Archived from the Eat The Corn Facebook page.
Mar 06, 2023 17:00
A rare interview with the recently deceased Jeff Vlaming, who wrote on #TheXFiles season 3, from 2021. The whole thing is great if you’re interested in TV writers’ careers, and he is very passionate! But if you want the TXF highlights you definitely have to watch from minute 22 to see how he got hired, with a handcrafted alien in a test tube that got Carter’s attention! (he even shows his own sketches of this on camera!) Also, these interesting and revealing bits (around 31′ and 39′):
On the way scripts were written:
There was no writers’ room in X-Files. We had our own respective offices. What you do is you come up with your idea on a bulletin board with cards, and then when you wanted to pitch it you pitch to Chris exclusively, Chris Carter would be your audience. Unfortunately Chris’s office was about a block from the writers’ offices we were in, so you’d carry bulletin boards with cards tacked on with tacks and you’re hoping against hope that it wasn’t raining or windy because you had to go a block outside to set up in Chris’s office and pitch to him. The writers all were accessible to each other and so you’d run ideas past them, individually or as a group, but there was no room. Chris was sort of the the hearing and all opinion on this, and so he’d give you notes and stuff like that, which was good. I think that helped to sort of stick with his sort of vision of the series that i think made it succeed so well.” [No writers’ room confirmed! This helped individual voices, and it all went through Carter for that extra layer of rewriting to give the whole thing coherence. Carter ran a tight ship.]
On why he had to leave after one year on staff:
“I sort of had to make a choice because this group was very much, you know, would work late into the night, would have some scotch, maybe smoke some cigars and it’s just like — first I didn’t drink scotch and I didn’t smoke cigars — but yeah I’m happy to be part of the team and wanted to be part of the team, but I was a brand new dad and that was the most important thing right then.” [Sounds like an exclusive gentlemens’ club! Doesn’t sound like a place for people with families or for women. I wonder what Kim Newton has to say about that.]
From @[100063644167284:2048:TV Writer Podcast]: https://tvwriterpodcast.podbean.com/e/118-jeff-vlaming/
Also on YouTube:
Mar 07, 2023 10:33
Let the #TheXFiles 30th anniversary festivities begin! Pilot, March 7, Mulder & Scully enter the town of Bellefleur, Oregon. (Apologies for the BluRay font that messed up the original.) But wait, is it 1993 or 1992?
Mar 08, 2023 16:00
One of the rare interviews with the extraordinary director Rob Bowman. I love listening to this man! There’s a guy who helped shape #TheXFiles look and feel, beginning from GenderBender in season 1 and into him directing the “Fight the Future” film and all the way to season 7. He was all about the work, the definition of bringing the quality of cinema to television. He describes here how he was bored with making interviews back then because they took time away from shooting, so it’s great to have him ramble on on this today. I especially liked hearing him talk about how Chris Carter or Frank Spotnitz would hint to him that it’s OK to go over budget on specific episodes because the quality of the result would sell itself. And about “Memento Mori”, how he initially thought the script was going to be too much soap opera with tears and violins, but it worked out great. He is even keen to do more TXF if the opportunity arises (and he even teases that there’s one issue preventing Chris Carter from doing more, I suppose he means Gillian Anderson’s reluctance but it could be something else).
Mar 12, 2023 20:00
Waiting to hear more about how advanced Carter and Fox/Disney are in the talks about a #TheXFiles reboot. Carter mentioned the possibility before in 2022, but in a manner that meant that he was not taking the idea seriously. This just in from science advisor Anne Simon:
“Chris Carter just said on a Q &A at the London Science Museum screening of episode 1 that Fox has contacted him about a reboot of the #TheXFiles with a diverse cast! I’d be so happy if this happens!”
https://www.twitter.com/Annealiz1/status/1634941007472238594
H/T Adam Silva for spotting this.
Edit: more context from other sources in social media who were there at the event (which I hope was recorded and we will see it eventually!):
“He said he’s willing to do one, and he’s been in preliminary talks with fox. He also said he had more stories to tell about the mythology and Scully’s pregnancy” [again the pregnancy? I’m out!]
“he reiterated that he personally couldn’t see a future of The X-Files without Mulder and Scully, but said that Disney/Fox had their own plans for that future. He said Fox had been on the phone to talk about a reboot with a “more diverse” cast. Essentially he was implying that a series without Mulder & Scully is in the works, but “in the works” could mean anything” [so this is coherent with what Carter said in 2022: he hopes that if more TXF happens it will be with M&S, but Fox/Disney have other plans because GA is reluctant and to bring TXF to a younger generation. Not clear to what extent Carter, most likely co-owner of the TXF IP, can completely veto Fox/Disney decisions.]
