SciFiAndTvTalk

The Sci Fi Channel Showcases Its Top Talent In " House Of Imagination "

AS part of the Sci Fi Channel's brand evolution to Syfy on July 7th, a refresh of the look and feel of Syfy will be reflected in a ground-breaking two-minute brand film House of Imagination, which celebrates Syfy's unique spin on imagination. Talent participating in order of appearance are: Amanda Tapping and Robin Dunne (Sanctuary); Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Jordan Hinson and Neil Grayston (Eureka); Lou Diamond Phillips (Stargate Universe); Josh Gates (Destination Truth); Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson (Ghost Hunters); Tracy Morgan (Scare Tactics); Eddie McClintock, Joanne Kelly and Saul Rubinek (Warehouse 13) and Alessandra Torresani (Caprica). Link to video - http://www.syfy.com/imaginegreater/ The film invites viewers into a celebratory house party populated with rooms inspired by the Channel's original programs and characters. Goldfrapp's "Happiness" provides the soundtrack for the trip through the never-ending house where anything can and does happen in each one-of-a-kind room. Through high concept visual storytelling, each scene fuses a bold complement of visual effects with practical set design. "House of Imagination" was designed to be modularly deconstructed into a dynamic, long-running campaign of 10 and 5-second network identifications. The experience will extend digitally into Syfy.com/ImagineGreater beginning July 7th, where visitors will have a rich, fully-interactive and immersive experience as guests at the house party. They will be able to explore parallax rooms and discover exclusive content including games, behind-the-scenes and making-of-footage, cast interviews, downloadable wallpaper and much more. Said Michael Engleman, Vice President, Creative @ Syfy and the key architect behind the brand film - "Coming off the most successful year in our 16-year history, we wanted to create a brand film that both celebrates the genre and also feels human, relatable , and wildly creative, highlighting the wide array of casts and characters who inhabit Syfy's ever-broadening programming landscape. Through this unique creative collaboration we're honoring and embracing a powerful global brand with deep roots in the popular culture." House of Imagination is produced and directed by the award-winning UK-based 4Creative team led by director Brett Foraker, who was joined specifically for this project, by Larry Fong (Director of Photography - Watchman, 300) and Tino Schaedler (Production Designer - Charlies and the Chocolate Factory, V for Vendetta, The Golden Compass) with visual effects by MPC (Watchman, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix).

The Warehouse Job

LAST week, the Sci Fi Channel announced that a number of very familiar names and faces will be guest-starring on its new one-hour dramdy adventure series Warehouse 13. Premiering on Tuesday, July 7th @9pm EST, the program follows two Secret Service agents who find themselves abruptly transferred to a massive, top-secret storage facility in windswept South Dakota, which is home to every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government. The Warehouse's caretaker Artie (Saul Rubinek) charges Pete (Eddie McClintock) and Myka (Joanne Kelly) with chasing down reports of supernatural and paranormal activity in search of new objects to cache at the Warehouse, as well as helping him to control the warehouse itself. Some of the annouced guest-stars include: Ivan Sergei (Crossing Jordan, Charmed) plays Ross, an EMT from Unionville, New York who, along with some of the other townspeople begin to display bizarre behavioral symptoms, including involuntary (and potentially dangerous) expressions of their subconscious desires. Tricia Helfer  (Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice) plays FBI Agent Bonnie Belski, who clashes with Pete and Myka when they interfere with a case on her Chicago turf. However, after a third inexplicable bank takeover, she finds herself willing to make use of the agents' expertise. Joe Flanigan (Stargate Atlantis, First Monday) portrays the handsome, wealthy Jeff Weaver, whose charm catches Myka's interest, but he finds himself under her and Pete's scrutiny when a sculpture on which he bid, vanishes in an impossible heist. James Naughton (Ally McBeal, Gossip Girl, Planet of the Apes) is Gilbert Radburn, a well-tailored, Donald Trump-esque high-profile entrepreneur. When a competitor threatens his intended acquisition, Radburn's suspicious behavior attracts the attention of Pete and Myka. Roger Rees (Cheers, The West Wing) plays MacPherson, one of Artie's former Warehouse colleagues who has gone rogue and is now competing with the team to gather dangerous and powerful objects for his own use. Erica Cerra (Eureka, The L Word, Battlestar Galactica) and Niall Matter (Eureka, Watchmen) portray Jillian and Gary Whitman, small-time thieves on the Las Vegas strip whose fortunes, twisted by the strange power of a luck-inducing artifact, take a fantastic turn. Joe Morton (Eureka, Terminator 2) guest-stars as John Hill, a charismatic prison inmate and an extremist religious leader in a Florida prison. Michael Hogan (Battlestar Galactica, The L Word) plays Myka's father Warren Bering, who receives a dangerous object anonymously in the mail which puts his life in jeopardy.

