Bill Desowitz
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Craft & Animation Writer: covering the creativity behind the tech; awards analyst/taste maker and Golden Globes voter.
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Articles by Bill Desowitz
‘Hexed’ Preview: Disney Leans into Legacy for a Magical Witch’s Brew
L – R: Billie Doe (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) and Beef Roger Crummchuk (voiced by Walton Goggins) in Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Hexed”. © 2026 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
‘Ray Gunn’ Preview & First Trailer: How Brad Bird and His Team Created a Retro-Futuristic Sci-Fi Noir
Credit: Skydance Animation ©2026 At a recent Ray Gunn press day at Netflix (ahead of the December 18th streaming premiere), Animation Scoop got a glimpse of the first 30 minutes of Brad Bird’s sci-fi/noir passion project, and was treated to a revealing behind-the-scenes peek at the creative process.
‘I had given it up’: Brad Bird on resurrecting ‘Ray Gunn,’ creating an animated sci-fi noir, and defying studio expectations Original
Brad Bird's Ray Gunn Better late than never for Brad Bird's animated passion project Ray Gunn. The sci-fi noir was intended to mark his directorial film debut 30 years ago. However, it was rejected by Turner Feature Animation and Warner Bros. for being too risky and too adult, so Bird pivoted to The Iron Giant (1999), which many now considered this country's last great 2D movie.
‘Forgotten Island’: How DreamWorks Made a Love Letter to Filipino Culture and Mythology
(from left) Raissa (Liza Soberano) and Jo (H.E.R.) in DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island, directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado. For DreamWorks directors and best friends Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish), Forgotten Island offered an opportunity to make an original movie that was a wildly imaginative love letter to their shared Filipino culture and mythology.
‘Wildwood’ Set Visit: Laika Previews its Most Ambitious Stop-Motion Fantasy Adventure
Wildwood, Laika’s sixth stop-motion animated movie (opening Oct. 23 from Fathom), but first set in its hometown of Portland, offers its boldest, darkest, and most ambitious fantasy adventure. Animation Scoop recently visited the studio for an exclusive, behind-the-scenes set visit with some of its department heads, along with a sneak peek at 20 minutes of footage.
‘Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom’: How Directors Steve Cox and Matthew Walker Brought Halloween to Aardman
After embracing sci-fi shenanigans in Farmageddon, Aardman pivoted to Halloween hijinks for Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom. The premise finds the clumsy Farmer (John Sparkes) trashing the Flock’s beloved pumpkin patch, forcing Shaun (Justin Fletcher) to play mad scientist to fix the problem with a fast-growing elixir, which spirals out of control, including the creation of a Big Foot-like hairy monster.
‘Toy Story 5’ creators on animating imagination, allowing Bonnie to ‘get weird,’ and why ‘the toys are like little vampires’ Original
Jessie, Buzz, and Woody are mesmerized by Lilypad in Toy Story 5 In Pixar's Toy Story 5, playtime becomes an existential battle between toys and tech, as cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack) takes on Lilypad (Greta Lee), the energetic tablet that 8-year-old Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) desperately embraces to make friends. Trouble is, devices now take all the imagination out of playtime, with chat rooms and virtual games replacing physical contact with toys.
From Lilypad, to an Army of Upgraded Buzzes, Pixar Pushes New Tech in ‘Toy Story 5’
Tech takes center stage in Andrew Stanton’s Toy Story 5. In fact, it’s about the battle between toys and tech, with Jessie (Joan Cusack) taking on Lilypad (Greta Lee), the energetic tablet that Bonnie embraces (Scarlett Spears) to make friends. With chat rooms and virtual games replacing physical contact with toys, playtime has been redefined, and toys are forced to fight back with imagination.
How 'Spider-Noir' nailed the looks of 1930s New York — in black-and-white and color
With “Spider-Noir,” starring Nicolas Cage as Ben Reilly, the web-slinging, crime-fighting private eye in ’30s New York, we get two vintage-looking options: a high-contrast, shadowy, black-and-white version, and a Technicolor-esque alternative (“True-Hue”) that pops in primary colors.
‘Disclosure Day’: How Steven Spielberg brought the James Bond-like Wardex command center to life Original
The first glimpse of the high-tech Wardex command center, which globally monitors classified intel about UFOs and extraterrestrial life on more than 300 screens, in Steven Spielberg's sci-fi conspiracy thriller Disclosure Day brings to mind those fantastical James Bond sets created by the legendary production designer Ken Adam (Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, Moonraker).
