— For the creators of Fox’s most famous show, it’s not so much “Glee”
as it is “Grit.” Essentially the cast and crew of the enormously
popular series are able to conjure a movie musical in just one week.
Anyone who’s experienced dance, music or acting
rehearsals knows that schedule seems impossible. The show makers agree
there’s jaw-clenching pressure to get the job done.
“Every episode is eight days,” says costume designer
“And we get a script three, four days into it, so we basically have
four days of prep and then start shooting, and then catch up a little
bit in the next few days.”
Music director
prepares the music, but also orchestrates it, another gargantuan job.
“I think this is the most civil you will ever see us because we are
always fighting for time,” he says. “We never have enough time, of
course. But you gotta make it work.”
Anders labors an episode ahead of the others. “When
they’re shooting, the music has to be done,” he says. He works with a
partner in
‘Do you want this to be a kind of ode to the original? Do you want a
reinvention? What are we looking for here?’ We’re trying to serve the
story, and we go from there.
“But, my whole thing is to kind of straddle the
fence between what ‘Glee’ is — the inspiration and everything — and not
going cheesy. And that’s kind of what I’m always trying to do. Because
it’s a little bit of camp, but we never go too far. So when I do go too
far, that’s the stuff you never hear.”
Choreographer
Murphy (who created and executive produced
“Nip/Tuck”) says he was naive when “Glee” began. “We didn’t know what
we were doing when we started. We were kind of making it up as we went
along. But the one thing that really clicked for me is when we went on
tour, which was instantly sold out, which was amazing, and all the kids
were there, and they would come out. Some of them would have two lines,
three lines, and they got these huge ovations, and they had their sort
of mini fan clubs.
“And I felt instead of going bigger and overstuffing
Season 2, which I think people would expect us to do, let’s go under
it. Let’s really sort of dwell on a lot of these supporting characters
like the Santana character, the Brittany character and the Mike Chang
character and the Tina character. So we’re giving all those actors big
storylines this year because I think people want to know about them,”
he says.
“And last year because we were with (“American)
Idol” in the second half of the season, I personally kind of blew it
out. Like that Madonna episode had nine numbers, which was insane. So
we’re scaling back a little bit and concentrating a little more on the
stories, and now I think we’re going to do five or six songs, but
that’s just because I thought we were learning as we went.”
Eyrich has the task of creating both the high school
garb for the kids, as well as the fantastic costumes for the musical
numbers. “It’s a dream job. I love my job,” she says.
“It’s incredibly chaotic. Some days you will hear me
screaming through the halls ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and I come back
loving it again. It’s really almost more of a challenge for me to dress
them as regular high school kids than it is to create the fun, crazy
costumes, to stay true to the reality, to keep them young-looking, and
to make people want to watch the show and be inspired by it.”
When Murphy and co-creator
“Election.” “I think high school shows work, and I think college shows
do not, because I think high school shows are about firsts: first love,
first kiss, first fights,” says Murphy.
“And one of the concepts of the show is when you are
in a high school, at moments I think it feels like a suddenly bright
light, spotlight hits you, and you feel very exposed, which is sort of
a hyper-surreal place, so I think with that in mind, that’s why we do
some of those moments.”
Now that “Glee’s such a hit, Murphy says songwriters
are eager to have their work featured on the show. One such plea
arrived unannounced. “It was in a package and it was sort of
handwritten and it was two CDs and it said, ‘Hi, Ryan. I hope you would
consider some of these songs for “Glee,” and then it said ‘Paul’
(McCartney).’And I opened it up and I think that it was ‘Michelle’ and
it had these huge songs … I was gobsmacked. I grew up with that guy.
So, of course, we are going to do something with — I don’t think a
whole episode, but something with him.”
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Some of us have weird ideas about beauty — what aids
it and what takes it away. Style Network is going to pursue that
curiosity with its new show, “Plastic Makes Perfect,” which will
include some hidden-camera observations about beauty beliefs and
follows one person who took the low-road and submitted to cosmetic
surgery. There’s the aging model, the imperfect bride, the recent
divorcee — all of whom take to the blade in the hopes of perfecting
their lives.
———
All those people who were lost with “Lost” can catch up with the “Lost Encyclopedia” by
Find out the truth about the plotlines, the locations, the myths, the
relationships for all six confusing seasons. Now on sale for
explains why he thinks “Lost” was so popular. “I think it’s different
from other shows. It’s not the tenth iteration of a law show or a
medical show … I think there’s this sort of knee-jerk assumption that
television needs to have sort of a lowest-common-denominator appeal,
and we reject that. And I think that we couldn’t be more appreciative
of the fact that people like the fact that the storytelling is
complicated and that you have to kind of sit forward to watch ‘Lost.’
And I think there aren’t a lot of shows that are in that category …”
———
It’s a new talk show debuting
Wow! Letterman should be so lucky. But this time the hosts are a pair
of stepbrothers known to everyone under 9 years old. Phineas and Ferb
are emceeing this revolutionary animated/live-action show which allows
its guests two minutes to be funnier and brighter than they ever were
on “The Larry Sanders Show.” “Take Two with Phineas and Ferb” airs on
the Disney Channel and also on Disney XD. Heeeeeeere’s Phineas and Ferb!
———
(c) 2010, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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