EW's Television Visionaries Talk Sci-Fi and Pies

BuzzSugar — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:30:36 -0700

Yesterday, I told you about the rowdy panel of filmmaking greats I attended at Comic-Con. Today, I've got some notes from the television "Visionaries" event, which brought together showrunners Josh Schwartz (Chuck and Gossip Girl), Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (Lost), and Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies). Here are just a few of the highlights:

A running joke throughout the panel was teasing Josh Schwartz about Gossip Girl in any way possible. At one point, when the show came up in a question, he said he thought that mentioning it was "a little verboten at Comic-Con," which led the - considerable! - GG fans in the audience to make their presence known. Later, in response to a question about so-called "genre" shows getting lots of buzz over the past few years, Schwartz quipped: "Serena is now a cyborg."
On a related note, plenty of people (rightly) saw the Q&A portion of this panel as their best chance to ask questions of the Lost producers before the mad crush of the Lost-specific event the next day, prompting one panelist (I unfortunately couldn't see which one, as I was on the other side of the huge line) to point at the questioners and count them down, saying, "Lost, Lost, Lost, Piemaker, Piemaker, Lost . . . [mooney voice] Gossip Girl!"
Bryan Fuller is just a big bundle of cotton candy and flowers and goodness. Some various quotes summing up the sweetness: "I am a very sensitive soul. I couldn't do a series like CSI or Criminal Minds where you have to be in a negative headspace all the time. I just wanted to cram a show with as many things that make me smile as possible, like puppies and pie." And, later, "I think we need more awe."
Also, why is the piemaker not, say, a cake baker? "Cake is dry," Fuller said.

To find out which of these guys likes Project Runway, just read more.

Poor Josh Friedman was the most overlooked member of the panel, but he acquitted himself well whenever a question did come his way, showing a good sense of humor about the whole thing. My favorite line from him: "I don't think Terminator works in movie form. I think it's either TV or musical."
Friedman also told the story of casting Brian Austin Green the night before his character was scheduled to make his first appearance. At first, Friedman said, he just assumed the audition was going to be awful. But as soon as Green walked into the room, he had a very different reaction: "When did you get to be so hot?"
Could there actually be too many shows with sci-fi elements on TV these days? "The greatest thing that could ever be uttered in the halls of the networks is 'We have too many shows about time travel,'" Lindelof said.

One of the biggest laughs of the session: Cuse, Lindelof, and Schwartz talking about the Chuck episode where Chuck reveals that he might know the whereabouts of Oceanic Flight 815. What was Schwartz trying to establish by having Chuck mention Lost? "Lost is a TV show," he said, "and Chuck is real."
At the end of the session, someone asked what shows the panelists watched. They mostly cited each other's shows - until Fuller admitted to really liking Project Runway.

EW's Filmmakers Panel With Smith, Apatow, Snyder and Miller

BuzzSugar — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:30:03 -0700

Entertainment Weekly held a few "Visionaries" panels at Comic-Con that brought together some of the greats in the TV, movies and comic book worlds. At the filmmakers panel, it was mostly a kick to see Kevin Smith, Judd Apatow, Zack Snyder and Frank Miller all at one table. It turned into the Smith-Apatow comedy hour, but that seemed to suit the audience members (myself included) just fine. Check out some of the highlights below.

The whole panel was super bawdy and raunchy, mostly due to Smith and Apatow making dirty jokes about each other. And then there was the smiling, friendly-faced Zack Snyder, who awkwardly bumbled out an answer to a question, after which there were about three beats of silence before Smith said, "Thank God your visuals are so strong, man." Smith later marveled at how awesome Snyder's Watchmen looks, saying he could die once he sees that movie.
Apatow talked about his raunchy comedies: "You have to find out: how much penis can you show in a movie without clearing an entire room?" Meanwhile, Smith nodded, deadpan, like he totally understood.
Smith: "I go with my gut, but my gut has lied to me in the past, like, when my gut said, 'Yeah, Jersey Girl's a great idea!'"
Frank Miller: "Very early on I learned I was incompetent at anything else. So I started to make comic books."

More on comics, geek culture, and how comedians differ from rappers (according to Apatow), if you read more.

Smith said he knew a while ago that it was only a matter of time before the comic book movie trend exploded. "Why not mine some of the most creative material ever, that's already been around for 50, 60 years? I think geek culture is here to stay. Thank God for Quentin Tarantino."
When asked whether he might attempt a different kind of movie than those he’s been making, Apatow answered in the negative, stating "There will be no movie with fairies and goblins. . . who can't get laid."
When asked about their influences, Apatow immediately said - without a trace of irony - Kevin Smith. "He laid down the track. I saw Clerks and I was like, ‘You can do that?!'" Smith reached over and gathered Apatow into a hug.
Apatow, babbling: "Comedians are not like rappers. Rappers kill each other and comedians like each other…" A few beats of baffled silence ensued before Smith asked, "Did you just step out of 1989? When was the last time a rapper killed another rapper?"
Frank Miller, on direct-to-internet content and advice for aspiring filmmakers: "Find the places the censors haven't found yet. Cause as much trouble as you can."