As part of our continuing Oscars coverage, we are joined by Academy Award®-nominated cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC. He discusses how he got his start in the film business, working with Christopher Nolan, shooting “Oppenheimer” on film, how they did all those in-camera practical effects, and his fears about creating a dynamically visual film… with so much dialogue.“I was scared sh**less in the beginning, because you are very much out of your comfort zone. In the old days - when in doubt - throw in a wide shot, throw in a vista, and give the people breathing space, et cetera. But this was full-on, very intense, on the human face all the time. So there was a challenge. But also, I think, a very fun one. It definitely brings you to a state of mind where you have to really focus on what is being said and on the progression of the story.”—Hoyte Van Hoytema, ASC, FSF, NSC, Director of Photography, “Oppenheimer”Be sure to check out “Oppenheimer” ahead of the Academy Awards, live from the Dolby Theatre® on March 10th!For more awards season coverage, please subscribe to The Dolby Creator Talks Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Five-time Emmy Award-winning composer Laura Karpman joins guest host Jon Burlingame to discuss her first Academy Award® nomination for the music of “American Fiction.” Karpman took a rather unique approach to composing this “jazzy” score, by thinking of the actors’ voices as musical instruments themselves.“There's a lot of dialogue. And the way the score is constructed is using the actors — particularly Erika Alexander, who plays Coraline, his love interest, and then Jeffrey [Wright], who plays Monk — using their voices as musical instruments. Jeffrey has a great tenor sax vibe, and Coraline has got this sexy alto. And so when they speak, it's under a rhythm section. And then the saxophones and Elena Pinderhughes on flute will come in to kind of move around that. But I did think of the actors as part of the jazz combo, with a rhythm section backing them up.”—Laura Karpman, Composer, “American Fiction”Be sure to check out “American Fiction” ahead of the Academy Awards, live from the Dolby Theatre® on March 10th!For more awards season coverage, please subscribe to The Dolby Creator Talks Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Recorded live just a few days ago at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Academy Award®-nominated director (“Raya and the Last Dragon”) — and Dolby Institute Fellowship winner — Carlos López Estrada brings together five filmmakers, each with debut feature films in the US Dramatic Competition this year. “I have experienced what all five or panelists are experiencing right now. It's this insane, adrenaline rush of playing your first movie for groups of audiences who love film. And it's the most magical thing in the world. So we're so happy that all five people who you're about to meet agreed to come here to share a little bit about how they ended up here. And I hope you got to see some of these films because I got a chance to see all five and they're all truly magical.”—Carlos López Estrada, Director, "Blindspotting,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Summertime”Today’s panel includes directors:- Alessandra Lacorazza (“In the Summers”)- Laura Chinn (“Suncoast”)- Titus Kaphar (“Exhibiting Forgiveness”)- India Donaldson (“Good One”)- Sean Wang (“Dìdi”) — 2024 Academy Award-nominee for Best Documentary Short Film (“Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó”) and Winner of the Dolby Institute Fellowship (“Dìdi”)Once again, this discussion was part of Antigravity Academy’s Satellite Sessions — free monthly conversations with high-level individuals in film and tv, whose objective is to decentralize resources/information and make them available to as many up-and-coming filmmakers as possible — co-presented by CAPE USA (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment). Follow @antigravityacademy and @capeusa for more information on even more upcoming panels.Antigravity AcademyCAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)For more inspiring Satellite Sessions just like this one, be sure you are subscribed to The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Academy Award-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) joins our guest host, music journalist Jon Burlingame, to discuss his score for the latest animated Spider-Man film. If you’ve seen it, then you already know it features incredible, cutting-edge animation. But it turns out Daniel’s approach to the score was equally “experimental.” “As soon as I finished ‘Into the Spider-Verse,’ I was thinking about ‘Across [the Spider-Verse]’ because… as a composer, you don't often get a chance to have a kind of playground where you really can be very experimental and really push at the edges of what film music can be. And obviously, you want to try and do that. But not every movie will support that kind of approach. And with Spider-Verse, it really did. So I was very aware — if there was a sequel — of trying to build on what we created on the first one. Rather than say, ‘well we did this thing that was successful, let's just more of the same.’ It's more like, ‘let's see how much further we can push it.’”— Daniel Pemberton, Composer, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”Be sure to check out “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos®, now streaming on Netflix.Please subscribe to The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Director Carlos López Estrada — Academy Award® nominee for “Raya and the Last Dragon” and winner of the Dolby Institute Fellowship — returns to The Dolby Institute Podcast for another panel discussion, this time with members of Sundance. More than just a film festival, The Sundance Institute offers a myriad of resources for emerging and independent filmmakers, but navigating them all can be overwhelming. So this very special podcast episode is designed to answer this essential question, from Carlos:“What advice can [you offer] for someone who’s just starting to make their own work — whether it’s shorts, documentaries, pilot scripts — and are trying to create from a truthful place, [while] also trying to find their voice, and wanting to be noticed by people like yourselves, knowing that many times resources and time is limited for someone who’s just starting?”—Carlos López Estrada, Director, "Blindspotting,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Summertime”Today’s panel includes:Ilyse McKimmie - Deputy Director of the Feature Film Program at Sundance InstitutePaola Mottura - Film Fund Director at Sundance InstituteJandiz Estrada Cardoso - Director of the Sundance Institute Episodic ProgramAna Souza - Manager of the Programming Department and Programmer at Sundance InstituteAdam Piron - Director of Sundance Institute's Indigenous ProgramOnce again, this discussion was streamed live as part of Antigravity Academy’s Satellite Sessions — “monthly conversations with incredibly exciting figures from the film and TV universe” — co-presented by CAPE USA (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment). Follow @antigravityacademy and @capeusa for more information on even more upcoming panels.Antigravity AcademyCAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)For more inspiring Satellite Sessions just like this one, be sure you are subscribed to The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Director Blitz Bazawule joins his composer Kris Bowers to discuss their new adaptation of “The Color Purple.” You may remember the original filmed adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, directed by Steven Spielberg, from 1985. This version is actually an adaptation of the hit Broadway show, which won two Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical. Our guest host, music journalist Jon Burlingame, returns to the Dolby Institute Podcast to speak with Kris and Blitz about their collaboration on the film, which began very early in the filmmaking process. “I brought Kris on very early because I really believe in my entire team being on the same page right when we begin. I don't believe in silos as a filmmaker and, ultimately, I fancy myself more of a conductor than anything else. I need my entire symphony to start building some kind of harmony, and I can't wait till the very ending to bring on my composer when so much has already been discussed. So bringing Kris on also helped [him] understand how we were approaching music from a macro perspective, what were the intentions around these choices that then he could then expand into the scoring process. And why Kris? I mean, he's the coolest cat. That's just it.”—Blitz Bazawule, Director, “The Color Purple” (2023)Be sure to check out The Color Purple now in theaters, in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos®, where available.Please subscribe to The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Academy Award®-nominated director Jonathan Glazer joins us to discuss his latest film, 2024 Best Picture nominee “The Zone of Interest,” a searing drama about life just outside of the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, which the director chose to have the audience hear, rather than see.“The atrocities that are being committed in the camps — and the images that we already know in our minds, from all of the documentaries and books and fiction films and so on… I had absolutely no interest in reenacting any of them… But at the same time, they were out of sight, they needed to never be out of mind. So what I was serving in my script was how those sounds could come across the wall and permeate every frame of the film, bare down on this mundanity that we're witnessing day to day. And it sort of felt like that was the second film we were making. We always talked about there are two films: the one you see and the one you hear. And I think in many ways, the one you hear was the most important one to me.”