the editing to make the musical drumming scenes feel “brutal and ferocious.” Cross acted as visual conductor, wrangling “Whiplash” into an “action-thriller first and a music movie second.” Cross isn’t new to movies with strong musical ties, having worked on “Crazy Heart,” starring Jeff Bridges as a declining country music star, and “Any Day Now,” in which Alan Cumming plays a gay nightclub singer.

Upcoming: David O. Russell’s “Joy,” starring Jennifer Lawrence, and “La La Land,” a film about a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling), also directed by Chazelle.

Impact: Goncalves’ projects include his work on HBO’s “True Detective,” which earned him an Emmy nom. “Everyone was at the top of their game,” he says, adding that those working on the anthology series approached it like an eight-hour feature film as opposed to eight separate episodes. Goncalves also cut the Cate Blanchett-Rooney Mara lesbian drama “Carol,” which picked up buzz in Cannes. Working on the Todd Haynes film was a “gift,” says Goncalves.

Upcoming: Goncalves is working on the last unfinished film by Orson Welles, “The Other Side of the Wind.”

Impact: Guy Ritchie’s go-to editor cut the global hits “Sherlock Holmes” and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” as well as “RocknRolla,” “Revolver” and the ABC pilot “Suspect.” His collaborations with other directors include working with Doug Liman on the Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller “Edge of Tomorrow” (“It was aggressive cutting at a break-neck speed,” he says) and Paul Verhoeven on the World War II drama “Black Book.”

Upcoming: Ritchie’s “The Man from UNCLE” remake and action drama “Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur”

Impact: After starting out as a visual-effects editor, Highsmith got his big break on the “Fast and Furious” mega-franchise’s “Fast Five,” working with editor Christian Wagner and
director Justin Lin. “I’m incredibly grateful they were willing to take a chance on me and give me some once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.” Highsmith also cut “Fast & Furious 6” for Lin and “Furious 7” for James Wan.

Upcoming: Reteamed with Lin on “Star Trek Beyond.” “Having the opportunity to work on a ‘Star Trek’ film, whose characters I grew up watching, is beyond a dream come true.”

Impact: Macdonald earned 2014 Emmy nominations in two single-camera picture editing categories (“Fargo” for miniseries; “Breaking Bad” for drama and he won for the latter). “(The nominations) showed I’m capable of not just pacing and dialogue scenes, but able to cut action stuff and make it flow together well,” he says. Macdonald has since skipped over to “Bad” spinoff “Better Call Saul” while staying with “Fargo” in its new season — a move that places him on shows he calls “at the top of the television pile.”

Upcoming: Seasons two of “Fargo” and “Saul”

Impact: As someone who frequently works alongside master previsualizer Quentin Tarantino, the idea of working by committee at Marvel on “Guardians of the Galaxy” “put horrific images in my head,” Raskin says. But he was happily proven wrong, calling the collaboration with his fellow below-the-line workers “one of the most fruitful” he’s ever known. “There was a very open exchange of ideas,” he says, and admits he’s pleased that he now knows how to navigate both big blockbusters such as “Guardians” and indies like the upcoming “Bone Tomahawk.”

Upcoming: Currently working on Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight”; next year, the “Guardians” sequel.

Impact: The trio’s work in creating color palettes and unique looks for diverse cultures and locales in the Seven Kingdoms is an integral part of “Game of Thrones.” “Each season brings its own peaks, as there is always something challenging to do, from Joffrey’s wedding, or a mass battle, to Cersei’s walk of shame,” says Alexander. “When a season finishes we look and see what we can do better.” Alexander also notes that the show’s hairstyles have an impact on fashion runways. “The project has thrown so many challenges our way, be it complex rigs such as the head crushing of Oberyn Martell, to the daunting task of managing over 35 prosthetic makeups on a daily basis with a 40-strong crew for the season five Hardhome shoot,” says Gower, who won the 2014 Emmy with Walker for their prosthetic makeup.

Upcoming: Season six of “Game of Thrones.”

Impact: Their Oscar- and guild-winning work on Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” included makeup and hairstyling that aged the characters, particularly those played by Tilda Swinton and Ralph Fiennes. The fantastical facial hair alone ranged from pencil-thin and walrus-type moustaches to bushy beards. “As most actors were only able to arrive the day prior to shoot I had to be really well prepped to achieve the looks Wes wanted,” Hannon says. Adds Coulier: “We spend our time trying to make things as interesting and realistic as possible. At the end of the day, though, it’s the art that makes it good, whether it be in the painting of a face or the sculpture, or the performance.”