‘Disclosure Day’: How Steven Spielberg brought the James Bond-like Wardex command center to life
1 day ago Steven Spielberg is back on the alien train, but "Disclosure Day" hits closer to home in a lot of ways than his past movies. Here's a deeper look into what the ending really means. Spoilers ahead!
‘I AM Frankelda’: How the Ambriz Brothers Made Mexico’s First Stop-Motion Movie into a Dark Horror Musical
Roy and Arturo Ambriz had a dream to make Mexico’s first stop-motion animated feature, and, after nearly a decade, despite numerous financial setbacks, including the mortgaging of two homes, the brothers finally succeeded with the help of their mentor, Guillermo del Toro. The result is I Am Frankelda (streaming on Netflix June 12th), a prequel to their popular anthology TV series, Frankelda’s Book of Spooks, made at their family-run animation studio in Mexico City, Cinema Fantasma.
How ILM brought ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ VFX to life, from the AT-AT oner to Baby Yoda’s CG touch-ups
To supersize The Mandalorian Star Wars series into the Mandalorian and Grogu theatrical feature, director Jon Favreau insisted on maintaining the original trilogy's blend of practical and digital effects. “We got to work with puppeteers, stop-motion animation, all the things I loved about Star Wars,” Favreau says.
How ILM brought ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ VFX to life, from the AT-AT oner to Baby Yoda’s CG touch-ups
This display includes a selection of credits and currency from the film (including some beskar), as well as the deck of bounty cards featuring wanted Imperial criminals. This display contains models and props from The Mandalorian and Grogu, including the hulking droids that protect the Hutts and some of the alien species in the films. The Mandalorian, his N-1 starfighter, and some friends in the Star Wars prop house Piloted by a diminutive droidsmith, this ship transports Grogu in a key sequence.
Cinematographer Linus Sandgren on capturing the visual sweep of ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Dune 3’: ‘It feels alive’ Original
Love it or hate it, Emerald Fennell's provocative Wuthering Heights is an undeniable visual feast. It stirs up the passion, obsession, and inner turmoil between Margot Robbie's Cathy and Jacob Elordi's Heathcliff. Indeed, Wuthering Heights is the first of two anticipated awards contenders from Oscar-winning cinematographer Linus Sandgren (La La Land); the other being Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Three (Dec.
Shooting 'The Stranger'
The French film The Stranger, directed by François Ozon and shot by Manu Dacosse, SBC, is all about oppressive heat. Set in Algeria in the 1930s, the story follows a nihilistic Frenchman, Meursault (Benjamin Voison), who compulsively murders an Arab (Abderrahmane Dehkani).
How Skydance’s ‘Swapped’ Created a Whole Ecosystem of Predator/Prey and Then Disrupted It With Empathy
SWAPPED – A buddy comedy about a small woodland creature (voiced by Michael B. Jordan) and a majestic bird (voiced by Juno Temple)—natural sworn enemies of The Valley—who suddenly swap bodies and must team up (while walking in each other’s feathers and fur) to survive the wildest adventure of their lives. Cr: Skydance Animation/Netflix © 2026 Nathan Greno’s Swapped (from Skydance Animation, streaming May 1st on Netflix) is a body-switching movie with a difference: there are no humans.
DreamWorks Drops First ‘Forgotten Island’ Trailer About Friendship and Philippine Mythology
The trailer dropped today for DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island (Universal, September 25), the studio’s first embrace of Filipino culture about friendship and memory. The comedy-adventure follows two lifelong friends who grow up together in the ’90s in the Philippines — Jo (singer H.E.R./Gabriella Wilson) and Raissa (Liza Soberano) — and the stakes of potentially growing apart.
Maggie Gyllenhaal on the Mad Science of 'The Bride!'
Expanded coverage of The Bride! will appear in American Cinematographer's April 2026 issue. For full access to our archive, which includes more than 105 years of essential motion-picture production coverage, become a subscriber today. American Cinematographer: This film is very different from The Lost Daughter. How did working with Larry Sher on a major studio feature affect your learning curve as a director?
How The Wild Car Chase In Pixar's 'Hoppers' Was Inspired By 'Mad Max,' 'Jaws,' And 'The Birds' - Animation Scoop
Daniel Chong’s Hoppers is Pixar on steroids. That’s where teenage activist Mabel (Piper Curda) “hops” into a robotic beaver to save the local animal population and their glade from becoming greedy Mayor Jerry’s (Jon Hamm) highway construction project. Aesthetically, Pixar applied a handcrafted 2D stylization to the soft, plush characters and warm, impressionistic environments with the aid of a new paintbrush tool.