—Jonathan Glazer, Director, “The Zone of Interest”Joining the discussion is producer James Wilson, as well as Johnnie Burn, the film’s sound designer, supervising sound editor, and re-recording mixer, whose work on this film also received a 2024 Academy Award nomination in the Sound category.This conversation was recorded as a live panel discussion after a screening of the film at the New York Film Festival and was part of our support of the FLC Artist Academy program, where we bring conversations about the art and craft of filmmaking to the next generation of directors:https://www.filmlinc.org/academy-programs/artists-academy/Be sure to check out “The Zone of Interest,” now in theaters.Please subscribe to The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Director J.A. Bayona discusses his latest film — 2024 Academy Award®-nominee for Best International Feature Film (Spain) — “Society of the Snow.” Director of Photography Pedro Luque and Sound Designer Oriol Tarragó also join us to discuss how they crafted this riveting retelling of the infamous 1972 Andes flight disaster, where a team of rugby players from Uraguay had to do the unthinkable to survive. Realism was a big priority for Bayona, so the production was a challenging, sometimes even grueling experience.“That was the moment — first day of shooting — that we realized how hard this was going to be… We had real snow, we have the cold to catch the breath of the actors, but then we got into the [airplane] set. All the seats had crammed against the cockpit and we realized that we needed to fit 29 people inside that space and one camera crew. So there was no way of shooting those scenes. Like, it was not possible! So actually that was the moment that we decided that we had to shoot the film as if it was a documentary.”—J.A. Bayona, Director/Co-writer, “Society of the Snow”Be sure to check out “Society of the Snow” in glorious Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos®, where available, as well as on Netflix starting December 22, 2023.Please subscribe to The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Academy Award®-nominated composer Jerskin Fendrix joins us to discuss his first-ever film score — the latest from director Yorgos Lanthimos — “Poor Things.” It was an exciting experimental collaboration for both artists, as this was also the director’s first time working with an original score for one of his films.“We both learned along the way how to make a film score from scratch… The first thing we agreed on is that the music had to be part of the film, exclusively. No external references, no temp scores. We never discussed any other composers or films or anything at all. So I think Yorgos really had this idea that everything sprouts ex nihilo from the genesis of the film and from nowhere else.”—Jerskin Fendrix, Composer, “Poor Things”Our guest host, music journalist Jon Burlingame, returns to the Dolby Institute Podcast to discuss Jerskin’s background, creative process, and what it was like to work with Lanthimos for the composer’s feature film debut, which earned him a 2024 Academy Award nomination.Be sure to check out “Poor Things,” now in theaters.Please subscribe to The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Director Carlos López Estrada — Academy Award® nominee for “Raya and the Last Dragon” and winner of the Dolby Institute Fellowship — leads another all-star panel of Hollywood talent to discuss how they broke into the industry as professional cinematographers. And what better way to do that than by discussing their first feature films?“Cinematographers, together with the directors and writers of a film, are also the authors of the story. They are responsible for every image, for every frame, [for] every message that needs to be communicated in order to communicate the story. And we’re very lucky to have, today, six incredible cinematographers talking about the beginning of their journeys and how their early projects helped shape their filmmaking voices.”—Carlos López Estrada, Director, "Blindspotting,” “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Summertime”Today’s panel includes Directors of Photography:- Mandy Walker (Elvis, Mulan, Hidden Figures, Australia)- Larry Fong (300, Batman V. Superman, Kong: Skull Island, the pilot of LOST)- Lawrence Sher (Joker, the Hangover trilogy, Garden State)- Oren Soffer (The Creator w/ Greig Fraser)- Sandra Valde-Hansen (The Summer I Turned Pretty, The L Word: Generation Q)- Karina Silva (No Man of God, the upcoming Which Brings Me to You)This discussion was streamed live as part of Antigravity Academy’s new Satellite Sessions — “monthly conversations with incredibly exciting figures from the film and TV universe” — co-presented by CAPE USA (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment). Follow @antigravityacademy and @capeusa for more information on even more upcoming panels.Antigravity AcademyCAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)For more inspiring Satellite Sessions just like this one, be sure you are subscribed to The Dolby Institute Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.You can also check out the video for this episode.Learn more about the Dolby Institute and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.