Upcoming: For Hannon, “Inferno,” with Tom Hanks and the next installment of the “Bourne” series, helmed by Paul Greengrass. Coulier, who worked on all six films of the “Harry Potter” franchise, did the prosthetic makeup in the upcoming Bond film “Spectre,” directed by Sam Mendes, the 24th installment of that series.

Impact: As he jumps between time periods and regions in “American Horror Story,” Haught has created multiple hairstyles for series regulars like Jessica Lange. “You get to learn nuances about them, which helps you design specifically for their characters,” he says. “I’m not wasting time on something that she’s going to hate.” Haught is excited by cast addition Lady Gaga. “She’s worn meat on top of her head in public, so anything I come to her with she’s going to be like, ‘Let’s do it!’” Mekash continues to create makeup for slasher scenes in “Story.” “Monsters and horror are what makes me the most excited,” she says. The two artisans use pictures and discuss color schemes as they collaborate with other departments.

Upcoming: “American Horror Story: Hotel,” season five of the anthology

Impact: Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” garnered both Oscar and Bafta noms and a slew of wins for this pair of artisans. The looks they created for the characters required many of the actors to sit more than four hours in the chair. Yianni-Georgiou even developed a product used extensively on the alien characters of Ronan and Yondu. “It had a gas-permeable membrane and, once applied, stayed in place without coming off onto the costumes and over other actors,” she says. Adds White, “This movie was like doing 10 movies in one in terms of the sheer amount of prosthetic product that hit the screen; it had to maintain quality and consistency throughout.”

Upcoming: Yianni-Georgiou is evaluating scripts and in early-stage development on a makeup line. White is on “The Huntsman” and “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.”

Impact: Before Giacchino could get in touch with his muse, he had to deal with the logistics of working on three big films back to back. “ ‘Tomorrowland’ was going to be first, ‘Inside Out’ second and ‘Jurassic World’ third,” he recalls. “Then ‘Tomorrowland’ got pushed back. It was a constant juggling act, but it all worked out. All the directors are friends, so everyone was very nice and supportive trying to help me survive the crazy gantlet.”

Upcoming: Giacchino is working on “Star Trek” concerts, but not writing “at the moment.”

Impact: For each episode of ABC series “Nashville,” Miller must sift through reams of musical submissions and transform three or four songs into something resembling the organic work of the show’s characters. He picks the appropriate musicians for the selections, then records three different versions of each tune (solo, studio and live band performance), often with the actors singing along with the band. “We may end up doing a few extra takes (on the vocal), but it’s good for them to be in the room with the band playing live,” Miller says. “Records aren’t done that way much, but it works and it sounds real.”

Upcoming: Season four of “Nashville”

Impact: While the film “Selma” was otherwise blanked at the Academy Awards, the artists whose given names are John Stephens and Lonnie Lynn and hit a collective home run with their first original song trophies. “Glory” also hit Billboard’s Hot 100 and resonated not just as a moving, emotional tune but as an echo of modern racial politics. “Selma is now, because the struggle for justice is right now,” Stephens said in his acceptance speech. “The struggle for freedom and justice is real. … There are more black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850.”

Upcoming: Legend is branching out more into movie and TV production with doc “Can You Dig This,” TV series “Fame Whore” and movie “Breaking Through,” while Common continues his ascent as an actor with at least four films due in 2016.

Impact: Birdsong knows how to keep things moving on “Top Chef.” A former entrepreneur who sold her company and got in on the restaurant game, she was a “Top Chef” contestant before becoming the go-to producer for food-based reality shows (including “MasterChef” and “The Taste”) that needed culinary games to play well on camera. “Being a contestant gave me an edge in my career,” she says. Birdsong has since had as many as four hit shows running simultaneously.

Upcoming: Season three of “MasterChef”

Impact: Gill was involved in a many elaborate stunt sequences in “Furious 7,” including a scene in which cars were parachuted from a C130 cargo plane, along with three men who shot them as they fell. Various snags heightened the challenge, including cameras that failed to work and a fuel leak into the plane’s cargo cavity. “You’ve already got your hands full trying to do something that nobody’s ever done before, and then all of sudden you have these other curve balls fate likes to throw at you,” Gill says.

Upcoming: “Ride Along 2,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip”

Impact: On “Furious 7,” Fottrell faced the ultimate obstacle: the loss of star, Paul Walker, who died tragically two-thirds of the way through the shoot. Production shut down for 2½ months while those in charge figured out how complete Walker’s scenes, most of which were in the chase-heavy third act. In the end, they were able to source driving footage of the actor from the franchise’s previous installments and, through motion-control camerawork and background replacements, seamlessly insert him into the action without altering the plot. “We had to come together creatively, technically and emotionally,” Fottrell says.