How 'Marty Supreme' production designer Jack Fisk recreated a legendary table tennis parlor that no longer exists
Bill Desowitz Legendary production designer Jack Fisk , who has worked with Terrence Malick ( Badlands ); his late, great high school pal, David Lynch ( Mulholland Drive ); Brian De Palma ( Carrie ); Paul Thomas Anderson ( There Will Be Blood ); Alejandro González Iñárritu ( The Revenant ); and Martin Scorsese ( Killers of the Flower Moon ), was a natural fit for Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme , for which he received his fourth Oscar nomination.
'GOAT': How Director Tyree Dillihay Got Animated About Basketball
For director Tyree Dillihay (Bob’s Burgers), GOAT began as an animal basketball concept in 2018 at Sony Pictures Animation. It grew into his passion project about roarball, inspired by and co-produced by Golden State Warriors’ legendary point guard Steph Curry (who ironically voices the giraffe player Lenny). Dillihay was joined by producer Michelle Raimo-Kouyate (Puss in Boots)and co-director Adam Rosette (The Bad Guys story artist).
5 Oscar-nominated editors break down their films' most pivotal scenes
(Illustration by Vartika Sharma / For The Times) This season's Oscar nominees for film editing have one thing in common: coping with trauma. The Envelope invited editors from each film to break down a pivotal scene that showcased their craft. ‘F1’ Editor: Stephen Mirrione Scene: The montage in which Brad Pitt's washed-up racer Sonny Hayes begins his winning streak through a momentum-building Grand Prix swing.
Breaking Down The Bathhouse Battle In 'KPop Demon Hunters'
It’s not surprising that the bathhouse battle is the third most popular scene from KPop Demon Hunters: the Netflix phenom and Best Animated Feature frontrunner from Sony Pictures Animation/Imageworks. It’s colorful, funny, chaotic, and action-packed. HUNTR/X follows the Saja Boys into the public bathhouse, where they’re ambushed by water demons.
‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ VFX team reveals how they attacked the ‘enormous’ final battle in James Cameron’s 3rd Pandora adventure
Oona Chaplin and Stephen Lang in 'Avatar: Fire and Ash' The final battle in James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash is where Wētā FX displays its latest tech arsenal to solidify its status the frontrunner for Best Visual Effects statuette in this year's Oscar race.
'Forevergreen': How Two Disney Animators Created A Hand-Carved Look In Their Short About The Bond Between A Bear And A Tree
The Forevergreen short, about the bond between an orphaned bear and a paternal tree, is a passion project from Disney animator pals Nathan Engelhardt (Zootopia) and Jeremy Spears (Zootopia). The five-and-a-half year journey grew out of Engelhardt’s faith-based desire to tell a story about redemption and forgiveness, inspired by The Prodigal Son.
'Retirement Plan': A Midlife Crisis Leads To Aspirational Bucket Lists
The Irish Retirement Plan, winner of the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at SXSW, took shape after Dublin born director John Kelly, 45, suffered a panic attack. “I’m a list person and, like a lot of us, I’m drowning in lists,” he said. “But I think the lists are a kind of cocktail: fix the garden fence, regrout the shower. And then there also more meaningful lists about spending more time with my kids and parents. And I remember the exact moment this film popped into my head.
'Hurikán' Offers An Absurd Adventure Through Prague To Save A Beer Stand
Hurikán, which won the Audience Award at Annecy, is among the most audacious shorts on the Oscar shortlist. Adapted from a comic book character with a pig’s head by Czech filmmaker Jan Saska, the black-and-white, hand-drawn short offers a wild, noirish romp through Prague’s urban Žižkov district. It’s about an alcoholic who tries to save his favorite beer stand to impress the sultry barmaid.
Creative Head Hikaru Kondo Breaks Down The 3 Innovative Battles In 'Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle'
Crunchyroll’s Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle continues breaking box office records, and will compete for the animated feature prize at Sunday’s Golden Globes. It’s not only the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time with $682 million worldwide, but also the number one international film ever in North America with $134.5 million.
James Cameron explains 'the power couple from hell' at the core of 'Avatar: Fire and Ash'
Fire replaces water as the elemental character in James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” It’s even weaponized by Varang (Oona Chaplin), the ruthless leader of the volcano-dwelling Ash People, in their war against the rest of the Na’vi tribes. “After figuring out water in all its complexity in [‘The Way of Water’], we focused on fire,” Cameron said about his VFX Oscar front-runner. “Fire is very much the same — you have to be very observant of [this] in the world.
