Junie Lowry-Johnson Wins 2009 Artios Award for Casting True Blood

Junie Lowry-Johnson, casting director for HBO’s True Blood vampire drama series, won a 2009 Artios Award for Best Casting for a Television Pilot – Drama at The Casting Society of America’s 25th Annual Artios Awards ceremony held at The Times Center, in the newly built New York Times Building.

True Blood’s Carrie Preston (Arlene Fowler) was on hand at the awards ceremony as a presenter, and comedian Janeane Garofalo hosted the event.

The Artios Awards recognizes outstanding achievement in casting based on the criteria of originality, creativity and contribution of casting to the overall quality of a project. The term “Artios” is from the ancient Greek word meaning “perfectly fitted.” Earlier this year, Junie won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for her casting work on True Blood, but since the Artios Awards are presented by her peers in the field, this award is a true testament to her work.

BroadwayWorld.com has a complete list of winners from the event.

Carrie Preston looked lovely in black as she walked the red carpet before the event.

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld.com and Backstage.com

(Photo credit: Walter McBride/Retna Ltd. via broadwayworld.com and Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos)

True Blood Season 3 Spoilers from Alan Ball And The Writers From Paley Center

Alan Ball and his creative writing team attended the Paley Center for Media panel discussion last night where True Blood fans were treated to lots of laughs and lots of information about Season 3 to keep us all hungering for more.

Right off the bat, we can assure you that Snoop Dog is not going to get his wish for a cameo on the show. Alan Ball feels that celebrity casting takes you out of the fictional world that they’re trying to create and distracts the audience. It made more sense for some celebrity casting on his hit series, Six Feet Under, but on True Blood, it’s not very likely. Alan can’t imagine a role that Snoop would be appropriate for.

Alan is having tons of fun working on the show, saying, “It feels odd that I get paid for it.”  Alan says that with Episode 5 of Season 1, the show really hit its stride. Bill Compton has his Civil War flashback during that episode, and Alan feels that by the time they got to that episode, the set up for the series was finished, the audience knew the characters by then, and the writers could start to relax and have fun.

Female heavy writing staff came about because Alan just hires based on skill. He reads people’s original work and gets a feel for their own voice, then uses his instincts during the meeting to know whether he will want to work with them eight hours a day or not. “The show has really strong female characters at the center of the story, so of course you’re going to hire women.”

Being on adult cable TV means that there’s almost nothing they can’t do. Fluidity between serious moments and comedy keeps the audience on it’s toes. Alan says vampires are a metaphor for sex, so it would be strange if they didn’t include that element in the show, but:

I can’t imagine a version of the show anywhere except HBO….I will admit to sitting in the room and saying “Can we get his shirt off? Come on! It’s Louisiana! It’s really hot!”

However, they did tone down the 1920s scene with Bill and Lorena. The original draft included a rape scene, as suggested by Stephen Moyer, but Alan decided that was not going to play well for the audience, so it was scrapped.

The vampire/Human marriage rights certainly mirrors the gay marriage controversy in contemporary society, but Alan does not want that to be a main focus. He says:

It’s some fun window dressing, and it’s only a symbol for the gay and lesbian community because that’s what’s going on right now. If we go back fifty years ago, it could have been African Americans. A hundred years ago, it would have been women and their struggle for equality and the right to vote.

He notes that the issue is in Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse books, which the show was based on, and says that it makes the story more contemporary, so it will certainly continue to be included in the story, but it’s not at the heart of the show. It’s simply there as part of the fabric of the storyline and provides context.

The theme of the outsider starts with Sookie ,who from the first thinks of her telepathy as a disability, and the outsider is part of the vampire myth as well, so it’s just one more part of that idea.

The enthusiasm level of genre fans is very high, and Alan’s very happy about that because it shows that people are passionate about the show, which is tremendously gratifying to him. The other writers love the people who come to conventions and public appearances in costumes, and they all love that people hold the show so dear.

When asked if he had a favorite character on True Blood, Alan says:

I will preface this by saying I love every character equally. I love all of them and I want all of them to get what they want and they need in their fictional lives, but I really enjoy writing Jason and Lafayette.

