BELOW THE LINE PODCAST

A score about maple syrup heists? FM Le Sieur makes it stick — with barrels, distortion, and a defiantly Canadian sound.

This week on Below the Line, Skid is joined by Score Composer FM Le Sieur and co-host Louis Weeks to talk about FM’s genre-blending music for The Sticky, the six-part comedy series about Quebec’s infamous maple syrup heist. From pitch process to percussion tricks, FM walks us through a score that blends character, chaos, and quiet emotion — all under a very tight schedule.

Among the highlights:

• Pitching the show during the strike and getting hired twice after long delays
• Building a sound palette from acoustic textures, folk instruments, and industrial objects (yes, including syrup barrels)
• Channeling a “Quebec sound” that balances regional roots and narrative tone
• Scoring for tone, not laughs — and why comedy music often works best when it holds back
• Embracing small ensembles, distorted metal, and deep manipulation in the mix
• Balancing groove, melody, and mood in a hybrid score
• Highlighting key cues like “Chainsaw,” “Ruth and Remy,” and the opening track for Episode 2
• Navigating the emotional demands of scoring intimate scenes — without going sentimental

FM also shares how he found his way into scoring through bands, gear tinkering, and a masterclass with Philip Glass — and why every great cue starts by trusting your gut.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on The Sticky. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

The compound, Kitty’s porch, and a bondsman’s fraying wardrobe — design tells the tale in Prime Video’s The Bondsman.

This week on Below the Line, Production Designer Eve McCarney and Costume Designer Liz Vastola join Skid and co-host Gianni Damaia to talk about crafting the look and feel of Prime Video’s The Bondsman, starring Kevin Bacon as an undead bounty hunter.

Among the highlights:

• An unusually long prep schedule that gave Eve and Liz time to fully develop sets and wardrobes before cameras rolled
• Building the show’s four permanent sets, including the sprawling compound and the lived-in bond shop
• Designing Kitty’s porch as the emotional heart of the series and Hub’s apartment as a reflection of his resourceful character
• The evolution of The Boxcar, a richly layered club set complete with a memorable “one-er” shot
• Collaboration on the swimming pool sequence, balancing costume colors and set design for striking underwater visuals
• How production and costume design worked hand-in-hand, despite Eve and Liz never having collaborated before this project
• Behind-the-scenes stories of working with Kevin Bacon, from fittings and design emails to his generous, collaborative presence on

What shines through is the close collaboration between Eve and Liz — an intentional partnership that ensured the environments and characters lived in the same visual world, reinforcing the show’s grounded but heightened tone.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on The Bondsman. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

Revisiting the 2025 Awards Season means looking back at the winners, the surprises, and the snubs that defined this year’s Oscars.

This week on Below the Line, Skid welcomes back Bill Hardy, Roger Mendoza, and Shaun O’Banion from last season’s Oscar panel. They weigh in on what the Academy got right — and where it went off course. Joining them is Katie Carroll, who missed the original conversation but brings fresh perspective to the follow-up.

Our discussion ranges across:

• Sean Baker’s Anora dominating with five Oscars, sparking debate over its strengths, flaws, and Baker’s unusual multiple credits (writer, director, editor, casting director)
• The panel weighing campaign politics, including Anora’s $6M indie turned $18M Oscar push
• Dune: Part Two emerging as a favorite for Skid and Katie, with the group questioning why it wasn’t more heavily awarded
• Split opinions on The Brutalist — admired for its scale and craft, but dismissed by some as slow or austere
• A Complete Unknown praised for performances and Mangold’s classic approach, despite being shut out on Oscar night
• Conclave respected as a compelling, old-school drama, with debate about its Catholic framing
• Emilia Pérez largely dismissed apart from Zoe Saldaña’s standout performance
• Additional shout-outs and overlooked titles, from Challengers to September 5th to the animated Flow

What stands out in this episode is the way the panel blends craft critique with industry context — from union debates to campaign spending — while keeping the conversation fast-moving and funny.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line as we revisit the Oscar season. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

Staging motorcycle clubs on film is no small feat — especially when the bikes, the actors, and the period details all have to ride in sync.

This week on Below the Line, 1st Assistant Director Don Sparks and Key 2nd Assistant Director Pete Dress join Skid to talk about building Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders, the period feature starring Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, and Tom Hardy.

