Standing in front of an audience of Boston University film and television students and “True Blood” fans at Cinematheque, Emmy award nominated television producer and director Gregg Fienberg announced the experience felt “kind of like Comic-Con.”
“Except I’m not Eric, and you’re not screaming,” he joked, referring to the HBO series’ sultry Scandinavian vampire played by Alexander Skarsg?rd.
Fienberg screened an episode of his popular HBO show “True Blood” and explained the making of it to about 300 Cinematheque attendees on Thursday evening in the College of Communication.
Cinematheque programmer and curator Gerald Peary, the head of the film department at Suffolk University and a film critic for The Boston Phoenix, said inviting Fienberg to Cinematheque was “not exactly a hard choice.”
“I’m not a television fan, so I usually am very skeptical,” Peary said.
However, he said Fienberg changed his mind about TV.
“He has shown that TV can be really creative [and have] stories that mean something,” he said.
Peary specifically praised “True Blood” by comparing it to what he termed the “silly and preposterous” movie adaptations of Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” book series.
“If you really want to see a vampire series that is really smart, brainy, passionate and sexy as hell, you go to see “True Blood,'” he said.
To offer a particularly interesting look behind the scenes, Fienberg chose to screen an episode he said underwent extensive revision before being broadcasted – the 10th episode of the second season entitled “New World In My View.”
Attendees were asked to read both the first and final drafts prior to the screening of the episode, which centers around the growing chaos that falls on the residents of Bon Temps, the Louisiana town in which the series is set, by a Dionysus-worshipping “maenad” named Maryann.
Fienberg said the episode needed a dramatic revision because of its original writers’ inexperience.
“A lot didn’t make sense to me, and there were a couple of things that weren’t really working,” he said.
Fienberg and the series’ creator and co-executive producer Alan Ball sat down and rewrote the script after carefully mulling it over in Ball’s office for two consecutive days, Fienberg said.
“I hope it provided them with insight into the evolution of the show,” Fienberg said at the event’s conclusion.
“It was fun to see… and hear the reactions, and watch an episode with them,” he said, adding that producers normally only get to watch the first one or two episodes of a season with an audience.
“It’s fun to watch one in the middle,” he said.
After screening the episode, Fienberg held a Q&’A session during which he answered questions about the series’ plot, explained the mechanics of production techniques and gave advice to aspiring filmmakers, writers and producers.
“It was really interesting,” said second-year film graduate student and “True Blood” fan Alex Swanson. “I feel a lot of the [Cinematheque] talks a lot of times are more from [just] a writer, director or creator. It was really nice having someone who’s in charge of a lot of the business and financial end also seem to have a large foot in the creative process.”
Amanda Good Hennessey, a BU professor of acting for writers and directors, said she thought Fienberg’s talk was very informative and allowed “wonderful takeaways for people aspiring in all the fields.”
“He covered so much material and answered so many questions,” Hennessey said. “I thought it was so wonderful to see the episode after having read it.”
“It was exciting,” added College of Communication freshman Katie Wolosoff. “It was encouraging to hear the all the different things a producer does.”
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