Casey Loving

2 weeks ago | uscannenbergmedia.com | Casey Loving

A group of SCA students gather in a movie theater. You know the vibe. Style filled the room as students sat shoulder-to-shoulder in their best wardrobe at The Ray Stark Family Theatre in USC’s George Lucas Building. The crowd of nearly 200 students buzzed with more anticipation than they would for your typical on-campus screening. Here, they weren’t waiting for a film to start rolling or a Q&A to begin. When they left the room, there would be nothing to log on Letterboxd. Tonight, they were the stars.

1 month ago | uscannenbergmedia.com | Casey Loving

Over 90 years. More than 1,000 shorts. Dozens of TV shows. Two Space Jams. One Brendan Fraser vehicle. The Looney Tunes brand has taken on many forms throughout its nearly century-long history. Despite a lackluster performance in the last decade, few characters hold more space in the collective consciousness than some of the hallmarks of the “Merrie Melodies” crew. Who among us can point to the day we were introduced to Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck? I feel as if I’ve somehow known them since birth.

1 month ago | uscannenbergmedia.com | Casey Loving

It’s finally the day of the Academy Awards, and this season’s winners are nearly here. A wonderful array of films make up the Academy’s 50 nominees, with 10 of them competing for the top prize of Best Picture. Compared to the past few years, this has been a strange season, one laden with multiple controversies, shifting popularity and unclear frontrunners. Even now, I struggle with predicting a winner in several key categories, feeling like a coin flip’s chance will make or break my ballot.

1 month ago | uscannenbergmedia.com | Casey Loving

On the prediction side, the Academy Awards’ acting races benefit from having a significant number of precursor awards, giving audiences an expectation of who will eventually take home the gold on Oscar night. This year, this proves to be half true. In both of the supporting categories, the race appears to be shored up, and any deviation from the predicted winners would come as a huge shock. In contrast, the Actor and Actress race leave plenty of room for surprise.

1 month ago | uscannenbergmedia.com | Casey Loving

When creating a budget for a film production, organizers divide costs into two categories: above-the-line and below-the-line. Looking at a film budget’s top sheet, a literal line typically divides these two distinctions. Above-the-line costs are generally referred to as a production’s “creative costs,” an imprecise (and, one could argue, exclusionary) way to refer to the cost of producers, directors, writers and actors. Above-the-line positions are associated with more significant costs.