When one of the other writers mentioned their love of writing for Alexander Skarsgård and how unexpectedly funny he is as Eric Northman, Alan says Alex has expressed a “willingness to go there” when it comes to being naked in Season 3, and in fact he will appear without most of his clothes in the very first episode, an announcement which was met with great applause by the audience.

When asked if there was any character that they regretted killing, the writers said they hated to let go of Gran but it’s such a big part of the book, they had to. They kept Lafayette even though he was killed in the books, but Gran had to die because it was important for Sookie in order to force her to realize that she is alone in the world. The characters, in general, since the writers know going into the season who’s going to die, are not missed as much as the actual actors whom they will no longer be able to see anymore.

Alan says that we will find out what happened to Bill in Episode 1 of Season 3, an announcement which made the audience very pleased.

When told that among fans Evan Rachel Wood is a controversial choice to portray Queen Sophie-Anne Leclerq, Alan wanted to know why people hate her so much. The audience gave a few reasons, but all responded that they are still going to watch the show and buy the DVDs, regardless. Alan assures us that she will be back next season, as will the Newlins. There are also a “boatload” of new characters who will be introduced. Maryann, however, is really dead and will not be back.

Alan says that there will be more conjecture of what Sookie really is in Season 3, and she will get closer to the answer. We will also get closer to an answer for why Sookie is something other than human while her brother Jason isn’t.

During Season 3, the main theme will be that of identity–Who am I? What am I? What do I want to be?

Alan also made it known that Stephen Moyer will not be marginalized. Bill and Sookie may go through some rough patches that will last perhaps longer than Bill fans might like, but in the TV world, they have a connection that will never die, despite the fact that Charlaine had to be talked out of killing Bill off in the last book in the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery series.

The writers don’t feel that much pressure to stick to what happens in the books because they spread the story out among other characters, not just focusing purely on Sookie’s story. That gives the writers much more freedom. They stay true to the spirit of the books, but they are not going to be bound by the novels. They want viewers who’ve read the books to still be surprised.

No weddings will happen in Season 3.  Someone will want one very badly, but that wedding will likely not take place, and the character who wants it to happen is not who we think it’s going to be.

Season 4 will include Eric getting amnesia, but there will be surprises all the same, and the writers don’t really have that much mapped out about the rest of the action in future seasons beyond a basic skeleton. The story can evolve as it’s being told, for example, keeping Lafayette on the show despite the fact that it was contrary to the novel’s plotline. The writers also acknowledge that Eric’s story wants to be told, so we will get to see that evolve.

We will not see Bubba on the show, because there is no way to have Elvis appear on the show without having it look fake, and Alan wants to make sure that the characters are believable.

We will learn more about Nan Flanagan. He loves the contrast between the public face she shows as the spokesperson for vampire rights and the person she truly is when she appears in a more private setting.

The “blood bond” idea from the novels, which happens between a vampire and a human when that human drinks a vampire’s blood, will be featured in the show, and there will be more of Pam in Season 3.

Alan ended up working on True Blood because he couldn’t put Charlaine’s books down and so he pitched the show to HBO. He was completely unaware of Twilight at the time, and it was not a conscious decision to get on some kind of vampire bandwagon. He says that vampires have always been there in our culture. If it’s more than coincidence that so many vampire genre ideas are all popping up at the same time, he has no idea why that is.

The writers all love that Alan does not give them a set expectation for what will happen in each episode, but allows them freedom to be creative and take risks. Once the drafts have been revised and finalized, the person who wrote the script works as a producer during the shooting to be sure that the scenes play the way they intended.

Generally, Alan says that he does not like improvisation of the actors because the writers choose every word on the page for a reason, but Nelsan Ellis as Lafayette really surprised him in the first scene of the pilot, and that scene is the reason he could not kill him off. Sometimes he has to keep him on script, but he loves allowing him more freedom. The AIDS burger scene also really stands out as an amazing moment which caused the crew to burst into spontaneous applause after the first take.

Allan Hyde as Godric is a fan favorite. The end scene with his death was shot partly with green screen, partly on a rooftop as the sun came up and they could only do three takes before they ran out of time to shoot. More than likely, we will see him again in flashback scenes with Eric.

Please be sure to check out the full 55 minute audio of this extraordinary panel discussion.  Click the link, and then scroll down to the audio recording which appears halfway down on right-hand side of the page.

