The 35th Annual Saturn Awards were presented yesterday, with The Dark Knight taking the most awards for film. Lost and Battlestar Galactica led the way for television. The complete list of winners follows the jump.
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Battlestar Galactica
David Eick
I keep saying this is the last Battlestar post, but like Michael Corleone the SyFy folks keep pulling me back end. But ironically enough SyFy didn’t have anything to do with this interview; it was the fine folks who run the NAB. I just love saying SyFY (Sifee) it just puts a smile on my face. I just had a 30-minute conversation with Battlestar Galactica Producer David Eick and Chris Brown the man in charge of the National Association of Broadcasters annual Las Vegas Confab. Eick will be keynoting this year’s event which starts it’s conference program Saturday and will open up the convention floor next Monday. The show runs until next Thursday. Here are some really neat tidbits that I learned during the call.
Chris Brown
- After listening to these two speak; I now want to go to the conference.
- The Caprica Pilot was co-financed by Universal Home Video which is why the DVD is coming out in time/before the pilot. David’s not too happy about it, but had very little control over it.
- This year’s conference is designed to highlight Content creators and not so much the technology, although that will be a major part. David will be heading up a Q and A next week about all the rules that Battlestar broke on its road to success. He wouldn’t tell us what those rules were; you have to watch his keynote next week.
- When he and Ron decided to end Battlestar they had some idea what the final shots were going to be but they didn’t have a fully fleshed out plan on how the series would end when it began. The folks at SyFy were surprised and raised eyebrows when Ron and Dave announced their intention to end the series. But as he explained it they had already reached a good number for Syndication and a DVD business, so they didn’t want to overstay their welcome.
- The NAB conference will take up almost 1 million square feet of exhibit space covering three buildings of the LA Convention Center. All of the big tech companies will be there: Sony, Microsoft, Panasonic, etc. Did I mention I want to go; there will probably be some really good partays [sic].
- When talking about Caprica he says that the series isn’t about an War, it’s about People and the relationships and how fear lead to the creation of the Cylons. He said that while people know how everything ends, we don’t know the nuances that lead to them creating the Cylons.
- He loved doing the BSG Webisodes because it gave them a chance to give the younger members of the crew to get more involved. The younger writers wrote the webisodes, while the bit players had prominent parts in the web series. The SyFy digital folks were the primary drivers of the web marketing. They really wanted to use their web properties to try and extend the brand. Ron and Dave did maintain creative control over what was shot. He said at times it felt like extra homework. “We’d get finished shooting and go, oh wait we have to do the webisode now.” They approached the webisode the same way the did the series, only just another distribution channel.
- Chris is really excited about this years focus on Content they will have lots of creators at the show this year including David, Josh Schwartz (The Creator of The O.C.), Rob Cohen and others. I’ve had a chance to have lunch with Rob several years ago and he’s really good and knows his technical stuff. He hopes adding all of this star power will increase interest in this year’s show
- David will be doing Video Blogs from the beginning of Caprica filming this year. He’s really excited about the prospect of showing how a show is made from the beginning of the process.
- There will be over 500 panel discussions at next week’s event. I think they said David is scheduled to speak next Tuesday and that they will send over a transcript of the talk.
So that’s it, really good conversation, I may post the audio and full transcript of the interview later this week.
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After 5 years, tonight is the final installment of Battlestar Galactica. After a boatload of stories, visiting the set in Canada, having almost everyone involved in the show speak to us on multiple occassions and even attending a private party with the cast and crew, I somehow am not excited about tonight’s conclusion. It feels sort of anti-climatic to me. This could be because I haven’t watched the last 4 episodes yet – I wanted to wait and soak it all in, in a marathon session tomorrow morning. But it’s amazing that the cast and crew of BSG are leaving us after they have really supported EM with unprecedented access (for us). I have no predictions of what’s going to happen, I’m not going to live twit BSG tonight or even review this final ep. I want to sit back with a nice beer, put my feet up and just enjoy it, without being forced to overthink it. So everyone be sure to tune in tonight at 9pm on the Sifee channel for this momentous television. Remember, there’s 11 extra minutes.
