March 02, 2006 |
Hailing The Office's Unsung Heroes!
I've talked a lot about the writers, directors and producers behind The Office [returning with new episodes tonight at 9:30 pm/ET, on NBC]. But there is another, often overlooked, group of people who are just as essential to creating the environment at Dunder-Mifflin. They are the set-dressing, props and art departments. Led by our production designer, Michael Gallenberg, these departments work together to create our authentic office atmosphere. Michael might be our most underappreciated genius. He has an overall vision for our office environment and oversees even the smallest details. If he does his job right, no one notices. He's not supposed to razzle-dazzle you. He makes sure each department works to create the most real-looking sets possible.
The set-dressing folks, headed by Steve Rostine, choose the desks, the wall hangings, the plants, the lamps. They fill the shelves with random clutter. They are the ones who make sure we have lighted EXIT signs over our fake doors. If you get our Season 1 DVD, you will notice that in the first few episodes my office chair didn't have arms. I really wanted one with arms so I talked to these guys and they ordered a new chair for me. Pretty cool, huh? I'm such a diva.
The props department works closely with the actors, since they are responsible for anything an actor might hold in his/her hand or use specifically in a scene. Pam's teapot, Dwight's bobblehead, Meredith's sippy cup and Phyllis' flowers from Bob Vance are all examples of props. I worked with Philip Shea, the head of our props department, to pick out Pam's engagement ring. We went through two trays of rings before settling on a 14K-gold-and-diamond-cluster ring worth about $80. (Roy's not much of a spender.) Philip also asked me what color teapot I thought would be Pam's favorite. In the Christmas episode, our on-set props assistant, Doug Abrahamson, had to wrap and rewrap the teapot between every take. We did that scene over a dozen times.
The art department is responsible for any type of card, sign, certificate or logo created specifically for our show. For example, they created the Dunder-Mifflin logo. They designed the greeting card that we give to Meredith for her birthday. They also created that horrible poster of the babies playing jazz that Angela gets in the Christmas-party episode. That poster made us all laugh so hard, the writers gave it another plotline in a future episode. Everything is subtle and wonderful.
These guys have a good sense of humor, too. If you look closely at the certificates they made for the walls of the office, they are quite hilarious. Here are some of my favorites:
Rain Forest Harvesters Association presents the One Million Cut Trees Award to Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. Whereas the Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company has demonstrated excellence in the total disregard of the environment in its utilization of the vast resources of rain forests across the globe, the association has awarded them this citation.
Or there is this one:
Paper Manufacturers Conglomerate presents the Pulp Tonnage Award in recognition of the company's outstanding use of over 50 megatons of raw pulp in one year.
It is a very popular thing on TV shows to put the names of crew members on the decorations around the set as an inside joke. We have a "Dunder-Mifflin Salesman of the Year" plaque and a "Humanitarian of the Year" certificate that feature the names of several crew members. Our first-assistant director, Kelly Cantley, was upset that her name didn't make it on any of the decorations around the set. I guess she complained, so they made this one up especially for her and hung it on the pole by Stanley's desk:
Whereas it came to our attention that Kelly Cantley was whining that a lowly second assistant director had a plaque with her name on it and whereas Kelly Cantley made a comment on the air regarding that fact... we have decided to give her this certificate because we love her.
So, it's not just the actors and writers who get to have fun. Our crew is pretty darn cool as well. We spend a lot of time sitting around the set, and it's fun to find their little jokes posted here and there. It's like a treasure hunt! Thanks for all your hard work, guys, and for keeping me entertained in the process.Until next week...
Have feedback or a question you'd like to send Jenna Fischer's way? Click here.
For even more Office gossip, check out Jenna's blogs from Jan. 12, Jan. 19, Jan. 26, Feb. 2, Feb. 9, Feb. 16 and Feb. 23. Also, click here to see what Dunder-Mifflin's own Dwight Schrute is thinking. |
Survivor's Ruth Marie Speaks Up!
