Dollhouse, Firefly, Angel, Buffy : news, photos & videos

David Boreanaz - "Buffy & Angel" Tv Series - No Hope For A Reunion - Mtv.com Interview

Webmaster — 2009-09-27T19:30:20Z

David Boreanaz is apparently a major heartbreaker. That's right the "Bones" star has just revealed to MTV News that he doesn't think we'll ever see Buffy and Angel ever again. He hasn't heard plans of a reunion and to make matters even bleaker for Buffy/Angel fans everywhere, he's not sure he's even willing to play the vampire with a soul ever again.

"I don't know. I don't think so. I really don't," he said. "I really don't know [maybe] if it was done in a way that was smart and good and maybe in a lethal way in a film probably but it just wouldn't happen in the television era anymore."

And as much as we love all the new bloodsucking series out there right now, we're blaming them for this reunion's slim to none chances. Thanks for nothing, guys ! "You have so many new shows that are coming out like 'True Blood' and 'The Vampire Diaries,' you have so many different types of those shows it's kind of regenerated itself."

He added that considering how awesome the show was when it first hit the air (and it was AWESOME !), he isn't sure they can go there again. "When Joss [Whedon] created that show it was 1997, it was a fun show to work on. It was a great, great show, great characters and what was very unique about it. It was very groundbreaking for Joss and for a lot of people out there," he said, but added, "So, I don't think I'd revisit that."

Okay, so David threw us a bone (get it ?) and did weigh in on what kind of life Angel would be living these days. And it seems his days of chasing evil and being evil are most certainly behind him. "He'd probably come back as a wine connoisseur kind of guy. Own his own vineyards, walk around make wine, why not ?" he proposed. "Sort of settle down. He's an old guy. I don't think he's going to be coming back."

Always letting us down, Boreanaz !

So, do you hope that the crew will change their minds and get back together one more time ?

Mark Metcalf - "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" Tv Series - Filmsnobbery.com Interview

Webmaster — 2009-06-28T13:03:40Z

Recently we had the fortunate opportunity to contact Mark Metcalf (The Master from Joss Whedon's “Buffy : The Vampire Slayer”). He was nice enough to allow us to ask him a few questions regarding his current and future projects, as well as reminisce about some of his time working on “Buffy”, with a little personal insight added just for flavor. We hope everyone enjoys reading his answers as much as we enjoyed coming up with the questions !

FilmSnobbery.Com : Could you tell us more about your current acting projects ?

Mark Metcalf : I have three films “in the can”. All three are Ultra Low Budget films and may never see the light of day but we do the work and keep our fingers crossed. The one I have the most hope for is called Resurrection Ferns, directed by Tate Bunker, a contemporary Little Red Riding Hood story with me as the Big Bad Wolf. Another, The Adventures of Belvis Bash was directed by Gary Ambrosia and Alex Lvovsky. It's a comedy about a low level rock & roller who does a show recalling Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. I play a Major in the Army who recruits Belvis to play in Afghanistan. The character will remind people of Douglas C. Neidermeyer with a theatre background. The third is called Fort McCoy. It has a good cast including Eric Stolz and Seymour Cassel but I have no idea whether they will be able to finish it.

FS : Do you have a favorite charity you would like to promote ?

MM : I am a Champion for the Alzheimer's Association. I do as much as I can to further the study of, prevention and treatment of the disease.

FS : How was your experience on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” different from your more limited experience on “Angel” ?

MM : I think because Buffy was a new show with nothing but the talent making it to back it up there was more of a hungry and creative feeling about the set. We were in uncharted territory, as it were, and that was stimulating. On Angel there was a little more complacency. I loved working with Julie Benz and I think I had more time with her on Angel but the script just wasn't as edgy.

FS : Could you describe the make-up chair experience for playing the Master on Buffy/Angel ?

MM : At the beginning of the season it took 5 hours to do the make-up because they would apply the mask and then paint it while it was on me. They weren't sure yet what the colors should be so it evolved as the season went on. By the end of the season it was only taking 3 ½ hours because they could paint it ahead of time and then apply it and finish painting it. I used the time to meditate on the character as I watched them grow it on me. I couldn't do anything else because I couldn't talk or have headphones or see or move much at all.

