24 PREQUEL MOVIE IN NOV

24 Preview:




According to a report in TV Guide, there is an announcement by executive producer Howard Gordon that on November 23, Fox will broadcast a two hour prequel to Day 7 (aka Season 7) of 24. Jack tackles an international crisis that takes place at least partially (on location) in South Africa.

No sign of this announcement on the official 24 site yet. Give TV Guide kudos for the scoop!

Here is some more news, this time from 24headquarters.com:

Official Season 7 Trailer Press Release:

24�S SEASON SEVEN CLOCK STARTS WITH WORLDWIDE SNEAK PEEK AT 24TRAILER.COM AND LIVE FROM TIMES SQUARE THURSDAY, OCT. 25

Season Seven Premieres with a Special Two-Night Event Sunday, Jan. 13, and Monday, Jan. 14

As the clock ticks closer to 24�s highly anticipated return, a special, extended �Day 7� trailer will have its worldwide premiere Thursday, Oct. 25 (1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT) at www.24trailer.com and in New York�s Time Square on the iconic News Astrovision by Panasonic. The worldwide premiere will be seen concurrently around the globe at locations, via mobile and online in the U.K., Canada, South America, Europe and Asia. The countdown to the trailer�s debut begins today at www.24trailer.com. The first promo for the new season is also scheduled to air during Game 2 of the World Series on Thursday, Oct. 25 (8:00 PM-CC ET/5:00 PM-CC PT) on FOX.

The innovative, addictive, Emmy Award-winning television series 24 resets the clock for �Day 7� with a special two-night premiere event beginning Sunday, Jan. 13 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) and continuing in the series� regular time period Monday, Jan. 14 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. The season will unfold without repeats, airing all originals through the season finale in June.

Set in Washington, DC, �Day 7� opens with CTU dismantled and JACK BAUER (Kiefer Sutherland) on trial. Bauer�s day takes an unexpected turn when former colleague TONY ALMEIDA (Carlos Bernard) returns. Meanwhile, President ALLISON TAYLOR (Cherry Jones) leads the country alongside White House Chief of Staff ETHAN KANIN (Bob Gunton) and First Gentleman HENRY TAYLOR (Colm Feore).

A national security crisis prompts an investigation by a team of FBI agents including Agent JANIS GOLD (Janeane Garofalo), Agent RENEE WALKER (Annie Wersching), Agent LARRY MOSS (Jeffrey Nordling), Agent SEAN HILLINGER (Rhys Coiro) and security specialist MICHAEL LATHAM (John Billingsley). Although CTU is no longer, CHLOE O�BRIAN (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and BILL BUCHANAN (James Morrison) are back for another momentous day of shocking events.

As part of News Corp.�s global commitment to fighting climate change, 24 has pledged significant and innovative changes to its production practices with the goal of saving energy and reducing carbon emissions.

Created by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, 24 is a production of Real Time Productions and Imagine Television in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Joel Surnow, Robert Cochran, Howard Gordon, Evan Katz, Jon Cassar, Manny Coto, David Fury, Kiefer Sutherland and Brian Grazer are the executive producers.

HEY, KEVIN REILLY!

Kevin Reilly (KR) has just started managing programming at FOX as entertainment president .

On The LOT (OTL), the (potentially) best summer show on FOX, is languishing in the ratings; and the (potentially) valuable web site thelot.com is shooting itself in the foot, preventing itself from becoming an established destination site for filmmakers.

That�s two projects just crying for some TLC, some attention and some fixing, with a large upside possible, really quickly.

Here�s my memo to KR:


THE SHOW:

On The Lot (OTL) has a great concept: New directors competing their hearts out for a $$$ Million dollar deal with Dreamworks, making short films (like those that get gazillions of hits on YouTube).


And three problems:

1 � Short films are not by themselves an audience draw � only certain kinds of films get lots of play on YouTube, and that�s not the kind of films these directors have been making -- the filmmakers have limited time and some constraints that make the films fair to middlin, at best, and not the kind that get the webonomic eyeballs.

2 � The �judging� is lackluster, the show format has little originality (it was terrible and completely derivative for a while, but it has improved to mediocrity). And the previews before each film are wrongly conceived � they don�t help the film, or hype the contest, and in some cases even contain �spoilers� that defang the films before they�re shown.

3 � There�s no publicity anymore. (There were a lot of billboards � and not much else -- when the show started.)


To fix these problems:

1 � Apply some muscle to up the energy on the show: Make the candidates into star personalities. Improve the preview films. Get the actors talking about the films. Explore the magic of filmmaking. Use rehearsals to get the judges to be more precise both in their praise and criticism. Ditch the phony boos from the audience when a judge criticizes � that�s been done to death on Idol. Set it up so the contestants can explain and defend their films, so they sound strong, intelligent and opinionated, and not defensive and argumentative.

2 � Improve the films themselves. Sprinkle in some name talent. Get the candidates working now on the films for the semi-finals and the finals, so they can be as good as possible: pre-production and script development can start on the final films, even while films are being made for the early rounds. (Some candidates will not get to make these semi-final and final films of course.) Encourage the film makers to write and direct films that are different, personal, edgy, interesting and controversial in some way, not bland and careful.