How animated Oscar contender 'Arco' imagines not one climate apocalypse but two
The most impressive part of French animated sci-fi epic "Arco," which took the top prize at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, is its imaginative world-building. In fact, first-time director Ugo Bienvenu conjures not one but two apocalyptic climate futures for his 2D time-travel odyssey, produced by actor Natalie Portman and distributed by Neon in an English-language version.
How animated Oscar contender ‘Arco’ imagines not one climate apocalypse but two
5 hours ago At least 16 people have reportedly died after a serious bus crash in Indonesia. On Monday, Dec. 22, the passenger bus was traveling on a tollway in Semarang, Central Java when it slammed into a highway guardrail before overturning on its side around 12:30 a.m. local time, a search and rescue agency …
Exploring a Vibrant, Yet Violent Brazil
The Secret Agent, Brazil's Oscar entry for Best International Feature Film, is a visually subversive political thriller. The film was shot on location in Brazil using bright, saturated colors by cinematographer Evgenia Alexandrova, AFC as a counterpoint to the dark, terrifying subject matter, proceeding as a slow burn.
Behind the Making of the Site of a Sect in ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’
The interior of the Shaker congregation hall. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures The Testament of Ann Lee, Mona Fastvold’s religious musical drama about the titular Christ-like founder of the 18th century Shakers sect (Amanda Seyfried), is the very essence of production design. That’s because we witness Lee’s followers building their new utopian community — where they express their worship through orgiastic chanting and dancing — from the ground up.
Will Rexer reveals how he made ‘The Testament of Ann Lee’ look like a Caravaggio painting
Amanda Seyfried in 'The Testament of Ann Lee' In an awards season defined by spectacles like Sinners, Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Testament of Ann Lee holds its own as a uniquely immersive big-screen experience. Mona Fastvold's avant-garde musical drama about Mother Ann Lee (Amanda Syfried), the Christ-like founder of the Shaker religious movement, comes off like a fever dream.
Turning Dwayne Johnson into ‘The Smashing Machine’ Required a New Brow Bone, a Prosthetic Eyelid and a Whole Lot of Tattoo Removal
Johnson worked hard to get his body to look like Kerr’s. For The Smashing Machine, Benny Safdie’s sports biopic about legendary MMA fighter Mark Kerr (played by Dwayne Johnson), prosthetic makeup design guru Kazu Hiro (The Darkest Hour, Maestro) was confronted with two choices: craft a close resemblance to Kerr or merely capture his essence. “It’s always tricky when we do [someone’s] likeness because, if I have time, I could come up with more than 10 answers of which direction to go,” says Hiro.
How ‘Wicked: For Good’ reinvented Tin Man and Scarecrow with innovative prosthetic makeup (exclusive photos)
Wicked: For Good Ethan Slater as the Tin Man; Jonathan Bailey as the Scarecrow One of the great conceits of Wicked: For Good is transforming Boq (Ethan Slater) and Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) into Tin Man and Scarecrow to shoehorn The Wizard of Oz into this retcon universe.
Director Derek Drymon Talks 'The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants'
Derek Drymon, longtime writer and creative director of the SpongeBob SquarePants series, finally got to direct the latest Search for SquarePants movie (Paramount/Nickelodeon, December 19). What intrigued him the most was exploring a more paternal relationship between Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) and SpongeBob (Tom Kenny), and reintroducing The Flying Dutchman (Mark Hamill), who sets a trap for SpongeBob to free him from his spectral ghost ship.
Directors Madeline Sharafian And Domee Shi Reflect On Lessons Learned From Pixar's 'Elio' - Animation Scoop
Elio proves the difficulty of pulling off quirky, original animated storytelling — even for Pixar. The alien abduction film bombed at the box office but is still hoping for an Oscar nomination. Yet it has attracted a small, loyal following that appreciates its imaginative animation and storytelling. First-time director Adrian Molina (Coco) endeavored to make very personal rite of passage story about the search for identity and belonging.
'Scarlet': Mamoru Hosoda Re-Imagines A Gender-Swapped, Trippy, Anime 'Hamlet' - Animation Scoop
Mamoru Hosoda had no idea that there were so many Hamlet movies in 2025 until he was asked about it at the Toronto Film Festival. These include Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, which explores the tragic inspiration for Hamlet, the modern take set in London’s South Asian community, starring Riz Ahmed, King Hamlet, a documentary about Oscar Isaac facing personal grief during his 2017 performance of the play.