Upcoming: “Central Intelligence,” starring Dwayne Johnson

Impact: The virtually nonstop chases in “Mad Max: Fury Road” had Norris working with 65 stunt people full time, 150 on the busiest days, roaring back and forth across the Namibian desert in as many as 78 unique vehicles, driving, crashing and dangling from poles. “Even 10 years ago, we couldn’t achieve a lot of the sequences that we did here,” Norris says. Not only did CGI enable them to erase safety rigs for the vehicle-to-vehicle leaps, but also “they could remove all the tire tracks after each take, so the desert ground always looked pristine.”

Upcoming: Superhero mash-up “Suicide Squad,” starring Ben Affleck and Will Smith

Impact: Smith faced a host of harsh challenges on “Mad Max: Fury Road,” including dust storms that slowly stripped the paint from vehicles and dulled windshields over the course of the 23-week shoot. But he was more concerned with making sure the production was kind to the desert. “I had a big environmental department whose job was to identify plants and remove them out of the way of the rampaging mass of vehicles, and afterwards put them back, all under the supervision of the environmentalists.”

Upcoming: Feasibility studies for future films.

Impact: The trio won an Oscar for their work on “Whiplash,” where one of the challenges was matching the pristine studio recordings with the production sound from the film’s music academy settings. To bridge the sonic gap, they did a sweep of the locations to capture their audio signatures. The data was then used to create ambiance models subsequently applied to the appropriate studio tracks. “A lot of the studio-recorded tracks were far too pristine to be believable,” Wilkins says, “We spent a lot of time putting back incorrect sounds that a studio would normally take out,” such as foot movement, paper shuffling, drumstick clicks and pedal squeaks.

Upcoming: “Message From the King” (Wilkins), “Eye in the Sky” (Mann) and “Grandma” (Curley)

Impact: On “American Sniper,” director Clint Eastwood wanted audiences to feel the intensity of war first-hand. For Murray and Asman, who won Oscars for their work, that meant going out and recording the actual weapons and vehicles used in the battles. They had two sessions for the guns — one with live fire at a shooting range for close-up sounds, another on the Warner Bros. lot with blanks to capture the shots’ slapping echoes between the buildings. “We had mics up to 200 yards away, then we had radio mics right on the barrel of the gun. We ended up with 25 channels of audio on some guns,” says Murray. “That gave us control of how much reverb we added.”

Upcoming: U.S.-Mexican drug war thriller “Sicario”

Impact: It’s hard to catch up with Bauer or Kullback, both Emmy winners for “Game of Thrones,” as the show takes up all but a scant few weeks of their lives each year. “It’s a lifestyle,” jokes Kullback. A single sequence on the show can involve hundreds of effects shots (“Hardhome” had 431), and season five required them to animate, create or meld sequences involving 50,000 wights, a giant under attack and a killer fire-breathing dragon (using real fire) all while blending scenes shot in both Ireland and Iceland. The duo may get an envious 15 weeks to turn around each episode, but “it doesn’t feel luxurious when you’re trying to push 1,800 shots through that timeline,” Bauer says.

Upcoming: Season six of “Game of Thrones”

Impact: The Oscar-winning effects team on “Interstellar” took a novel approach to the sci-fi genre, following science to create settings, from vast expanses of space to giant waves and dust storms. London-based effects house Double Negative used mathematical data to build software that generated the wormhole that transports the film’s protagonists to another galaxy. Instead of the typical swirling space drain, audiences saw a sparkling, three-dimensional, translucent sphere. “You’re looking at a representation of the actual equations Albert Einstein came up with 100 years ago,” Franklin says. “The closer we got to the scientific truth, the more beautiful it became.” The vfx shop also delivered effects for “Terminator Genisys” and “Ant-Man.”

Upcoming: “We’re bidding on a lot of things, but until one actually goes into production, I can’t say the names,” Franklin says.

Impact: On “Big Hero 6,” Milbourn made scores of subtle tweaks, from adjusting colors for consistency to adding a fine level of grain to the entire movie to give it a more filmic look. He also contributed small narrative touches, such as a sky that slowly transitions to sunset hues during the initial flying sequence. “If people don’t shoot it, I can’t create it out of nothing, but I can certainly collaborate and enhance it to make it the best it can be,” says Milbourn, who was also colorist on the animation hit “Frozen.”