Mar 16, 2023 9:54
[FRENCH] #TheXFiles La saison 5! La première saison qui a commencé à décevoir une partie considérable des fans de la première heure. Vu la qualité de la photographie et la qualité de nombreux scripts, comment est-ce possible direz-vous ? Et pourtant, il y a beaucoup à dire, la preuve ce podcast dure presque 4 heures et je vais mettre un moment pour l’écouter en entier !…
https://podcast.ausha.co/le-coin-pop/the-x-files-saison-5-resister-ou-servir
Mar 28, 2023 19:55
Things get more specific! Chris Carter talks about shooting #TheXFiles in Vancouver (some nice trivia here!) and repeats that there are attempts to do a new reimagined version of the show:
“I just spoke to a young man, Ryan Coogler, who is going to remount The X-Files with a diverse cast. So he’s got his work cut out for him, because we covered so much territory.”
Ryan Coogler, born 1986 (!), wrote and directed the first Creed and the two Black Panther films.
I’m quite phlegmatic about this. The way the modern entertainment industry centers around ‘content’ and ‘brands’, this was going to happen sooner or later. I will follow what happens, but don’t think I will be the target audience for this — not at all because of the ‘diverse’ part but because I don’t see much creativity and risk-taking in *most* modern genre TV — plus I will have no emotional attachment to a product that doesn’t feature the Carter/Duchovny/Anderson combination. Who knows? Let’s say it’s an uphill battle.
Plus, more from that interview:
Carter’s first visit in Vancouver was in 1986, when his wife was shooting something in the forests there, those forests that would be so much useful to the show.
Lots of love for Vancouver, its people, the crew there, the mood because of the weather: “I owe it all to Vancouver”.
Mar 29, 2023 00:25
#TheXFiles animated project “Albuquerque”, rumored in 2020, is no more. (After having seen some of the similarly-sounding Star Trek: Lower Decks, maybe that’s not a bad idea.)
But also this bit, in relation with today’s other news about Ryan Coogler developing a revamped TXF: “TVLine has learned, however, that Coogler’s X-Files would not be for Fox.” I’m not sure what this means. Disney owns Fox, TXF is (most likely) co-owned by Fox and Ten Thirteen. So, does this mean that this new project is for Disney+ directly, or something to that effect?
https://tvline.com/2023/03/28/the-x-files-albuquerque-cancelled-fox-animated-series-spinoff/
*Edit: this from Variety clarifies that, under Diney restructuring, Fox and 20th TV are no longer the same company, which explains the above, and that Coogler has a contract with Disney TV to develop new projects, so this is one of them: “As the project is in its very early stages, there is no word on what network or platform on which it would air. More than likely, though, it would air on Hulu rather than “The X-Files’” original network home, Fox, as Fox and 20th TV are no longer part of the same company following Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox. To that point, there are currently revivals of the Fox shows “Futurama” and “King of the Hill” set up at Hulu. Coogler would be developing the project under his five-year overall deal with Walt Disney Television, of with 20th TV is a part.”
https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/ryan-coogler-x-files-reboot-1235567129/
Mar 29, 2023 17:00
#TheXFiles 30th anniversary interviews continue at CBC with two Vancouver locals reminiscing about the past:
Nicholas Lea (Alex Krycek): “The number one reason is not necessarily the subject matter, but really the talent of the people behind the show: the line producers, the people who found the locations…”
William B. Davis (Cigarette-Smoking Man): “There was a commitment you saw on that set from everybody to do their very best work: whether it was the focus puller, or whether it was Chris Carter or it was the actors…”
(And both would be in for appearing in the “remount” of the show which is being worked on.)
Mar 31, 2023 20:31
#TheXFiles 30th anniversary interviews continue at CBC with Vancouver producer J.P. Finn, a key person for all first five years of the show. He shares some stories of how Vancouver was transformed by shooting TXF there. In a nice story of circularity, he remembers shooting among the first episodes in the same place where later a stadium was built, where they shot the last episode of the series for the Vancouver era: he must be referring to the Plaza of Nations (Squeeze, Little Green Men) which is right next to the Rogers Arena (The End), built in 1995.