The Summer of Sci-Fi (and Syfy)

This summer, the Sci Fi Channel (which becomes Syfy on July 7th), will be airing all-new original programing sure to satisfy even the more discerning Sci-Fi lover out there. Following a Memorial Day Land of the Lost marathon is the 13-part Warehouse 13, which debuts with a two-hour pilot on July 7th @ 9-11pm EST/PST. As described in an earlier blog entry at this site, the series follows the adventures of two Secret Service agents who find themselves abruptly transferred to a massive, top-secret storage facility in South Dakota which is a scientific treasure trove filled with every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government. The caretaker of the warehouse, Artie (Saul Rubinek), charges Pete (Eddie McClintock) and Myka (Joanne Kelly) with chasing down reports of supernatural and paranormal activity in search of new objects to add to the warehouse, not to mention helping him control the warehouse itself. CCH Pounder guest-stars as Artie's boss Mrs. Federic, along with Allison Scagliotti as Claudia Donovan, a young, hip, brilliant techno-whiz. The much-loved Eureka returns with 10 new episodes starting Friday, July 10th @ 9pm EST/PST. When we last saw Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson), he had been removed by the government from his job as the town's sheriff, and Allison (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) announcing that she is expecting her recently-deceased husband's baby. At home, Carter faces some challenging decisions regarding his relationship with his daughter Zoe (Jordan Hinson), while he is also given a new love interest when Dr. Tess Fontana (Jaime Rae Newman) arrives in Eureka to supervise the re-opening of Global Dynamics' infamous Section 5. On July 8th @ 9pm EST/PST, Sci Fi's hit fledgling reality series Ghost Hunters International makes its second season debut with six new episodes that take its team of investigators to Austria, Ireland, Italy, Chile, Argentina and the Czech Republic in search of paranormal activity. And in August, the channel's original "ghostbusters," Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, return with their Ghost Hunters team to check out ghostly happenings on this side of the pond. Sandwiched between all the above will not only be Sci Fi's traditional Independence Day Twilight Zone marathon (running from Thursday, July 2nd through Saturday, July 4th), but also the original movies Malibu Shark Attack (starring Peta Wilson from La Femme Nikita), High Plains Invaders (starring James Marsters of Torchwood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel), Hellhounds (directed by Rick Schroeder) and Sand Serpents (starring Jason Gedrick from Desperate Housewives).

Making It So!

Hello! If you're reading this I'm guessing you're a Sci-Fi fan, TV fan, family member, friend, interested bystander or some combination. Whatever the case, welcome! I've been planning this blog for about a month and have finally "taken the plunge," so to speak. Having written for most of my life and spent the past 12 years working full-time as a free-lance journalist, I'm looking forward to using this blog as yet another venue to pass on news tidbits (mostly TV Sci-Fi related but occasionally film news as well) to its readers along with feature interviews with actors, actresses and behind-the-scenes talent (again, mostly Sci-Fi related, but when possible I'll also feature more mainstream TV interviewees). Hopefully my news and interviews will be of interest to some if not, on occasion, all of you who are taking the time to check in. Again, I'm new at this so let me know how I'm doing. If you have any interview requests let me know that, too. I can't promise I can bring you an interview with that person, but if it's possible for me to do so, I'll definitely give it a shot. Some of the initial interviews I'll be posting will be with members of the cast and/or crew from such TV shows as Stargate Atlantis, Medium, Heroes, Sanctuary, Battlestar Galactica and CSI: Miami (told you there would be a bit of mainstream coverage). In the future I hope to feature the occasional Q & A with some of your Sci-Fi and TV favorites. NEWS: This week saw the passing of actor Andy Hallett, best known for his portrayal of the green-skinned, red-horned, karaoke-singing good-guy demon Lorne on Angel. I had the pleasure of interviewing Andy a few years back when he was still appearing in Angel and I found him to be an engaging, witty, self-deprecating and down-to-earth human being. He shall be missed. LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!: Stargate Universe continues to shoot its inaugural season in Vancouver, British Columbia, while Sanctuary has just begun production on its second season, and Smallville will soon wrap filming of its eighth season. Also shooting in Vancouver are pilots for V (a remake of the 1983 miniseries/1984/85 TV series)  and The Vampire Diaries. Work also continues on a new Sci-Fi series called Defying Gravity which stars Ron Livingston (Band of Brothers), Laura Harris (Dead Like Me) and Christina Cox (Blood Ties) whose characters are part of an 8-member team of astronauts involved in a six-year international space mission where all is not as it seems. BBC AMERICA: Fans of Captain Jack Harkness and the Torchwood crew can look forward to seeing a brand-new, action-packed, five-night epic tale entitled Torchwood: Children of Earth later this year on BBC America. I had the chance to visit Cardiff, Wales (where Torchwood and Doctor Who are shot) last October and, in addition to taking in the city sites, enjoyed seeing many familiar Torchwood (and Who) locales, including a large collection of charred debris that is prominently featured in Children of Earth. Besides Torchwood, BBC America viewers can look forward to seeing later this year a new season of Primeval along with premieres of Being Human and Survivors. Being Human follows the lives of three twentysomethings and their alter egos - a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost - while Survivors, a remake of the 1970s BBC series, is the apocalyptic tale of our world after a virus wipes out 99% of the human race. PROGRAM NOTE: If you haven't caught the Life on Mars sequel Ashes to Ashes, make sure to tune in to the Ashes to Ashes Totally '80s Sunday on April 5th, 2009 starting at 3pm. ET/PT. THE SCI FI CHANNEL (soon to be Syfy): Production continues in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on Warehouse 13, which focuses on two U.S. Secret Service agents reassigned to a massive, top-secret storage facility in South Dakota called Warehouse 13 that is home to a variety of strange objects paranormal or extraterrestrial in nature. The series stars Eddie McClintock (Bones), Joanna Kelly (The Dresden Files) and Saul Rubinek (Blind Justice) and is scheduled for a July 2009 debut. Sci Fi also recently announced its collaboration once again with RHI Entertainment on three new 4-hour TV movie events, Alice, The Phantom and Riverworld, the latter of which has just begun filming in Vancouver, B.C. Steve Eramo