On the call sheet for today’s conversation:

• Shooting in and around Cincinnati, Ohio to capture a 1960s Rust Belt look the camera could believe
• Managing a 41-day schedule on a modest budget, with both ADs heavily involved in prep and problem-solving
• Creating a motorcycle “boot camp” to get actors licensed and camera-ready on period bikes
• Insurance hurdles, safety protocols, and staging massive group rides — including the final pack ride of 30+ motorcycles
• How Jeff Nichols personally matched bikes to characters and remained a constant collaborator with cast and crew
• Navigating period authenticity challenges, from sourcing cars to designing original biker patches that avoided conflict with real clubs
• Favorite moments on set, from Norman Reedus’s temperamental bike to watching Hardy and Comer deliver “a master class” in acting

What stands out in this episode is the sheer scale of logistical detail — and how the AD team turned it into a smooth-running engine, balancing authenticity, safety, and storytelling at every turn.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on The Bikeriders. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

Conspiracy, power, and the sound of unease — scoring Zero Day means writing tension into every frame.

This week on Below the Line, Score Composer Jeff Russo joins Skid and co-host Louis Weeks to talk about building the musical world of Netflix’s Zero Day.

In this episode, we dig into:

• Coming aboard early with showrunner Eric Newman and director Lesli Linka Glatter to set the series’ tonal compass
• Treating the main theme as a texture — a sound that signals doubt — rather than a traditional melody
• Mapping George Mullen’s psychological point of view, including a recurring “wake-up” motif that threads through the season
• Blending electronics with acoustic instruments (strings, piano, guitar): where texture carries the story and where harmony takes the lead
• How Episode 1 “unlocked” the palette and became the musical template for later episodes
• Spotting sessions, deadlines, and recording logistics — balancing live players with in-the-box writing under a TV schedule
• What lessons from Ripley (restraint, negative space) carried into Zero Day without duplicating a previous sound

What emerges is a score built on restraint and perspective: Jeff writes to the characters’ doubt and the show’s creeping uncertainty — letting silence, texture, and carefully chosen motifs do the talking.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on Zero Day. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

What happens when the director of a documentary returns years later to retell the same story as a feature film?

This week on Below the Line, Skid talks with Director Alex Parkinson about Last Breath, first made as a 2019 documentary and now released as a feature film starring Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, and Finn Cole.

We talk through:

• How Alex first discovered the real-life story of diver Chris Lemons and shaped it into a documentary built around five minutes of chilling ROV footage
• The deliberate choice to hide Chris’s survival in the documentary — and how the feature film shifted perspective to follow him underwater
• Blurring lines between documentary and reconstruction, and carrying that visual style into the feature by weaving real footage with staged material
• The long road to directing his first feature, convincing producers through lookbooks and rewrites that he could expand his own documentary into a drama
• Building a crew from scratch and attracting world-class talent, including underwater DP Ian Seabrook, who signed on after watching the documentary
• The critical role of First AD Jude Campbell in organizing the complex underwater schedule and keeping the production on track
• Filming in Malta’s massive water tank and on full-scale ship sets designed to preserve authenticity and claustrophobia
• Working with Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, and Finn Cole to ground their performances in the documentary while making the feature cinematic

What emerges is a story about continuity and transformation — a director returning to familiar material but reimagining it at a different scale, with different tools, and for a wider audience.

🎧 Press play and go Below the Line on Last Breath. For more, visit belowtheline.biz.

Our sixth annual Academy Awards series — with panels of film professionals discussing the Oscar nominees in their category of expertise — concludes with Makeup and Hairstyling. Podcast veterans Angela Nogaro (Makeup) and Yvonne Depatis-Kupka (Hair) return to offer their assessment of this year’s slate of nominees. It’s a lively set of reviews to wrap up the series! I hope you’ve enjoyed these episodes as much as I’ve enjoyed publishing them.

The 2024 Nominees for Makeup and Hairstyling:

• “A Different Man”

• “Emilia Pérez”

• “Nosferatu”

• “The Substance”

• “Wicked” 

Film professionals discussing the nominees in their area of expertise: that’s Below the Line at the Academy Awards. We’re in the home stretch (episode 11 of 12!), and today we’re talking about the Oscar nominees for Cinematography. My returning guests — Patrick Cady and David Tuttman — are directors of photography (and directors in their own right!) with a keen eye for what makes these films worthy of the nomination. It gets a little technical sometimes for my understanding but I suspect you’ll enjoy it nonetheless.