Upcoming: “American Ultra” and “Elvis & Nixon”

Boyd is co-editing the fifth installment of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise following her work on “Ant-Man” and global blockbuster “Furious 7.” She’s credited with the emotional farewell sequence. “I wanted to remind the audience of the fun moments while giving Paul Walker a worthy tribute,” she says. “It was important for me to get the ending right.” Boyd, whose credits also encompass “Fast Five,” “Fast & Furious” and “Total Recall,” adds, “I don’t want to limit myself to just one genre or film style.”

Burton, who started in commercials, shot the acclaimed Sony Crackle series “Chosen” and “Sequestered,” and “Quantum Break” for Microsoft (to be released with the videogame). He has also lensed several horror films, including Screamfest Award winner “Beneath,” “Deep Burial,” and upcoming releases “Most Likely to Die” and “Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser.” “I’m open to any genre as long as it’s working with good people and telling great stories. ‘Joe Dirt’ was my first comedy.” Burton is prepping thriller “Pet.”

“My big break came after AFI when I got an internship with Michael Kahn (Steven Spielberg’s longtime editor),” Broshar recalls. It’s been an incredible experience to work with him, and a rare opportunity to have a mentorship with a master.” Broshar, whose credits include being an assistant editor on high-profile pics “Lincoln,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” and “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,” recently worked on two upcoming Spielberg features: “Bridge of Spies” and “The BFG.”

Buxton began his Hollywood career as a post-production assistant, then as assistant editor on David E. Kelley’s ABC dramedy “Boston Legal” and Fox’s “Human Target.” He got his first editing credit — and “big break” — on Kelley’s “Harry’s Law,” and cut TNT medical drama “Monday Mornings” and ABC family drama “Resurrection.” This past year, between seasons of TNT’s “The Last Ship,” he did a project with Sam Raimi. Buxton enjoys TV but would “love to cut a feature.”

After studying at London’s National Film and Television School, Christensen worked on shorts. That led to Danish director Thomas Vinterberg hiring her to shoot her first feature, “Submarino,” in 2009, and then “The Hunt.” She recently reteamed with Vinterberg on “Far From the Madding Crowd,” “which was a new challenge, my first period piece.” Her next film, “Life,” directed by Anton Corbijn, is another period drama. “I hope to work with directors who burn for their project and vision.”

Based in Budapest, the Hungarian d.p. has been a Cannes regular, with six films in different sections in the past few years, including “Delta” and “Miss Bala.” His TV work includes miniseries “Southcliffe,” which won a Bafta. Erdely recently shot Holocaust drama “Son of Saul” for Laszlo Nemes. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year. “We worked on it for years but only had 29 days to shoot,” he recalls. “It was tough and demanding in every sense, but really rewarding.”

Ciancia, who frequently collaborates with T Bone Burnett (HBO’s “True Detective” and the Coens’ “The Ladykillers”), has also worked with such A-listers as Sting, Elton John and Elvis Costello. He recently scored Australia-set “Strangerland” and dark comedy “Criminal Activity,” and collaborated on “The Sleeping Tapes” album with Jeff Bridges. “I’ve just finished an album with my band Unloved, scored BBC miniseries ‘London Spy,’ and season two of ‘True Detective,’” he says.

The German d.p.’s feature debut was 2011 sci-fi thriller “Hell,” which won him multiple awards, including a Camerimage cinematography debut nom. Forderer recently shot sci-fi drama “I Origins,” and “Stonewall” for Roland Emmerich. “I admire his style for telling stories on a grand scale,” he says. “I prepared some stills for the look (of ‘Stonewall’). We talked about lighting and camerawork. When I left his office I heard them whispering, ‘hire the kid.’ ” Forderer is shooting Emmerich’s “Independence Day: Resurgence.”

Over the past decade, Givens has racked up such diverse indie credits as “The Ride” (the short earned him an ICG Emerging Cinematographer Award), the “91st Annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb,” TV’s “Yesterday, Today, Forever,” and the feature “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” which premiered at Sundance this year. He calls it “my big break.” Givens just shot “Smartass,” which he describes as “an intense 18 days with 15 locations and 43 speaking roles.” He looks forward to shooting bigger-budget projects.

Haight has edited some of television’s hottest series, including episodes of “Girls,” “New Girl,” and “Transparent,” which reunited her with series creator Jill Soloway (Haight cut her “Afternoon Delight” and “Una Hora Por Favora”). “I like bouncing between TV and movies,” says Haight, whose film credits include “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “The Cabin in the Woods.” “Right now, TV has so many interesting projects, like ‘Transparent,’ and I prefer more character-driven stories to big action films.”

The Norwegian d.p. won the Berlin Silver Bear and cinematography trophy at the German Film Awards for his work on Sebastian Schipper’s crime thriller “Victoria,” which was shot all in one take. “We rehearsed for four weeks, then did three takes — and chose the best,” says the Copenhagen-based lenser, who then shot “Rams” (Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner at Cannes) on location in Iceland, where he’s prepping “Heartstone.”