FS : Do you enjoy working the convention circuit, and what is your best experience at a convention ?

MM : There are so many pluses and an equal number of minuses about sitting at a table being friendly and funny and answering similar questions for six to eight hours and being paid for it that I would have to say yes I enjoy it in smallish doses and if the food is good.

FS : Outside of the convention circuit, do you communicate with fans on social networking sites such as Twitter, MYSPACE, or Facebook ?

MM : No I don't. There is an Official Mark Metcalf website managed by a woman down in Texas and I keep her updated on what I am doing but I usually get to it after it is too late. I am more involved in the work than in the celebrity that comes with the work.

FS : What is your favorite memory from any film project you've worked on ?

MM : Each film has a host of memories and it would be unfair to pick a favorite. Besides, if I did that favorite would be different tomorrow or by later tonight. Animal House, because we were younger and essentially virgins at making a film and it was 1977 before people were afraid to do everything spontaneously, probably has the most exciting memories but it would be ungentlemanly of me to go into most of them.

FS : If you were not a professional actor, would alternate career would you choose ?

MM : I would be, and probably should have been, a marine biologist. I can think of nothing better than spending my days up to my waist in a tide pool somewhere around the world.

FS : Since you've done some producing lately, which do you like more : being in front of the camera or being behind the camera ?

MM : I am much more comfortable in front of the camera or on the stage. You kind of have to be and adult when you produce and as an actor you are encouraged to be a child. Not childish but a child in your heart and mind.

FS : If you could choose to be the villain or the good guy, which would you choose and why ?

MM : Villains are more fun to play but since I have played more of them than the other I would like to play the good guy. Maybe I could even get the girl someday and ride off into the sunset. That would be fun. You don't think it's too late do you ?

Joss Whedon - "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" Tv Series - Independent.co.uk Interview

Webmaster — 2009-05-19T19:29:13Z

This year sees the tenth anniversary of Joss Whedon's Buffy The Vampire Slayer first staking its claim to cult status on British TV.

Meanwhile, this week sees Whedon's latest export, Dollhouse, starring Buffy alumni Eliza Dushku, debuting to UK viewers on the SciFi channel. Back in the US the future of Dollhouse beyond the first season is still uncertain, a predicament that has historical echoes for Buffy, a show that, despite becoming a classic of the small screen, had precarious beginnings.

Buffy was the unlikely child of an average 1992 feature film starring Kirsty Swanson and Donald Sutherland as the young high school girl destined to fight vampires and her watcher. Though the film was based on Joss Whedon's script his input was highly compromised and even when the project got a new lease of life on TV from 1997 it was never taken for granted. Speaking to me on the eve of Dollhouse's UK release Whedon explained how uncertainty afflicted him then as now : “We are still yet to hear about Dollhouse but, while we haven't assumed anything, emotionally I have adopted the same mindset we had with Buffy where every year we thought it would be cancelled and so we wrapped everything up but left just enough doors open to do another season.”

While Dollhouse has to wait on fate Buffy literally and metaphorically ‘kicked ass' for seven seasons, blurring the fight between good and evil, building enduring characters up beyond teen angst and doing both with a nod and a wink. In its wake it left many a TV executive on both sides of the Atlantic girding their loins looking for “the new Buffy”. In the UK, Torchwood (in which James Marsters, who plays Spike in Buffy, has appeared), Demons starring Phillip Glenister, and Being Human, are some examples of the attempts made to let creatures of the night roam free and build alternate Scooby gangs (as the hardcore of Buffy, Willow and Xander were known) while another ‘demonic' Brit project worthy of note was the computer-animated BBC series Ghosts of Albion written by Amber Benson, who played Tara, Willow's love interest and ‘honourary Scoob'.

While both British and American TV execs could both agree on their hunger for a similar hit show, I ask Whedon, given his regular exposure to fans of the show at conventions and otherwise, if the appeal of the show was interpreted differently on each side of the Atlantic. He maintains that the core of the show, the “uncertainty, pain and excitement” of teenage years has universal appeal, whether you were at an archetypal high school or not, adding : “I didn't actually go to a traditional high school in America, I went to all male boarding school in England (Whedon spent three years Winchester College making him an Old Wykehamist along with colourful alumni like Lord Alfred ‘Bosie' Douglas and Jack the Ripper suspect, Montague John Druitt) but I had enough experiences in my years beforehand and seen enough John Hughes movies to know what happens in high school.”