The 2024 Nominees for Cinematography: 

• “The Brutalist”

• “Dune: Part Two”

• “Emilia Pérez”

• “Maria”

• “Nosferatu” 

It’s a wild and woolly episode of the podcast as editors Christopher Angel and Amy Duddleston return to discuss this year’s Oscar nominees for Film Editing. In all the years I’ve hosted these conversations, this pair has always complained about films being too long. Given that the shortest film on this list clocks in at two hours, I was anticipating some blistering critiques, but their assessments surprised me. Did we agree about all of these films on their merits? No. Was I entertained? Yes. I hope you will be as well.

The 2024 Nominees for Film Editing:

• “Anora”

• “The Brutalist”

• “Conclave”

• “Emilia Pérez”

• “Wicked” 

Costume Designers Helen Huang And Liz Vastola offer their insights on this year’s Academy Award nominees for Costume Design. This one runs a little longer than usual, but we take some time to discuss how costume design is different from fashion design, the role actors play in the shaping of their costumes, and other challenges of the craft. With the ceremony less than two weeks away, we’re in the home stretch, and I hope you’re keeping up.

The 2024 Nominees for Costume Design:

• “A Complete Unknown”

• “Conclave”

• “Gladiator II”

• “Nosferatu”

• “Wicked” 

Oscar season continues here at Below the Line, where film professionals discuss the nominees in the category of their expertise. Today’s animated conversation about the nominees for Animated Feature Film benefits from returning guests, Kent Seki and Camille Leganza. We also take a brief side quest to discuss the challenges currently faced by the Animation Industry.

The 2024 Nominees for Animated Feature Film:

• “Flow”

• “Inside Out 2”

• “Memoir of a Snail”

• “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”

• “The Wild Robot” 

Today we’re discussing the Oscar nominees for Original Song. My guests — Chris Molanphy (chart analyst and podcast host), Louis Weeks (score composer), and Tom Peyton (song writer) — offer both analysis and critique of this year’s nominees. Is there a lot of enthusiasm for the musical innovations these songs offer the listening audience? Well, no. Does it make for an interesting discussion? Yes, definitely. 

The 2024 Nominees for Original Song:

• “El Mal” from “Emilia Pérez”

• “The Journey” from “The Six Triple Eight”

• “Like a Bird” from “Sing Sing”

• “Mi Camino” also from “Emilia Pérez”

• “Never Too Late” from “Elton John: Never Too Late” 

Our tour through the technical categories continues with a discussion of the Oscar nominees for Original Score. My guests — Louis Weeks (score composer), Chris Molanphy (chart analyst/pop critic), and Jennie Callender (founder and music supervisor of Soundbloom) — offer a multi-layered set of insights.

The 2024 Nominees for Original Score:

• “The Brutalist”

• “Conclave”

• “Emilia Pérez” 

• “Wicked”

• “The Wild Robot”  

It’s non-stop conversations about the Oscar nominees in the technical categories from now until the Academy Awards, and I hope you'll follow us for the full season. Today, Kent Seki and Chris Batty return to discuss the nominees for Achievement in Visual Effects. 

The 2024 Nominees for Visual Effects:

• “Alien: Romulus”

• “Better Man”

• “Dune: Part Two” 

• “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”

• “Wicked”  

Below the Line continues our Sixth Annual Oscar Series with a discussion of the nominees for achievement in Directing, and I’m joined by a panel of fellow below-the-liners: Bill Hardy, Roger Mendoza and Shaun O’Banion. (This is the second year we’ve discussed the directors nominated for the Academy Award in lieu of the Directors Guild of America nominees.)

The 2024 Nominees for Directing:

• “Anora”

• “The Brutalist”

• “A Complete Unknown” 

• “Emilia Pérez”

• “The Substance”  

We’re continuing our deep dive discussions about the Oscar nominees in the technical categories, and today, Production Designer Bob Shaw and Set Decorator Regina Graves - Oscar nominees themselves - offer their insights about the five nominees for Production Design.