3 � Business, Show Business, and filmmaking in particular, live and die with publicity. Even feature films need lots of promotion to get viewers. With the show itself improved, and the short films improved, (and the weaker directors out of the competition), hype the remaining shows. Get the audience back. Create publicity for the contestants. Make the directors into stars. Create publicity to make the the films �important� so that people will come to watch something important happen. It can be done. The ratings are way down, which means there is a lot of room to go up!


THE WEBSITE:

The website is very well designed, and very rich, but very badly executed.

There are forums, blogs, lots of short films, classified ads, a gallery of actors, profiles of filmmakers and actors, contests, news of the show, news of filmmaking, all well organized with front page promos and clear tabs. And there are many more features, too...


However:

• ? There�s not enough real news about the show � the producers are absent from the website; news often comes from other sites copied to a board post by a user.
• ? Information on the site is often wrong. One week, the next show (actually coming on Monday) was said to be coming on Tuesday for the entire week before.
• ? In fact, at this moment the home page says, �Two contestants will be voted off and five new contestant film premieres!� Five? There are supposed to be six. Is that an error? Or did something happen?
• ? Either they should fix the error, or discuss the change.
• ? The search function is terribly incomplete.
• ? There is no list of posts, no search of blogs.
• ? There is no useful search function to go along with actors� pictures.
• ? Online voting has not worked well at all.
• ? Posting classified ads hasn�t worked well.
• ? And many more issues.

At one point there were more than 100,000 people on the site (according to the sitemeter), now it barely gets to 35,000. At one point there was a lot of activity on the boards (a lot of it expressing frustration -- a sign of a passionate fan base that isn't getting what it needs), now there is only a little. The traffic and the excitement is there, and it can be brought back with a well-run site.

Fixing all the problems on the website, and adding a few more functions to appeal to people serious about film, and other functions for film fans, could make this one of the most valuable web properties on the Internet, for FOX/BURNETT/DREAMWORKS, film fans, and filmmakers.

The thread �HELP IMPROVE THE SHOW� has over two hundred posts. Kevin, you can HELP more than anyone else!

24 LOOSE ENDS

With 24 coming to its 2 hour season finale (8/7c Monday on Fox), it is surprising how many loose ends there are this year.

Loose ends can be tied up, left dangling, dragged to the edge of a cliff hanger, ignored, or twisted into some unrecognizable form... all methods 24 has used in the past. Several ends left dangling last year, like who was the voice on the telephone to the President, got picked up again this year. (It was Jack's brother.) Here are some of the threads that need to be resolved in the next two hours... or not.

What is going to happen to the President (currently comatose), or the Vice President (under a serious cloud)?

Who is responsible for the assassination attempt?

Who are the really bad guys? -- So far this season there has been a competition between (rogue) Russians, (rogue or government) Chinese, Jack's family, Arab terrorists, and some American opportunists to see who is most evil, and really behind this conspiracy.

Is the acting head of CTU good or bad? All the other people in CTU? What about those romances in various stages of disintegration? How is the ex-head of CTU taking his firing (by his wife)?

Why is Jack so interested in his sister-in-law? (She led him into an almost deadly trap, although she was somewhat, sort-of pressured.)

How bad is Jack's father? Why? (Or with some twist will he turn out to be really a good guy, at least till next season?)

What happened to all the civilians who were exposed to radiation in the course of various catastrophes during the last 22 hours?

What's with Jack's girl friend? Her father?

Will the Russians attack? Will the US attack?

Will Jack's daughter get kidnapped again? (This is not an active loose end, but it's always a possibility.)

Will Jack retrieve the chip that was in the Russian nuclear bomb? Why don't the American's want it? Why do the Russians really care? Is something more at stake?

Count'm up. If that doesn't add up to 24 loose ends, then that itself is a loose end.

ON THE LOT -- MORE DETAILS

Some details have finally been released on how On The Lot (OTL) is going to work.

OTL is a version of Apprentice/Idol/Survivor for filmmakers, with Steven Spielberg as the central figure and Mark Burnett as the TV producer.

From 12,000 submissions, 50 filmmakers were picked to go to Hollywood for "boot camp". 18 of those will make it to the final competition. Their (short) films will be judged by a panel that includes Carrie Fisher, Brett Ratner, Garry Marshall, and Jon Avnet.

Ultimately, the final choices will be made by public voting, based on the films made by the filmmakers each week, with the lowest vote-getting director eliminated on each episode.

The show premieres May 22 on Fox.

The OTL web site can become a central meeting place for filmmakers, as well as a magnet for the viewers of the TV show, if the show's producers put a little more work into making the site user-friendly. (For one thing, it needs really good internal navigation, including a good search engine for films. Right now, navigation assistance is minimal.) The site includes community bulletin boards and blogs, filmmaker and actor profiles, and tens of thousands of interesting short films.

My own film is up there:

FRAGILE (Sonnet 65) with Intro
http://films.thelot.com/films/25479