The Brit factor in Buffy is unmistakeable and given Whedon's upbringing, hardly surprising. The characters of fatherly slayer mentor Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) and Billy Idolesque vampire Spike infused the show with a very British sense of humour and the heady mix of glamour, martial arts and irreverence echoed that quintessentially English hit show The Avengers. “I watched an enormous amount of British TV growing up including The Avengers” acknowledges Whedon, “but I would say that Emma Peel was less representative of the show than John Steed was, because for me he was the very essence of cool - manifested in Buffy by Giles, though I didn't give him a sword cane like he wanted. The reason for Giles being British was to evoke a traditional sense of horror and contrast it with the American response of ‘I just want to kick it in the face' which at that time we could still do because it was before the Bush administration.”

Buffy's appeal was in part due to crossing so many genres, as well as crossing the Atlantic for inspiration, experimenting with ideas like a silent episode and Broadway musical-style episode, but without the whole ever being less than the sum of its borrowed parts : “I incorporate everything” says Whedon, “the thing about Buffy is that it is a hotch-potch, it's a quilt, I can't not use a scrap of something I have seen, I just want to use all of it, get excited by all of it, shove all of it in the same place.”

The devotion to the patchwork quilt that is Buffy still holds strong as was evident at, what will now looks like a never-to-be-repeated event, the get together at 2008's Paleyfest convention where a significant number of cast and writers gathered to reminisce with fans. Watching it on youtube I witness some of the younger aficionados make “I couldn't have got through my teens without you” speeches that could be dismissed as typically American in their gushiness if it weren't for the genuine note they strike, at least to the sympathetic ear.

There were some notable absences from Paleyfest ; Alyson Hannigan (Willow), Anthony Stewart Head (Giles) and David Boreanaz (Angel) but that Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), Nicholas Brendon (Xander), James Marsters (Spike), Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn), Seth Green (Oz), Emma Caulfield (Anya), Charisma Caprenter (Cordelia), and Amber Benson (Tara) made it to celebrate a show that ended on US TV six years ago was sufficient testimony to its importance and familial vibe. Many cast members do their bit at other conventions both in the US and in the UK, as Whedon acknowledges enviously : “My actors are always doing cons in the UK because they don't have to write all their dialogue like I do, so they have more time than I do. I am constantly whingeing at them because they get to go to them I have to stay home. As for getting that many of us together that were at Paleyfest, honestly, I doubt it will ever happen again.”

It's not just convention appearances en masse that Whedon draws a line under. Occasions such as Paleyfest add fuel to the fire of still-burning questions about a Buffy movie, and a quick glance at the internet shows that speculation is still rife. When asked about the issue Whedon matter-of-factly pours holy water on the eternal flame : “I think it's not going to happen, a reunion movie is extremely far fetched at this point given where everybody is. I think its time to stop the rumours.”

It's important to stress however that Whedon does not take a ‘that was then, this is now' attitude to his creation, he's just sanguine in the face of the commitments of his busy cast. Otherwise, Buffy has never been off the table and still continues in comic book form : “The comics were really ultimately an admission that the story wasn't going to be told again with the actors. If I thought there was some chance that I would want to do more and we could get it together I wouldn't have put it in a comic, I would save it for the screen. Although, I have to say with George Jeanty drawing the comic I might as well be putting on the screen as he has got them down so well.”

The chance of Buffy coming back from off the page was has been lent some credibility, however, as Whedon, a huge fan of musicals, has spoken of putting her on the stage : “The idea of a musical I think is interesting because it is a different way of structuring the story and it could be a lot of fun, but that would be going back to the beginning, an alternate Buffy if you will.”

Whedon, who successfully spun off Angel from the mother ship of Buffy admits that he's “not good at letting go of a story that is still worth telling” adding : “I am good at moving on from things that are finished but if there is juice in a story then I am curious about it. I am a fan of sequels even though they are inevitably awful.”