Handpicked by Terry and Co. to round out the male-dominated La Mina alliance, Ruth Marie Milliman remained nothing but loyal to her tribe mates, but once Sally's athleticism was deemed a more valuable asset, her fate was sealed. Milliman may have been quiet during her stint on CBS' Survivor: Panama — Exile Island (Thursdays at 8 pm/ET), but the South Carolina native and mother of two made up for it when TVGuide.com tracked her down the day after she said goodbye to her tribe. TVGuide.com: As hard as it was, you must have sensed your exit was coming — especially once La Mina discussed putting you on the chopping block the week before last.Ruth Marie Milliman: I had an alliance with the guys, so I wasn't in jeopardy then. The ultimate decision came down to Sally and Misty. Sally was going to go, but at the last minute it changed to Misty.
TVGuide.com: Do you feel your ultimate fate would have been different had you been on Casaya and not subject to the guys' alliance?Ruth Marie: Possibly, you never know. It appeared that the women got a little bit more say-so over there. We were having to follow protocol because of the type of leadership we had, but their camp may have been stressful in a completely different way.
TVGuide.com: What were your initial feelings when Dan suggested you'd be a good fit for the guys' alliance?Ruth Marie: I went to Dan about an alliance during the first hour we were on the beach. I had to. He went to discuss it with Terry and I also discussed it with Terry. It was probably about 24 hours later that they absolutely committed to it. I was thrilled, because they could have said no. Had they said no, I would have gone with the girls and we could have tried to make our own alliance.
TVGuide.com: In the previous episode, Sally explained how she felt isolated at camp after Misty's departure. Did the La Mina women have a special bond?Ruth Marie: That tribe was the "love tribe." I wish those two girls could live with me — that's the kind of bond we have. There are absolutely no hard feelings or anything. Honestly, the way the alliance was set up, I didn't have to be mean or backstab them. That was all kind of coming from Terry.
TVGuide.com: Misty told me your tribe sang at night to keep busy.Ruth Marie: We would sing, play games... anything to pass the time. There were very few unpleasant moments, if any, at our camp.
TVGuide.com: In the reward challenge, La Mina took an early lead, but once it came time to assemble the puzzle pieces floating in the ocean, things fell apart. What happened? Ruth Marie: Um, actually... I'm not certain we had all the right pieces. [Laughs]
TVGuide.com: Oh, really! Did you realize that while you were working on the puzzle?Ruth Marie: I can't say it with certainty, but a certain person may have brought me the wrong piece. Most of those challenges are so close. On occasion, one is a runaway, but most of them are so close.
TVGuide.com: Do you remember how long it took you to complete that puzzle?Ruth Marie: It's quicker than it looks on television, because everybody's motivated to go so fast. I can't imagine it taking more than seven minutes. Maybe 10.
TVGuide.com: When Casaya chose Terry to head to Exile Island, the tribe seemed distraught over his 48-hour departure. Austin seemed especially worried about there being no one to take charge while he was gone.Ruth Marie: I didn't feel that was the case at all. Maybe Austin was the only one who did. We definitely produced a pretty smooth camp life under Terry, but any one of us could have been the leader.
TVGuide.com: Once Terry returned from what Shane deemed "hell," he said no one really asked him about the immunity idol. At that point, did you believe he had it?Ruth Marie: I thought he had the idol just by the way he was talking about it. You could tell he had something to be proud of. I'm sensing the others thought he had it, too, but I can't say that for sure. TVGuide.com: Looking back at the immunity challenge, did Austin take any heat for transporting the water buckets to you too slowly? Ruth Marie: No, because there are so many things that go into those challenges. Nick had asked to pour the water because he wasn't feeling good. Had I been able to take his place, being smaller and lower to the ground, maybe I would have done a little better than some of the taller guys.