Kelly started off assisting producers Scott Rudin and Georgia Kacandes and got his break line-producing “Save the Date.” That “opened up the doors” and led to working on Joss Whedon’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” Destin Cretton’s “Short Term 12,” William H. Macy’s “Rudderless” and Warner Bros. upcoming “We Are Your Friends.” He recently completed a pic for Kelly Reichardt and is set to begin on Imperative Entertainment’s “Hot Summer Nights.”

Nieddu’s break — as assistant costume designer on “Sex and the City: The Movie” — led to “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” “Ugly Betty” and “Smash,” along with styling and dressing stars (Nicki Minaj, Cameron Diaz) for the red carpet. Recent work includes “The Other Woman,” NBC’s upcoming “Hot and Bothered” and returning to “Empire,” for which Nieddu originally designed the pilot. “I get to take the characters to new places and show people fashion they’ve never seen before.”

The Seattle native is having a big year. The evocative, micro-budgeted “It Felt Like Love,” a Sundance hit in 2013, opened in theaters last year, and “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter” wowed audiences at Sundance in 2014 and was nominated for a special jury prize. Since then, Porter says he’s “started to move into bigger projects.” He shot Jeremy Saulnier’s “The Green Room” as well as the upcoming Nicolas Cage crime thriller “The Trust.” “I’m interested in ‘filmmaker films’ and strong visions,” he says.

The versatile d.p. honed his craft doing shorts, television, musicvideos, spots, and shot his first feature, “Gun Hill Road,” in 2011, followed by 2013’s “Newlyweeds” and Spike Lee’s 2014 movie “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus.” He’s collaborating with director Darius C. Monroe, completing a short, “Dirt,” and a short doc, “10 Years After Hurricane Katrina.” Patterson also shot short “Mulignans,” which premiered at Sundance 2015. “I enjoy the boundlessness of it all,” he says.

The Brown U. theater grad spent a decade in New York “working my way up from P.A. to A.D. on indies such as ‘In the Bedroom’ and ‘The Contender,’” before moving to L.A. in 2005 to work as a UPM with mentor Brooke Kennedy on shows ranging from “Pushing Daisies” to “Up All Night.” Stephanie Langhoff and the Duplass brothers hired her to produce HBO’s “Togetherness,” and she joined season two of “True Detective” as the line producer. Next: HBO’s “Brothers in Atlanta.”

This year has been “an amazing ride” for drummer, composer and bandleader Sanchez, thanks to his tour-de-force all-drums score for Oscar winner “Birdman.” He will appear in “Miles Ahead,” Don Cheadle’s forthcoming Miles Davis biopic, and he composed and recorded two new albums — “Three Times Three” and “The Meridian Suite,” penned for Migration, his working ensemble.

The multi-faceted artisan (he also writes and shoots) cut the HBO series “The Jinx” and co-produced/co-wrote it with Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling. He also edited and co-produced “Catfish,” the Sundance hit that spawned a TV show, and cut “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” which in 2011 won the director prize at Sundance and played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. “I’ve worked in indies but always strived for variety,” he says. He just cut “Bleed for This,” a boxing movie starring Miles Teller.

Wagner’s “Hardhome” episode for “Game of Thrones” featured one of the biggest battle sequences ever shot for TV (“16 days in an Irish quarry with the cast, 250 extras, 50 stuntmen,” he says). The U.K.-based d.p., Emmy-nommed for TV’s “Sherlock,” also shot his first feature, Paul McGuigan’s “Victor Frankenstein,” and is prepping a new “GoT” season. Wagner also just finished “Churchill’s Secret,” a TV movie directed by Charles Sturridge. “It’s so different from ‘GoT’ — no action, just acting.”

Sullivan gained experience as set designer (“Planet of the Apes”), art director (“Superbad”), and was supervising art director on Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” “I learned so much about economy of set design, or composing for the frame, from Wes and (production designer) Adam Stockhausen,” he says. Credits also include “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” and Jon Stewart’s “Rosewater.”

Wenzel won the prestigious Sven Nykvist Cinematography Award for 2014’s “The Quiet Roar” and shot “Force Majeure,” which won the Certain Regard jury prize at Cannes last year. Not bad for someone who never went to film school. “I just learned by watching,” he says. Wenzel is shooting “Aeterna,” an ambitious globe-spanning two-year project he calls “non-verbal, in the tradition of ‘Koyaanisqatsi.’ I have no big plans. (I just want) to stay curious.”