Many thanks to @KitchenBitch on Twitter who graciously provided a link to an audio recording of the event.

SOURCE: TrueBloodTwitter.com

(Photo credit: Kevin Parry / Paley Center for Media)

Inside Look at the Making of True Blood’s Opening Credits

We recently found a video showing a behind the scenes look at the production of the opening credits for True Blood. As the video starts we hear the crew explaining how they came up with the concept for the opening credits. They wanted the feel of a predatory creature watching humans. They also wanted to incorporate the sexiness and violence that goes along with the show. The idea of the credits was to have these feelings and emotions build and build until you felt like you couldn’t take it anymore. The credits were produced in more of a documentary fashion rather than normal film making. All types of different techniques and equipment were used. The church scene that takes place in the credits was actually a last minute shoot taken in Chicago. They cast an actual church and shot the scene in the basement of the church. You also get an inside look into how they shot the final sequence where you see the True Blood title under the blood. It was very inexpensive to create and the crew was extremely proud of how it turned out. This is a neat inside look into one more facet of this amazing show! Enjoy!

True Blood Making of and Featurette from DIGITALKITCHEN on Vimeo.

SOURCE:  Digital Kitchen

VIDEOS: True Blood at the 2009 SCREAM Awards

If you missed watching last night’s Spike TV’s 2009 SCREAM Awards then you missed watching the cast of True Blood walking up the stage and accepting their awards.  Well you almost missed it.  Here are a few clips from last night’s award show as the whole cast was thrilled at winning the awards.  As always they were gracious and showed how much of a close “family” they have all become.  A funny point in one of the videos was when during Alan’s speech a group of women scream “We love you Stephen!” and everybody’s enthusiastic response particularly Anna’s.  It was great to watch the whole cast having so much fun with each other that those few moments helped feed the True Blood withdrawal many are feeling.  Enjoy the videos!  The videos are slow loading so please be patient.

SOURCE: Spike TV

Ask True Blood Writers Questions At Paley

Alan Ball, the creative genius behind the hit HBO vampire series True Blood, along with Raelle Tucker, Alexander Woo, Nancy Oliver, Brian Buckner, Kate Barnow, and Elizabeth Finch will be at the Paley Center For Media for the “Inside the Writers Room: True Blood” panel discussion to be held tomorrow night, October 28 at 7 pm PT.  If you are unable to attend the event here is your chance to have any questions that you are dying to ask Alan Ball and the writers answered, by sending your questions to promo@hbo.com.  They state that they will do their best to have them answered.  So what are you waiting for, start typing away!

SOURCE: @TrueBloodHBO

(Photo credit:  insidesocial.com)

Nathan Barr, Jace Everett, and Gary Calamar Talk About True Blood Sound

The collaborative team behind the amazing music in HBO’s vampire series True Blood will be speaking on October 30th from 12:30-1:15 p.m. as part of the 8th Annual The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard Film and TV Music Conference October 29-30 at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles.

Nathan Barr is the composer for the show, Gary Calamar is True Blood’s music supervisor, and Jace Everett is the singer/songwriter behind the highly acclaimed theme song, “Bad Things“. Moderator for the panel discussion will be Ann Donahue, Senior Editor of Billboard.

According to the conference site:

• Full Registration – 9/12/09 – 10/28/09: $475
• Walk-up – after 10/28/09: $499

Registration also includes a complementary non-deductible 12-month daily subscription to The Hollywood Reporter ($229 value). * New subscribers only / non-transferable.

Special offers for attendees:

• Free trial to the Billboard Digital Edition. Sign-up to receive the Billboard Digital Edition FREE for one month. The Digital Edition is an exact replica of Billboard magazine that is delivered to your inbox or mobile device every week (email address required)
• 6-month subscription to Billboard in print and online for only $99. Receive 6-months of Billboard magazine, plus full online access including daily delivery of the Billboard Bulletin and access to over 150 charts. (Offer for new subscribers only)

Cancellation Policy: No cancellations. Registrations can be transferred or used as a credit to any other Billboard Conference.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard Film and TV Music Conference site

(Photo credit: nachophoto.com)

True Blood Wins at Spike TV’s 2009 Scream Awards

At last night’s 2009 Spike TV Scream Awards, held at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, True Blood took away four awards, including Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton) for Best Male Horror Actor, Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse) for Best Female Horror Actor, Alexander Skarsgård (Eric Northman) for Best Villain, and HBO’s True Blood for Best TV Show.  A full list of all the winners from the event is available at BloodyDisgusting.com.