TVGuide.com: After dining on tribal dishes like snail soup, what was your first "real" meal after coming home from Survivor?Ruth Marie: The first thing that I had when I came out of the game was sour-cream-and-onion potato chips. Then I just remember dipping chocolate in peanut butter. Then I remember vomiting all night! [Laughs]
TVGuide.com: What does your family think about your time on the show? Your kids must think you're quite a cool mom!Ruth Marie: Your kids think you're a dork no matter what you do. But they got to observe me doing something that may teach them when they're older to step out of the box and experiment a little. They've had a lot of fun with it. All their friends are throwing parties. It's been awesome.
TVGuide.com: Viewing parties sound like fun. Have there been any scenes you wish hadn't made it to the air? Anything you wish we had seen?Ruth Marie: I definitely wish they would have taken out all those scenes of me in the bathing suit! I wish there had been more scenes of me gaming, because I was a little bit mute for my personality.
TVGuide.com: Might fans see you pop up in any additional reality shows in the future?Ruth Marie: Well, gosh, I hope so! Maybe they'll do a Survivor: All Stars for people who got voted off. That would be interesting, wouldn't it? Bring me back!
Are you addicted to shows like Survivor? Find out the real reason reality's a hit. |
Bachelor Serves Up Wine, Avoids Cheese
Is The Bachelor: Paris catch Travis Stork still canoodling with Sarah Stone, the kindergarten teach he picked in this week's finale? Who knows. But until the would-be couple come forth, TVGuide.com got up to speed on another Bachelor, Season 3 star Andrew Firestone, who has his own big news to share. After all, maybe things have reheated up between him and Jen Schefft, right? No? Maybe he just has a DVD to tout?
TVGuide.com: Tell me about Wine Ways, the new educational DVD you produced and star in. How did it come to be?Andrew Firestone: In a nutshell, what I do in my day job is teach wine tasting, and I really like to focus on people who don't drink wine very often or are drinking wine for the first time. The DVD is a more user-friendly way to enjoy wine and puts it in a format that's easy to digest. The guy who shot it was a family friend who used all his tricks of photography to make it an interesting piece.
TVGuide.com: Yeah, watching a bunch of people sitting around sipping wine could get old after five minutes.Firestone: Exactly. I didn't want it to look like a documentary or something you'd see in a classroom, so trying to capture the sights and sounds and images and movements of wine making was important. Also, I teamed up with Richard Harris, who was the editor on a bunch of movies, most importantly Titanic, which he won an Oscar for. He was James Cameron's right-hand man.
TVGuide.com: Ahh, that explains that odd "ship-sinking" scene in the middle of the DVD.Firestone: Right, exactly. [Laughs] The one where I'm standing above a barrel of merlot.
TVGuide.com: "I'm the king of merlot!"Firestone: But Richard's kind of a wine dork himself — he's got an acre of viognier that he grows and makes into wine — so when I went to ask him a couple of questions, he got excited about the idea. Eventually, he signed on to edit this thing at a very friendly rate. I'm really excited about how it turned out.
TVGuide.com: Let me take advantage of some of your knowledge. What are the "hot tickets" in today's wine world?Firestone: In Santa Barbara County, chardonnay... anything from Washington in the pinot noir category... and in our region [Santa Ynez, California], the hot wines are the syrahs and also the viognier.
TVGuide.com: Are syrahs the new merlot?Firestone: The Australians have been making syrahs forever and have had a lot of success with them, but our region recently found that we can grow them really well and they turn out beautifully.
TVGuide.com: As a merlot lover, what vintage should I be looking for at the store?Firestone: It depends on where you're from, but in Santa Barbara it seems that the even years turned out pretty nicely. The wines I like to drink are the ones you drink two or three years after the vintage. I'm not a huge proponent of letting a wine sit in a wine rack for 10 years before you drink it. I believe in the European version of enjoying wine, where you make it to enjoy right away.
TVGuide.com: I just learned that you're supposed to drink a beaujolais right away, and I've had one "aging" in my crappy li'l wine rack for about 10 years.Firestone: Well, sometimes it's fun if you have room in the wallet to let a wine sit and see what it does.