Whether that would have applied to the prequel project of Ripper, titled after Giles' nickname from his troubled youth, still remains to be seen. The project has been bandied about since Buffy was still in production but has never come to pass for a number of reasons as Whedon outlines to me : “The reason Ripper became problematic besides poor timing, coinciding with other projects, was that it was contractually difficult because the character was part of one company and we wanted to do something with another one. We were discussing doing something in a similar vein and, well, I just want to work with Tony [Head] and shoot in England. It's question of time and Tony isn't exactly sitting by the phone, but we both want to do something together, we enjoy each other enormously and if it was that character it would be great but if it wasn't, well, there's still a lot to be done.”

Doors, it seems, are as open to Whedon's circling projects as they were for characters to return to his shows and age was a barrier that was always put in suspension. As Charisma Carpenter's Cordelia proved, you could be ten to fifteen years late for math but not get a detention, so perhaps Anthony Stewart Head's chances of being an errant youth might not be dead in the water, though they look rather more shallow ten years on with him aged 55.

Of course Whedon hasn't had to rely on Buffy spin-offs for work since and built up another nuclear family with Firefly, that came from his feature film Serenity. Firefly never made it past 14 episodes, though, and now doubt has been cast over the future of Dollhouse it proves that there is no such thing as a track record in TV, something which Whedon has been quoted as saying recently as well as admitting how frustrating that is. A lot of “grrr ?arrgh” you might say, to quote the end credits of Buffy.

Nonetheless, Whedon has not gone all 'evil Willow' on the networks maintaining that there is hope for Dollhouse and it would be a surprise, if, in ten years time, someone wasn't writing a piece about a long-running Whedon project. In the meantime, when Whedon finds himself at an impasse it's tempting to wonder if he ever thinks like his fanbase and asks himself : What would Buffy do ?

Emma Caulfield - "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" Movie - Wpix.com Interview

Webmaster — 2009-05-01T11:29:40Z

Emma Caulfield may be moving on from her "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" roots, but that doesn't mean the former Anya doesn't think about her old sci-fi friends. In fact, during a WPIX interview about Caulfield's latest film "Timer," she reveals that a Buffy reunion film is an idea that has been "circling."

Caulfield goes on to say she keeps in touch with her "Buffy" co-stars and even though her character died in the TV series, "anything is possible" given the fantasy genre of the show. After all, if Buffy can come back from the other side, why can't Anya ? But see the interview for yourself and make up your own mind...

James Marsters - "Spike Spin-Off" Tv Series - He is still up

Webmaster — 2009-04-02T15:23:31Z

Angel's James Marsters still up for Spike spinoff, but he's not getting younger

James Marsters, who played the vampire Spike on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, told SCI FI Wire that a spinoff centering on his character is still a possibility, but the aging actor needs to be sure that lighting and makeup can still make him look like the eternally young vampire.

"Oh, yeah, when Angel was coming down, [creator] Joss [Whedon] came to me and said, 'Do you want to do a Spike project ?'" Marsters said in an exclusive interview on Monday in Beverly Hills, Calif., where he was promoting Dragonball : Evolution. "And I said, 'Heck yes. In fact, whatever you want to do, whether it's Spike or not, wherever I am in the world, just call me. I'll come running. But you have seven years, Joss, because I don't want to do Spike aging. Let's keep him the same age, and I think that I can hold that look for about seven years before it starts to become too different.' Maybe there's a few more years, but at this point, really it would all have to do with a camera test. Can we light my face in such a way that it's still in the same ballpark as what the audience is used to ? If that's possible, then I think that it would be a good thing to do."

Angel wrapped in 2004, and time is running out. "Oh, he's got one more year," Marsters said. "Come on, Joss. I wrote it for him. I gave him the story."

Marsters' plan for Spike is to finally step up and get what he wants. "I would like to see Spike proactively accomplish something for himself, not be a guinea pig or along for the ride, but to actually decide that he needs something and go get it for himself," Marsters said. "That would be nice."

Unfortunately, as it always goes with Buffy, the Spike series would be a tough sell to the networks. "I think that Buffy has always been swimming upstream," Marsters said. "It's always been fighting uphill. It's no different now. You would have to really get behind it and sell it, even if Sarah [Michelle Gellar] were the lead. But asking the powers that be to put their money behind a secondary character of that show, there's just resistance. I think if Sarah wants to come back, I'll jump on behind her again, but I think that's the way there would probably be something else."

