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David Hoselton video interview

No, not conducted by me – these are Banff World Television Festival video interviews with the House writer, about his session (part one), plus how the House writers work and a juicy detail about David Shore’s mathematical nerdiness (part two). This is the prelude to a couple of The Craft posts I have in the Blogcritics queue right now. I was going to post these videos with the links to those articles, but it’s going to be an overwhelming amount of verbiage to post at one time already.

Part One

Part Two

Listen now: David Winning and Martin Wood

My brother Steve joins me again as co-host, as we quizzed director David Winning (Blood Ties, Andromeda, Earth: Final Conflict, Dinosapien, Naturally Sadie, etc.) about his long and varied career, including many forays into science fiction. Then we played the interview I did in Banff with Martin Wood, executive producer and director of Sanctuary, who shares his thoughts on that web-based series moving to television. At the end, Steve and I talk a little about sci fi and the uneasy relationship between television and the Internet.

Listen below, visit the show site, or subscribe via iTunes or with any other program via the TV, Eh? feed.

David Winning, Martin Wood on TV, eh? Blogtalkradio

David Winning, Martin Wood on TV, eh? Blogtalkradio

This Sunday is another TV, eh? show on Blogtalkradio, and it’s a Banff World Television Festival director extravaganza. First up is director David Winning, who has directed numerous television and film projects on both sides of the border. More importantly, he’s the hero who rescued me from wandering around the Banff BBQ with a “Made in Mexico” sticker in my hair. Call in at 646-200-4063, 11 am Pacific/2 pm Eastern, to talk about his adventures on shows such as Blood Ties, Andromeda, Earth: Final Conflict, Dinotopia, Dinosapien, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Sweet Valley High, and many more. Or email me/leave your questions in the comments – ball-busting ones accepted, Will.

Following that live discussion, I’ll play an excerpt of the interview I did with executive producer and director Martin Wood of Sanctuary, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. It includes material that didn’t make it into my article, such as more on Sanctuary‘s innovative filming process and a solid answer to the elusive question I’ve been asked more than once: Why is Vancouver such a hotbed of science fiction filming?

Blogtalkradio has just introduced an “Ask The Host” feature where you can log in (registration is required but free) and click to “call in” to the show … though it’s not working at the moment. As BTR has caused me to say more than once, this Internet thing is great when it works. Fingers crossed for Sunday. It will mean no more long distance charges to participate in the live show, which is a good thing. If it works.

Listen to TV, eh? on internet talk radio

Breaking in, Banff style

That mammoth “craft” post is kicking my ass so I threw together this one for Blogcritics instead – a few anecdotes from Banff speakers about how they got into the business:

  • Breaking Into Hollywood Any Which Way They Can
    “Suddenly desperate to support a family and aware that writing the Great Canadian Novel wasn’t the quick road to riches (but screenwriting is?), Hart Hanson started faxing pitches to the long-running Vancouver-based The Beachcombers. After the 15th fax, the executive producer relented, inviting him for a meeting.” Read more.

All my Blogcritics Banff posts are here.

TV producers on online fans

Here’s my latest Banff fest article on Blogcritics:

  • Online Fans Represent TV’s Vocal Minority
    “Does Eric Millegan’s fate in the Bones finale still have you fuming? Can’t stop talking about Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard, and Anne Dudek’s powerful performances in the House season ender? Pondering Swingtown, looking forward to Sanctuary, and can’t wait for the boys of Entourage to return? Like many fans, maybe you’re expressing those thoughts online … and maybe the people behind those shows are reading. During various sessions at the Banff World Television Festival, TV writers, producers, and directors commented on their reaction to that instant, online audience reaction.” Read more.

All my Blogcritics Banff articles so far are gathered here. I’ve still got several I want to write, and am working on a mammoth one on a couple of The Craft sessions that I’m trying to make less mammoth, but now that I’m back at work the flow of articles will slow.

Sanctuary interview with Martin Wood

And the Banff hits keep on coming … my interview with Sanctuary executive producer/director Martin Wood is now up on Blogcritics. The TV version of that formerly web-based series will premiere on Sci Fi in the US, TMN/Movie Central in Canada, and ITV in the UK in early October.

  • Sanctuary Leaps From Net To Network
    “When you’re that far in front of the wave, you’re sitting on the foaming edge of it. Everybody looks at you and says ‘ok, how are you doing this?’ And you have to turn to them and say ‘not very well, but we have an idea.'” Read more.

A quote that didn’t make it in the article but that kind of sums it up is when I asked him what the challenges are in the transition from web to television and he said: “The challenge is in staying on the web.” Quarterlife, for example, may have been seen as a failure as a TV show, but Wood’s opinion is that no one’s found true success (as in, financial success) as a high quality web-based series.

Some of what Wood says reminds me of part of my interview with Gregg Spiridellis, the JibJab guy, that didn’t make it into that article:

I think most people appreciate the fact that if you want to produce high quality original programming there’s a cost associated with it and advertising doesn’t support original programming online.

That Spiridellis interview occurred soon after the writers’ strike was resolved, so I asked him if he’d been watching those events, since it brought out stories of writers as entrepreneurs, wanting to take away control from the studios:

I think they were great stories. I mean you heard about writers gathering together to go raise VC (venture capital) money. If that happened it would have been a good indication that we were approaching a bubble, you know, the end of the bubble is about to pop. So I was kind of glad to see all that calm down, because it’s really complex. We find television’s a different medium. It’s a different kind of storytelling on the web, it’s a whole different perspective, and while someone may be an awesome sitcom writer, they may not know how to tell a story in 30 seconds, they don’t have the experience doing it. I think there’s a lot of opportunity to bring talent from TV to the web but we’re looking more for new talent, people who grew up on the medium. That’s a better place to mine for content that’s appropriate for the medium.