TVGuide.com: Having been on The Bachelor, would you say wine savviness is a handy talent for a dating man to have?Firestone: For sure. There are only a few things us guys can really show off intelligently. I love cars, but talking about the V8 engine in a Corvette isn't that sexy to talk about over dinner. But to be able to distinguish between a cabernet and a merlot and to be able to order intelligently off a wine list is really sexy. If nothing else, a little alcohol always seems to make the date go by a little better!
TVGuide.com: What's been the coolest part of your post-Bachelor life?Firestone: Last weekend I went to NBA All-Star weekend and was able to play on the same Celebrity All-Star team as Bow Wow and Ice Cube — that was pretty fun. But the coolest part has been getting back to my daily 9-to-5 job. Wine's my passion and I was thrilled to be able to put this DVD together to share with people.
TVGuide.com: Get a load of this segue: What goes well with wine is cheese. How much cheese-tastic reality-TV have you turned down?Firestone: The most important thing I turned down was Fear Factor, and I'll tell you why: To be a wine-and-food guy and go eat bugs on TV would be a detriment to my ability to talk intelligently about the finer foods and wines.
TVGuide.com: What wine does go best with cow entrails?Firestone: [Laughs] Anything in a box. There are some opportunities that have come up, but that stands out as something that would really have damaged my credibility as a wine-and-food guy.
TVGuide.com: Coming from the Firestone family, did you ever consider a similar DVD targeted toward, you know, tire connoisseurs? Firestone: I'm a gearhead at heart — I think my bloodstream is 50 percent merlot and 50 percent Valvoline. I love racing and I've been able to successfully wrap my car, on the track, around some barriers before. I was in the Long Beach Grand Prix Celebrity Race and I crashed my car there, and I've crashed my car into the track in Milwaukee.
TVGuide.com: But that was only because you had half a bottle of syrah in you.Firestone: Don't make those kind of jokes!
TVGuide.com: Here is where I ask, "When's the last time you heard from Jen Schefft, or vice versa?"Firestone: You know, I sent her a message on Christmas, wishing her a merry Christmas and a happy new year.
TVGuide.com: And... it just sat there, didn't it?Firestone: [Laughs] She sent a note back. I haven't spoken to her in a while, but I trust she's doing well.
TVGuide.com: I saw some event pictures of you with some hot blonde model, Ivana Somethingexoticoranother?Firestone: Ivana Bozilovic. We've been dating for over a year now. She's put up with me, so she has a lot of patience.
TVGuide.com: Is she a model or model-actress?Firestone: A model-actress. She did Wedding Crashers.
TVGuide.com: Well, stick with her and ABC won't have to come after you for "The Bachelor No. 3 Returns."Firestone: Let's hope I can have more success with Ivana than ABC had with me! |
Lost Claires Up a Big Mystery
Tonight on ABC's Lost (9 pm/ET), a crisis involving baby Aaron leads Claire to delve into the unsolved mystery of exactly what happened during her Season 1 kidnapping at the hands of ghoulish Ethan Rom (aka the Other man). TVGuide.com spoke to Aussie beauty Emilie de Ravin about Claire's new adventure, her "hard-to-handle" Lost leading man and her frighteningly fun new role.
TVGuide.com: I have to wonder, having often flitted between Australia and Los Angeles yourself, was it eerie to do a show about a doomed Oz-L.A. flight?Emilie de Ravin: Yeah, kinda! I never really thought about it too much, though. I think it was more odd that Claire was the only Australian survivor. [Laughs]
TVGuide.com: I'm thinking the flight is grueling enough without having to worry about otherworldly interloping. So... as this week's Claire-centric episode gets underway, where is your character's head at?De Ravin: Well, she's going through a lot with her baby not being too well, and that starts to bring back some flashes of repressed memories, and she's not really sure where they're from. Then it comes to light that they're from when she was kidnapped by Ethan. We really learn what happened to her during those days.
TVGuide.com: Do we learn everything, or are there some holes left?De Ravin: In Lost tradition, there will be some holes, but it's pretty clear what happened to her when she was away. It clears up a lot of interesting things.