Fran Rubel Kuzui - "Buffy The Vampire Slayer"Movie & Tv Series - Japantimes.co.jp Interview

Webmaster — 2009-03-21T08:45:41Z

From box office hit to the serenity of temples

Vampires and yoga seldom appear in the same sentence — except when talking about Fran Rubel Kuzui.

The New York native is known in Hollywood for her role as director of the hit movie "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and as executive producer of its spinoff TV series, but Kuzui's current endeavors are gaining her acclaim in Japan as well.

The sprightly 64-year-old has traded in her Hollywood digs for a UNESCO World Heritage site in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, and replaced her director's chair with a yoga mat.

Escaping Tokyo's rush, Kuzui and her husband, Kaz Kuzui, divide their time between Tokyo's fast pace and a much slower one in Nikko. It was in Nikko that they came upon another sacred site, perfect for their company EcoNikko and a yoga studio within an ancient Buddhist temple.

The temple and surrounding grounds had been left in a state of disarray. Rotten floors and a garden engulfed by bramble hid the temple's charm. But the Kuzuis and business partner Dominica Serigano saw past the mess and decided the location would be perfect for EcoNikko's vision.

"We started EcoNikko to create a place where people could come and renew and rejuvenate their body, mind, and spirit. I had been looking for something like this myself in Japan. But I could never find the kind of place that was open and free of restrictions."

Kuzui refers to the venture as her "karma yoga" project, and helps run the business without focusing on making a profit. The yogic undertaking is not entirely out of character. Yoga has played a role in Kuzui's life since her college days and throughout her career.

The self-proclaimed "city girl" grew up in New York, attended college there, and completed a degree in television and a masters in film at New York University in the late '60s.

"I graduated at a time when film was coming into its own and the NYU School of the Arts was just forming," says Kuzui. "Martin Scorsese was just graduating when I entered the school and Francis Ford Coppola was always hanging around."

Despite the abundance of talent coming out of the school, the role women were to play within the film industry was still not clear. And although Kuzui knew where she wanted to go, getting there was another matter.

"When I was in film school there was never any discussion about female students becoming directors." Within her graduating class there were only three other women (two became script supervisors and the other became a writer.) "In my heart I always wanted to be a director, but as I've said, when I was in school it was never anything that women thought they could do."

Kuzui got her first break as an undergraduate when a public broadcasting service in New York picked up a script she had written. "I was hired because they bought my script. They immediately assigned me to a project and within three weeks I was an associate producer at the National Education Television station."

A year later, Kuzui was given the chance to run the New York Film Unit of Encyclopedia Britannica to produce educational films. "I was running the company by the time I was 25," she says.

"When they closed the unit I met a woman who agreed to train me to be a script supervisor. This was my entry into making feature films and I jumped at it."

Her new career path eventually led her to her husband, also within the movie business. Their first meeting Kuzui looks back at using the cliche "love at first sight" to describe. "Our story almost sounds like a corny movie.

"Kaz came to New York to make a Japanese film called "Proof of the Man." I was hired as part of the U.S. film crew and Kaz was the first assistant director."

They met in the production office, had their first date a week later and have been together ever since. "I always joke that Kaz didn't speak very good English at that point and by the time his English got better we were already married."

Her partner was what brought her to her second home, Japan, and was a driving force behind her realizing her director vision.

"One day Kaz brought me to a hotel, checked me in and told me not to come home until I had finished the screenplay I had been dreaming of writing," recalls Kuzui.

"It was a very long week but I finished 'Tokyo Pop' that way. He told me that he didn't think he could live with me for the rest of my life if I didn't try to make a film.

"So we made 'Tokyo Pop' and I had the career I had always wanted."

The tale seemed fitting for her at the time — a story about an American woman trying to understand Japanese youth culture and falling in love with a Japanese man.

The critically acclaimed film debuted in 1988, four years prior to her "Buffy" break.

The first film and the others that followed helped her "to earn money by being myself," something she says she has wanted to do ever since she was a child.

When she came across the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" script she saw the deeper idea of being yourself reflected in its leading character. "It's very hard to escape from who you are," Kuzui says, referring to the concept of one's life path.

"When we're in high school we have some idea of who we are and what we should be doing, but most kids run away from their hopes and desires. Sticking with that dream is the important thing."