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This Thursday night, on USA Network is the Season Finale of Burn Notice. God it feels like this season has gone on forever, the networks really need to get better at scheduling and stop these artificial 5 month breaks. I still love the show, but felt like it lost the momentum it was building because of the break. The same thing is happening with all the CW shows, all the long breaks have taken me out of Gossip Girl, OTH, 90210, Supernatural, etc. Anyway, back to Burn Notice, I love this show and have been on the band wagon ever since I did a weekend Set Visit last summer. It has a very cool cast and slicker setting. This season they really focused a lot more on their, as Creator Matt Nix says, “Serial but missable” mytharc which is who burned Michael and why.
As the story unfolds I’m not sure if I really care anymore. I find the stand alone eps and the relationship Michael has with those around him far more interesting. The PR , Marketing and Creative teams deserve a lot of credit, because BN is one of the few return Cable Shows that continue to do well this year and the clips for this Thursday’s season finale has me looking forward to watching. In preparation for Thursday’s season-ender we have some more interviews with the cast and crew, I’ll post a new one every day for the next few days. These aren’t the ones that EM participated in, if you click the Burn Notice tag you can see all of the EM Interviews. First up is Tricia Helfer. I’m not sure when this particular conference call took place since we weren’t involved. As usual the BN folks are VERY talkative people so this interview is very LONG. I’m not going to edit or format it, it’s a straight copy and paste. It’s a good read.
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Following the big reveal – Ellen Tigh as the final Cylon – I was privileged to take part in a teleconference with Ronald D. Moore and Ellen Tigh, herself, Kate Vernon. The conversation on touched many things, including why Dualla, and a shocking new theory was submitted by one of the panel of journalists. In short, it was a blast.
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After months of dithering, the Sci Fi Channel has finally determined that Caprica will be added to their schedule in 2010. The announcement, made today, is that the series has a twenty episode order – including the two-hour pilot. The series, which a prequel to Sci Fi’s signature series, Battlestar Galactica, stars Eric Stoltz [Milk, Pulp Fiction], Esai Morales [Jericho, NYPD Blue], Paula Malcomson [Deadwood, ER] and Polly walker [Rome].
The series is set fifty years prior to Galactica and is centered around two rival families, the Adamas and the Greystones. In a society seemingly close to our own [except with space travel between the Twelve Colonies], these families will play significant roles as artificial intelligence is first created, then combined with metal bodies. Caprica will have a broader scope than Galactica, as all the best subjects of classic soap opera [passion, intrigue, political backbiting and family conflict] will be mixed with the show’s science fictional elements [Dallas with Cylons instead of oil?]. Jeffrey Reiner directed the pilot and the series goes into production in summer ’09, in Vancouver, B.C., Canada, for its 2010 debut.
As the series begins, a startling development is about to occur – the creation of the first cybernetic life-form node or “Cylon” – the ability to marry artificial intelligence with mechanical bodies. Joseph Adama (Esai Morales, pictured above]), father of future Battlestar commander William Adama (Sina Najafi) and a renowned civil liberties lawyer, becomes an opponent of the experiments undertaken by the Graystones, led by Daniel Greystone (Eric Stoltz, pictured above]), owners of a large computer corporation that is spearheading the development of these living robots: the Cylons.
Caprica is produced by Universal Cable Productions and executive produced by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick (Battlestar Galactica) and Remi Aubuchon (24). It is co-written by Aubuchon and Moore and directed by Jeffrey Reiner (Friday Night Lights).
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A new Battlestar Galactica TV movie is expected to go into production, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the end of summer… The movie, which is being written by fan favorite, Jane Espenson, will be directed by Admiral Adama, himself, Edward James Olmos.
Currently the cast includes Michael Trucco [Sam Anders], Aaron Douglas [Chief Galen Tyrol] and Dean Stockwell [Brother Cavil]. According to the Sci Fi channel press release, more casting news will follow “in the coming weeks.”
The movie opens before the events of the miniseries, with the story focusing on familiar characters including Cylon Model Number One, known as Cavil (Stockwell), Resistance Leader Sam T. Anders (Trucco) and Chief Galen Tyrol (Douglas). It seems that the Cylons’ plan failed to account for one thing: survivors. In the chaotic aftermath of the destruction, two powerful Cylon agents struggle with plots and priorities on the human ships that got away, while trying to deal with the resistance fighters who were left behind.
The as-yet-untitled movie will be released after the conclusion of the regular series, following the Razor model – first being broadcast by the Sci Fi Channel with a DVD release to follow shortly thereafter.
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