TVGuide.com: I'm glad to see them finally pick up this loose thread. And it was nice of Claire to wait for the tailies' stories to be told before she decided to ask herself, "What the hell happened to me?!"De Ravin: [Chuckles] I know!
TVGuide.com: Are there any new flashbacks to Claire's preflight life?De Ravin: No, we dealt only with on-island flashbacks to last season, when I was kidnapped. They haven't done an "all on-island" show before, so that was kind of cool.
TVGuide.com: And William Mapother is back as Ethan?De Ravin: Yeah, and he's great. I have a lot of fun working with him.
TVGuide.com: You should have seen him as this alien infectee on Threshold. Dude is so good at playing bad.De Ravin: He is; he's very creepy!
TVGuide.com: Was it fun to have Claire, Kate and Rousseau embark on this adventure?De Ravin: Yes, it was a "little girl hike"! We don't need no men or guns! That was fun, trekking through the wet jungle and dealing with lots of bugs.
TVGuide.com: Claire is, after all, done with the pregnancy and getting back into fighting form....De Ravin: Right, and getting ready to join the army. [Laughs] Leave the kid at home!
TVGuide.com: After this episode, will Claire be more active in her island existence?De Ravin: I think that has progressively been happening, but she obviously has been held back by having a young baby. You can't endanger yourself too much for that reason. Plus, who do you leave your child with? There aren't too many people she'd leave the child with after what's been happening lately... losing Aaron every five minutes! She's very wary of that.
TVGuide.com: Going back to last season's Claire-centric episode, what's your take on what that psychic foresaw? Did he know Claire's plane would crash?De Ravin: I think he did and I think Claire believes he did. But it was more of his overall belief that [whatever happened] would secure the situation in such a way that I would be forced to bring up the baby myself.
TVGuide.com: Does this week's episode shed any new light on that mysterious "need" for Claire to watch over Aaron?De Ravin: No, it doesn't.
TVGuide.com: How has it been working with that leading man of yours? Baby Aaron, I mean.De Ravin: You mean "the 20 faces of Aaron"? [Laughs] He changes weekly. There are back-up babies for when he needs to be screaming or if he needs to be happy.... And they can't work all day, so there are a couple that come in each day.
TVGuide.com: You make it sound like shipping produce. Is it always a local baby, or do they "import" them from L.A.?De Ravin: No, that's what's hard, finding them on the island [of Oahu]. There are a fair amount of Caucasian babies, but not that many. And finding ones approximately the right age is the big problem. Some come to work who are just huge, like 6-month-old babies. Aaron is supposed to be, like, 4 to 4 1/2 weeks old.
TVGuide.com: I can see the Honolulu Star-Bulletin want ad now: "Needed: Baby That Ages One Hour per Month."De Ravin: I know, right? It's kind of difficult to hold a baby who wants to sit up in a newborn position. They aren't too happy about that!
TVGuide.com: You played a pregnant alien on Roswell. Why do you think that show didn't do better? It seemed to have the right ingredients — young beautiful people, sex, aliens.De Ravin: I think they kept swinging back and forth a little too much between the sci-fi and the high-school drama. But it was an interesting show and it had a huge cult following.
TVGuide.com: Speaking of cult faves, you star in The Hills Have Eyes, opening March 10. That's a remake of a rather grisly film.De Ravin: It's quite grisly, yes. [Laughs] It's a story of two families in the very basic sense — one that has been affected by nuclear testing and one that's just on vacation. When they collide, their short lives blend together in an interesting way.
TVGuide.com: I assume you're playing a "normal" family member?De Ravin: I am, yes. I get chased but I also get to do some chasing. And I got to use a pickax, which is always fun.
TVGuide.com: You have something in common with Maggie Grace [ex-Shannon], who also went off and did a horror-film remake (The Fog).De Ravin: A lot of people have been doing that. Ian [Somerhalder, ex-Boone] did one, and Josh [Holloway] did one.... Like, 9 out of 10 scripts we'd be getting were horror films. What really interested me about The Hills Have Eyes was the story behind it all. It's not just "kill a bunch of people" and that's it. There's quite an interesting undertone to it.