"Buffy" went from movie to TV series and was aired around the world from 1997-2003. The gutsy blond slayer was a hit with women (though most don't know that she wasn't always so tough.)

"The original script of 'Buffy' was pretty simple. She was a cheerleader who killed vampires. There were no martial arts and she was a very passive, uninspired girl." Kuzui recalls.

"At the time I was hanging out with Hong Kong martial arts director John Woo and was very impressed by him. I was also a huge fan of Sailor Moon because she was so empowered."

Kuzui wanted to bring Sailor Moon's traits and martial arts skills to the character. "The writer, Joss Whedon, loved the idea, so we set out to rewrite the script." The movie was picked up by a studio within three weeks of the revised script's completion.

"Kaz and I were in Hawaii when Joe Wroth at 20th Century Fox called me and said he wanted to make the movie. He asked me to get back to L.A. as soon as possible. When I got on the plane I noticed that the pilot of the big jumbo jet was a woman," Kuzui remembers.

"It actually entered my head that here I was getting my big break and now I was on a plane with a female pilot, and I hoped we didn't crash.

"It was a stunning moment when I realized we have all these prejudices . . . It's a question of overcoming them ourselves."

Kuzui, then soon to be a well-known woman within the movie business, learned a lot from the experience. "When I find someone treating me differently because I'm a woman — in any situation — I remind myself that it's only a question of their mind and I need to make room for them to change."

Kuzui's career in Japan's foreign film industry has also progressed over the years. In the 1980s nobody in Japan wanted to release the band Talking Heads' concert film "Stop Making Sense," so Kuzui and her partner started Kuzui Enterprises, a Tokyo-based film distribution company.

"We rented a theater and showed the film. It was so successful that people kept asking when the next film would be. I asked my friends in New York if we could distribute their films and Kuzui Enterprises started to flourish."

The operation allowed Kuzui to show films by directors that she and her husband liked and to bring the directors to Japan and "hang out." But when things stopped being fun, the duo slowed the business down. "It's all corporate now and very much bottom-line orientated. We only distribute the films in our library now."

With extra time Kuzui has come back to parts of her life that during her busy schedule were sometimes put to the side — like her Hatha yoga practice. "I've gone years without practicing and then come back to it. If you stop, then muscle memory will always bring you back."

Kuzui believes, "All yoga brings you close to the truth, whether it's body alignment, thinking or breathing. So when you stray from it you can always go back to it."

Kuzui now divides her time between Japan and America and goes wherever her latest project takes her. Her efforts are focused on helping others as she see this time of her life as her time to give back.

"These are very challenging times for everyone. I know I can't save the world or even make a large difference, but it's completely possible to make a small difference."

Joss Whedon - Whedonverse Secrets - Tvguide.com Video Interview

Webmaster — 2009-02-18T22:08:11Z

David Fury - "Buffy & Angel" Tv Series - Buffyfest.blogspot.com Interview

Webmaster — 2009-01-23T22:27:31Z

(...)

Buffyfest : You wrote for the Buffyverse for seven seasons. What do you consider to be Buffy's finest moment as a character ? How about Angel's ?

DF : There are so many fine moments for both characters - Anytime Buffy and Angel looked past their personal pains and issues, and embraced their heroic destinies, either through action or sacrifice, were always great and powerful.

Buffyfest : Where do you see Buffy when she's 50 years old ?

DF : Snuggled up in bed next to me. Heh heh. See ? 'Cause, I'm not gay. Would a gay man say that ? I don't think so.

Anyway, I leave it up to Joss to imagine B's future.

Buffyfest : You wrote "Awakening", which ends on a scene of Angel making love to Cordelia (with his eyes closed the entire time). As he loses his soul he cries out "Buffy !" Some fans concluded he was actually imagining he was with her, while others believe he was saying it simply out of fear or that you were just echoing "Surprise". What was your actual intention ?

DF : Wow... That was, like, fifty years ago, so it's difficult to remember. I'm gonna go with answer B. Or C. I think it was more of a sense memory thing, rather than imagining he was with Buffy.

Buffyfest : Was it difficult writing the fight between Spike and Angel in "Destiny", especially having Spike win, knowing the fans tend to have such strong opinions on the Spike versus Angel issue ?