SCREAM Award winners are chosen by fans, and though the 4th annual awards ceremony will not be broadcast until October 27th on Spike TV, there are some wonderful pictures of the True Blood Scream Team at the event.

Rutina Wesley (Tara Thornton) was absolutely stunning in her little black dress as she walked the red carpet.

There are some great shots of Sam Trammell (Sam Merlotte) on the red carpet before the event.

Alexander Skarsgård accepted his award for Best Villain from his Straw Dogs costar, Kate Bosworth.  The microphone was not built for Vikings, apparently, and there are some very cute photos of him having to fold himself in half during his speech.

Anna Paquin was radiant and beautiful as she accepted her award for Best Horror Actor Female.

Stephen Moyer accepted his award as Best Horror Actor Male, walking with a cane, apparently having done something to his knee.

The entire cast took the stage when True Blood was announced as Best TV Show, and both Alan Ball and Sam Trammell spoke to the audience while the rest of the cast looked on (and occasionally acted up in the background).

SOURCE: Bloodydisgusting.com

(Photo credits: JustJared and AP Photos/Chris Pizzello via TrueBlood-News.com)

Makeup Artist Brigette Ellis Discusses Her Work on True Blood

True Blood’s makeup department has some strange tasks to do, like creating bloody tears for vampires. Lead makeup artist Brigette Ellis, who used to work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even won an Emmy for it, knows how to make a supernatural story come to life through makeup. In an interview with Beauty Blogging Junkie, she lists some of her favorite products for the actors of True Blood and what challenges the show presents.

Brigette loves being a makeup artist because she gets to make people look gorgeous and then mess it all up. Her favorite thing about her job on True Blood is reading the scripts in advance, and working for executive producer Alan Ball. The job does have some more difficult aspects though:

“Staying true-to-universe and making executive decisions about a character’s makeup. For example, though Lafayette typically applies an entire face of drag queen makeup, I wanted his look for his dash to save Tara with Sookie to be realistic. So I made sure to give him very minimal makeup that day to work in some of the backstory–that he didn’t have time to touch up his makeup.”

Brigette has a unique makeup style for each character. Queen Sophie-Anne has a very “period-centric beauty” to her, which Brigette conveyed by giving Evan Rachel Wood perfect red lips. Maryann’s eyes always looked dark and exotic, and the makeup they used was tarte Eye Couture Day-to-Night Eyeshadow Palette. For Jessica, Brigette uses tinted moisturizer and lots of Lip Venom. She takes a different approach to the human characters:

“We keep the humans very bronzed and sweaty (we spray them with water) to serve as a contrast to the vampires who are always cool and collected.”

As for the bloody tears, Brigette says it takes both practical and visual effects. Sometimes she places a red tear in the actor’s eyes, and other times, when more crying is required, the actor cries normally and then they use a computer to graphically color the tears red. She offers up a few specific examples of these techniques:

“When Jessica finds out that she will cry blood tears for the rest of her life–or her existence, rather–she cries a single teardrop. That one, I went in and applied. When Eric was crying about the loss of Godric was also achieved practically. I put the first blood tear into his eyes using a theatrical makeup brand’s product called My Blood. In the scene where Eric is completely devastated and Sookie finds him literally all cried out, we used three layers of blood: a tattoo-like ink, our fresh blood (again, My Blood), and dried blood as well. I’m aware that my job sounds so weird when I explain it like this!”

Those bloody tears on Bill, Eric, and Jessica have been very moving in some of the emotional scenes. It’s so interesting to hear what goes into the makeup on True Blood, which I confess is not one of the elements of the show I’ve ever considered much. But it is definitely an important part!

SOURCE: beautybloggingjunkie.com

(Photo credit: HBO Inc.)

Alan Ball Interviewed by SX News

From Lafayette on True Blood to David Fisher on Six Feet Under, Alan Ball’s work has been very inclusive in portraying gay characters. In an interview with SX News, Alan talked about how his sexuality has affected him in the entertainment business, and what it has been like adapting Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series into the television medium.