TVGuide.com: You also have Brick coming out on March 31, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and directed by Rian Johnson. That's received some good notices.De Ravin: Yeah, it's up for an Independent Spirit Award in a couple of weeks. I play Emily, this "sweet and impressionable girl."...
TVGuide.com: Awwww, come on. You need to be the badass for once! De Ravin: Well, that's what The Hills Have Eyes is for! But Emily, she sort of crosses over to the wrong side of the tracks, thinking that she has to "fit in" with the cool people. She has a huge downfall and becomes this broken girl, and then "bad things" happen to poor Emily. It's very film noir, a very old-school detective story. |
The Most Shocking One Tree Hill Ever?
For three seasons, One Tree Hill has been a quiet WB gem among the likes of the quippy Gilmore Girls and the big fun of Smallville. Equal parts addictive teen soap and absorbing family drama, the series is set to gain some well-deserved attention with a school-shooting episode, airing tonight at 8 pm/ET, that could be written off as one of those "very special" clichés if it weren't so... very special.
"It's big on a number of fronts," says executive producer Mark Schwahn. "I felt a sense of responsibility [in telling this story] that I don't know if I've ever felt before. This episode deals with something that is happening in the real world — the rise of violence in our schools. And to have the opportunity to address something that's happening now, almost weekly... it's actually heartbreaking."
As is the episode. Two and a half minutes into the hour — which for the most part is eerily devoid of the show's signature emo soundtrack — Tree Hill High outcast Jimmy Edwards (Colin Fickes) opens fire in a crowded hallway, triggering not just panic among his classmates but also an examination of the bullying that drives teens to isolation, self-abuse and, in this case, a level of violence that claims two lives.
Immediately following the shooting, the school is plunged into lockdown mode, leaving Lucas to tend to a critically injured Peyton, while Nathan, Haley, Skills and several other students find themselves trapped in a classroom with the increasingly unstable Edwards. But unlike, say, the never-again-mentioned death of Beverly Hills 90210's gun-crazy Scott Scanlon, Schwahn hints that survivors and viewers alike will not be able to forget the crisis — or the shattering final 10 minutes of the episode — very soon.
"The way one of [the deaths] goes will be unexpected. It's harrowing," reveals Schwahn, who expects to face fans' wrath for killing off a major — and beloved — character in such a brutal, coldhearted manner. "I do feel like there will be a part of the audience that may feel betrayed a little bit. They show up each week to spend an hour in this safe world, and now it's not safe."
What is safe is to say that nothing will be the same for any of the key players after this week.
"Everyone involved in this episode understands this moment as a tragedy," Schwahn says. "How they respond to it is storytelling gold. Some of them will go really dark. Some of them will be unable to recover emotionally. Some of them will understand that life is very short and precious and that they need to stop being afraid of the things or people that they want in their lives."
Which means that there could be fallout for months to come. In fact, Schwahn guarantees it. "Most shows would have saved this for their season finale. I designed this [as a way] to propel us toward our end-of-season cliff-hanger."
A cliff-hanger, mind you, that promises to be as suspenseful as the one going on behind the scenes. As UPN and WB prepare to merge into the new CW network, there is still no definite word on OTH's fate. "I don't think we'll get word until right before the [May] upfronts. I think we're certainly on the bubble.... We'd like to be included."
Schwahn does reveal, however, that if the show returns in the fall, the new season would cover the second half of the gang's senior year. But with that determination of its fate still months away (and fans rallying to spare the underrated drama at www.PetitionOnline.com/saveoth), he admits that tonight's stellar episode is also his riskiest.
"The network and the studio were very afraid of the episode because of the content. Mostly about Jimmy Edwards," he says. "The episode is about this kid.... And then there's this big soapy moment at the end that's not about him. And that's dangerous. Because if you take off the end's [twist], you have this huge, pro-social story that you could have a town meeting about. I think you still could. There's just the extra little piece that is so shocking... but it still fits. It absolutely fits." |
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