The 2024 Nominees for Production Design:

• “The Brutalist”

• “Conclave”

• “Dune: Part Two” 

• “Nosferatu”

• “Wicked”  

Our Academy Awards coverage continues, and now we’re into the categories proper. Today, Oscar nominees Steve Morrow (production sound mixer) and Erik Aadahl (sound editor) discuss this year's nominees for Achievement in Sound.

The 2024 Nominees for Sound:

• “A Complete Unknown”

• “Dune: Part Two” 

• “Emilia Pèrez” 

• “Wicked”  

• “The Wild Robot” 

Our Sixth Annual Academy Awards Series begins here! Each episode this season features a panel of Film Industry professionals discussing the nominees in their category of expertise. To kick us off: Achievement in Property Mastering. While the work of the property master is still not recognized with an Oscar, we’re carrying a torch. Gregg Bilson, Jr. (CEO of ISS) and Scott Buckwald (property master and friend of the podcast) propose a hypothetical slate of 2024 films that could have been nominated for their fantastic work with props.

Our 2024 Nominees for Property Mastering:

• “Alien: Romulus”

• “Blitz”

• “A Complete Unknown”

• “Gladiator II”

• ”Horizon: An American Saga”

“Henry Danger: The Movie”, now streaming on Paramount+, is the latest chapter in a storyline that started with the Nickelodeon television series in 2014. Director Joe Menendez joins me alongside an all-star panel of crew, including Costume Designer Farnaz Khaki-Sadigh, Director of Photography Chris Kempinski, Production Designer Bridget McGuire and Makeup Designer Jenn Kaminski. Not only did their collaborative efforts lift this multi-faceted film to another level, but they had a great time doing it.

We've also shared an album of behind-the-scenes photos on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/podcastbelowtheline/

“St. Denis Medical”, the workplace comedy currently airing on NBC and streaming on Peacock, is the latest show to take a crack at the mockumentary genre. Camera Operators Jacob Pinger, Mande Whitaker and Danny Whiteneck discuss how their extensive experience with unscripted television helps elevate this mockumentary to the next level. Why is it that an actual reality tv production would have fired these operators for filming the way they did, but this show kept pushing them to make the camera movements more obvious? Answers in the podcast. 

“Cross”, the eight-episode crime thriller currently available on Amazon Prime, was filmed in Toronto but is set in Washington,  DC. The assignment for Production Designer Elisa Sauvé was to venture outside the stereotypical Capitol Hill locations and really give the city it’s due. From the Georgetown neighborhood to Ben’s Chili Bowl, Elisa and her team made sure that DC’s unique vibrancy was an integral part of the series.

“Dune: Prophecy”, which airs its sixth episode and season finale tonight (!), is the latest example of HBO Max’s commitment to prestige television. This short but ambitious series required an all-hands-on-deck approach, and Film Editors Sarah Reeves and Mark Martzell are here to share the collaborative details. We talk about doing a prequel to the movies, the challenge of the strikes on production, and - spoiler alert - we break down some specific scenes. Insights and laughs guaranteed, or your money back.

Can “Rumours”, the 2024 comedy horror film written and directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, be both an absurdist take on international politics AND the most accurate depiction of a G7 meeting ever? Cinematographer Stefan Ciupek collaborated with this team of three (!) directors to navigate a tightrope production between farce and truth. While every film project is a challenge, the need to accommodate an ensemble cast of nine (led by Cate Blanchett) while filming in Hungary on an independent film budget definitely spawned some transcendental experiences. This provocative and entertaining film teases both insights and laughs, and it was a lot of fun to talk about. In summary: yes, that’s a giant brain, and yes, it really is on fire.

“Wicked”, the Jon Chu theatrical adaptation of the stage musical, is currently in theaters and continues to dominate at the box office. Choreographer Christopher Scott and Film Editor Myron Kerstein share the challenges of bringing the extensive dance numbers from script to screen, with deep dives into “What Is This Feeling?” (bo staffs!), “Dancing Through Life” (tornado wheels!), and “No One Mourns the Wicked” (tulips!). Chris, Myron and Jon Chu previously worked together on “In the Heights”, and the strength of their collaboration is evident with this movie as well. 

Wait, what? You haven’t finished watching “The Penguin”, even though all episodes are now available on HBO Max? Please catch up, because today we’re hosting Hair Department Head Brian Badie, and we’re going heavy on the spoilers. Plus: fellow Batman fan Gianni Damaia returns as co-host!