Before moving to Hollywood, Alan was writing for theatre in New York, a community in which homosexuality is a non-issue:

“I came from New York, where almost everyone is gay and everyone is politically correct, so my first job in LA was working on a sitcom, and in a sitcom writers’ room everyone is fair game. Everyone. Women, straight men, white people, gays. And those writers can be a little shocking! Words that we’re not supposed to use get used… and I was briefly like, ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?’ “

Since coming out, though, Alan says he doesn’t even think about all that. He just does his work. And the gay community can find stories in his work to relate to, like with the True Blood character of Lafayette Reynolds. The cross-dressing Merlotte’s cook by day and drug dealer/hooker by night was so colorful and funny that fans would have been truly saddened if he had succumbed to the fate written in Charlaine’s books. Luckily, he survived season one and is still alive and well–granted, after dealing with wounds inflicted while imprisoned by Eric, a case of PTSD, and being possessed by Maryann’s influence. Alan attributes his deviation from the books to actor Nelsan Ellis‘ valuable talent in the role of Lafayette:

“I knew the first day that we started shooting with Nelsan and he was improvising, I knew immediately this guy’s gold and I can’t kill him. He’s such a great character that we’ve got to figure out a way for him not to die.”

Lafayette is one of several peripheral characters on the show that have been fleshed out beyond their presence in the books. Rather than being simply from Sookie’s point of view, the world around her and the people in her life had to be developed. Otherwise, Alan says, Anna Paquin would “end up in the hospital” because she would have an unbearable amount of work to do! By this point, with two seasons completed, fans have gotten used to the differences and can hopefully appreciate that the show and the book series have directions of their own.

Alan wasn’t willing to disclose much about True Blood’s third season, which won’t come to our television screens until Summer 2010. He and the writers have already worked through the arc for Season three and begun scripting the first four episodes. All that he would say is that the story will include a boyfriend for Lafayette, werewolves, and the gay vampire king of Mississippi. The wait is agonizing, but we have so much to look forward to!

SOURCE: sxnews.e-p.net.au

(Photo Credit: Metro Weekly)

Alan Ball Participating in Virginia Film Festival

Alan Ball’s work has impacted people in profound ways. The upcoming Virginia Film Festival is celebrating that fact with a screening of American Beauty and a panel discussion for True Blood.

Taking place in Charlottesville, VA, the event will offer 80 films over the weekend of November 5-8. Festival Director Jody Kielbasa describes the inspiration for the line-up this year:

“I think it is really important that the people of this community be exposed to new works they may not be able to see anywhere else. That is true of the extraordinary Rodrigo Garcia film Mother and Child, which features a remarkable cast including the incredible three-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening and the Tony and Emmy Award winning Cherry Jones. At the same time, I always want to choose classic films that still inform us about our own lives and the lives of others around the world.”

Attendees will have the opportunity to experience old favorite films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Some Like It Hot, and be introduced to new movies that showcase the talent of local, national, and international filmmakers.

In honor of its 10th anniversary, American Beauty will be playing at the Culbreth Theatre on Sunday, November 8, at 12pm. This is the film for which Alan Ball won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He will be there to present the movie to the audience.

It is a testament to the popularity and cultural influence of True Blood that the festival will include a panel with Alan to talk about the show. Movies are obviously the focus of an event like this, but given the opportunity to have Alan there, they are screening an episode of True Blood, followed by a discussion with him. This event is scheduled for Sunday, November 8, at 10:30am in the Culbreth Theatre.

Another person from True Blood will have her work presented at the festival, as well. Actress Carrie Preston, who we all know and love as Arlene Fowler, was in a film called That Evening Sun. Based on a short story by William Gay, the movie stars Hal Halbrook as an old Tennessee farmer dealing with loss and disappointment. In addition to Carrie, the supporting cast has Walter Goggins and Ray McKinnon. The screening of That Evening Sun, along with a Q&A with producer Terence Berry, is scheduled for 7pm on Saturday, November 7, at the Regal 3.

For more information about scheduling or tickets, visit the Virginia Film Festival website.

SOURCES:

vafilm.com

thateveningsun.com

(Photo credit: HBO Inc.)

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