DF : Truthfully, Steve DeKnight wrote most of the fight in "Destiny" (off my outline). Originally, Angel won the fight (y'know, 'cause show called ANGEL), but as I was scripting the first couple of Acts, I realized it HAD to be Spike in the end. I called up Steve who was writing the later acts to tell him of my brilliant revelation Then we had our own big fight over it. You can hear about it on the commentary for the episode. Suffice it to say, Steve kicked my ass.

Buffyfest : You also hold the crown of being the only person other than Joss to write a season finale for Buffy, "Grave". Did you feel extra pressure to write a killer finale since that season was so controversial and divided in fan reaction ?

DF : I felt a great responsibility, but not really pressure. Joss and Marti were very involved with the story break so I just did my best not to screw it up. I knew it was a terrific honor.

Buffyfest : How did it make you feel to write and direct the send off of both Cordelia and Charisma Carpenter from the series in "You're Welcome" ? Did you have a similar feeling while writing "Parting Gifts", which followed Doyle's death ?

DF : "You're Welcome" was another great honor thrust upon me. This one I felt a bit more pressure for... It took a lot of last minute writing from everyone, including Joss, to give the 100th episode the weight it deserved — not the least of which, to give Charisma a send off that was respectful to her and Cordelia Chase. I was very proud to have my name on it.

"Parting Gifts" didn't have the same weight, since Doyle had died in the prior episode. The fun part was introducing Wesley into this world.

(...)

Click on the link for more :

http://buffyfest.blogspot.com/2009/01/exclusive-interview-david-fury-is-not.html

Clinton McClung - "Buffy & Dr. Horrible" Sing-alongs - Buffyfest.blogspot.com Interview 1

Webmaster — 2008-12-19T17:32:29Z

In case you've been living under a rock, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog will be getting the actual Sing-along treatment at New York's Paley Center this Friday at 7:30 PM. Who better to host the event than Buffy Sing-along founder, Clinton McClung ? Buffyfest had the good fortune to interview Mr. McClung a scant few days before the festivities begin.

Buffyfest : Let's recap - we here at Buffyfest were devastated when the awesome Buffy Sing-along came to an end. Can you tell us anything now about the rights issue that caused that tragedy ?

Clinton McClung : Unfortunately, most of what went down was between Fox and the Screen Actor's Guild, and I wasn't privy to any of the specifics. But, from what I've gleaned, the popularity of the Buffy Sing Along lead SAG to investigate the theatrical screenings, and they didn't think they were being appropriately compensated by Fox for that revenue. With potential strikes looming, and other business issues to deal with, Fox decided to simply pull the rights for doing our shows (and all other television programs that were being presented in cinemas for admission, like Firefly and Family Guy) so as to avoid a potential legal fight.

Buffyfest : We were actually at the Sing-along at the IFC center when MTV was there covering it. The show got so much publicity and fame, how was that for you ?

CM : It was insanely fast. I didn't have any grand scheme to start doing Buffy shows full time, it was just a fun hobby. And then I got sucked up on this crazy roller coaster ride. The MTV piece lead to more exposure and more media coverage, and within a month I had theatres all over the country contacting me because they wanted to do a sing along. Since I had done some theatrical booking in the past, I had those contacts and was able to make the show happen in more places than just New York. I spent the summer traveling the country and meeting other Buffy fans, and every single show was so filled with this feeling of camaraderie and love, it was really incredible.

As for personal fame, that really wasn't a factor. The show wasn't about me at all, I was just the one who happened to be getting it started. When I would promote the show I would always use "we", because I didn't make it happen by myself. It is a sing along, and without the audience participating and being excited and really getting into it, the screenings would have been kind of "blah". Plus, I had the NYC cast that were all volunteers, and Buffy fans in pretty much every city who helped with the shows.

(...)

Click on the link for more :

http://buffyfest.blogspot.com/2008/12/clinton-mcclung-talks-dr-horrible-and.html

Joss Whedon - "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" Tv Series - Vampiresandslayers.ning.com Interview

Webmaster — 2008-11-16T19:16:07Z

Click on the link :

http://vampiresandslayers.ning.com/profiles/blogs/from-the-audio-archives-joss