‘One Battle After Another’ Editor Talks Getting “Woozy” Cutting Together that Climactic Car Chase
'One Battle After Another' Courtesy of Warner Bros. Paul Thomas Anderson not only revived VistaVision for One Battle After Another, he also directed the best car chase ever in the 8-perf/35mm horizontal format. That’s when Willa (Chase Infiniti) outsmarts and kills the hitman who’s chasing her up and down the rolling hills known as the Texas Dip, followed closely by Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), her bumbling yet relentless ex-revolutionary dad.
Building the emotional architecture of ‘Hamnet’: An exclusive look at the Shakespearean production design
There is something appropriately heart-rending about the emotional architecture of William Shakespeare's English Tudor home and the Old Globe Theater in Chloé Zhao's Hamnet. Adapted from the historical novel by Maggie O'Farrell about the tragic inspiration for the Bard's legendary Hamlet, production designer Fiona Crombie made sure every decision was a conscious, deliberate construction.
‘Wicked: For Good’: Designing Elphaba’s mysterious anime-inspired Kiamo Ko castle lair Original
The architectural highlight of Wicked: For Good is Elphaba's mysterious castle lair, Kiamo Ko, a floating fortress created by production designer Nathan Crowley comprised of inverted arches pointing skyward, surrounded by a sea of sand called “The Impossible Desert.” Indeed, the castle stands as a defiant reminder of a bygone era when the magic of Oz belonged to human and animal alike.
'Zootopia 2': The Disney Sequel Gets More Epic With Its 'Chinatown-like' Mystery - Animation Scoop
It turned out to be a good thing that reptiles were left out of Disney’s Oscar-winning Zootopia. There just wasn’t room for them in the sprawling, mammal-oriented metropolis. But this enabled directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard to introduce reptiles in Zootopia 2 and build a Chinatown-like murder mystery around why they were banned 100 years ago.
‘It was all about restraint’: The ‘pure gold’ VFX secrets of ‘Frankenstein’ revealed
Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein passion project, starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the creature, represents the director's ultimate expression of handmade realism when it comes to the below-the-line crafts. This includes visual effects as well, which deftly integrates CG with practical work. “We don't talk about methodologies, we talk about story and emotion, as he does with all the department heads,” says go-to production VFX supervisor Dennis Berardi.
‘Frankenstein’: The biblically inspired, patchwork makeup design behind Guillermo del Toro’s new creature Original
Guillermo del Toro — who calls himself the 'patron saint of imperfection' — has made the definitive GdT movie with his Frankenstein passion project. Like his stop-motion Pinocchio, the director's other lifelong passion project, this too offers a tragic father-son story, yet mines the legendary Mary Shelley novel about immortality to explore regret from his own deeply personal experience. The makeup design for Jacob Elordi's creature was also personal for del Toro.
'In Your Dreams' Taps Into Painful Childhood Memories for a Fantastical Journey with the Sandman
First-time director Alex Woo, who left Pixar as a story artist on Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory to form Kuku Studios, had a very personal childhood story to tell with In Your Dreams (Netflix, streaming November 14, following a limited theatrical run November 7). It’s about Stevie (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) and her younger brother Elliot (Elias Janssen) searching for the Sandman (Omid Djalili) in their dreams with the help of a magic book to prevent their parents from breaking up.
Inside ‘Sinners’: How Ryan Coogler and crew summoned ‘the devil’s music’ at Smoke and Stack’s juke joint (exclusive concept art) Original
Oscar-winning production designer Hannah Beachler takes us behind the scenes of the film's most talked-about moment. The extraordinary highlight of Ryan Coogler's genre-bending vampire film Sinners is the phantasmagorical musical sequence — “I Lied to You"/"Magic What We Do (Surreal Montage)” — in which the genius of blues prodigy Sammie (newcomer Miles Caton) attracts the spirits of musicians and dancers from the past and future.
'Little Amélie or the Character of Rain': The Wide-Eyed Wonder of a Toddler's Coming of Age - Animation Scoop
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (GKids, opening October 31 in select theaters and wide November 7), won the Grand Jury Prize at the eighth Animation Is Film Festival in Hollywood for revealing “the world from the perspective of a toddler” filled with “the wonders and pains of being alive like poignant revelations.” For first-time French co-directors Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han (Long Way North, The Little Prince), adapting the beloved autobiographical novel by Amélie Nothomb...
How ‘Tron: Ares’ brought the light cycles off the Grid and into the real world: ‘Like shooting a spy thriller’
Director Joachim Rønning and his VFX team explain the film's best scene; plus, exclusive behind-the-scenes photos. With Tron: Ares, Disney's pioneering sci-fi franchise leaves the virtual Grid for the first time as Jared Leto's digital "Program," named Ares, explores what it means to be human in the real world like an AI Pinocchio.
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