Extra.
Tag: The True Story of a 44-Year-Long Game.
“Tag” is a story about five friends who have continued the same game of Tag since childhood. The film, starring Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, John Hamm, Lil Reg Howery, and Jake Johnson, was released in 2018 to decent reviews. However, the true story is even weirder.
Digging for Romance: Why Historical Cinema Can’t Quit the Love Story
Fictional romance often sweetens historical cinema, but at what cost to real human legacies? Screenwriter Moira Buffini defends the fabricated love story in The Dig as an essential emotional relief against the backdrop of war, yet critics argue replacing real female pioneers with romantic subplots risks erasing vital history permanently.
The Blind Side: How an NFL Offensive Lineman got stunned by his “adopted” family
“The Blind Side” tells the emotional journey of an African American teenager overcoming homelessness and adversity to become an NFL offensive lineman. However, the movie left a troubled legacy, with Michael Oher taking his family to court over lost earnings from his own movie.
Commodus didn’t kill Aurelius, or did he?
For years, directors have been exaggerating detail and historical accuracy to push the plot in our favourite historical films. From family feuds to face paint, we explore the scenes from your favourite films that never actually happened, and ask if cinema’s very own storytelling is keeping history alive, or distorting it beyond recognition.
The Eras that Refuse to Fade: Film’s focus on familiar histories and the limits of repetition
Cinema is obsessed with the same moments throughout history. We looked to find out why, and what this means for the future of storytelling.
Dialect Coach Explains How Actors Learn Their Accents for Historical Films
Dialect coach John Nelles discusses his teaching methods, role on set and rapport with actors. He goes in depth on the difference between dialect and idiolect, and how he uses the latter to elicit the voice and mannerisms of real historical figures through an actor’s performance.
Digging Through the Credits: Inside the Agency Stopping Hollywood From Getting History Wrong
In a pre-Google world, a recently retrained archaeologist standing inside Tutankhamun’s tomb realised something. His knowledge was currency. Twenty years later, Nigel Hetherington manages a database of 800 historians shaping the biggest historical productions on screen, and is still fighting to prove the truth is stranger than any conspiracy.
Dressing Gladiator: An Interview With Academy-Award Winning Costume Designer Janty Yates
From the blood-soaked armour of Gladiator to the lavish high fashion of House of Gucci, Academy Award winning costume designer Janty Yates has spent over two decades outfitting cinema’s greatest spectacles. She lifts the curtain on her legendary collaboration with Ridley Scott, and the chaotic reality of stitching history together.
How blood and sweat seeped through the unspoken truth in the Society of the Snow
in 1972, a plane crashed into the Andes and its survivors endured 72 days in the snow. For J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow, costume designer Julio Suárez became part historian, part forensic weaver dressing the living and the lost, staining every garment from the inside out with their truth.
How Top Production Designers Reconstruct History On-Screen
Production Designers, Fiona Crombie (Hamnet), Niamh Coulter (Northman) and Steven X. Haber (Gladiator II) discuss how they each use historical fact to inform their decision making on films. From on set advisors, to archaeological findings, they share the struggle to maintain artistic integrity against the pressure to be historically accurate.