Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

As a bunch of you already know, I had the privilege of doing an interview on Sept. 21st with Tim Kring, the creator and exec. producer of NBC's Heroes. It was part of our Gaia Celebrity Interview Series, and if you didn't get a chance to watch it, you can check out the archive here: http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/omgaia/tim-kring-interview-recording-of-web-cast/t.54241593/

I'm posting this for two reasons. One, I wanted to give everyone a chance to read about everything we did while we were down in LA preparing for the interview, because there's a lot of cool stuff. Two, I wanted to say something publicly about what an awesome guy Tim was. I'm not doing this because I'm supposed to because they came on our site. I legitimately was blown away by how graciously they treated us down there. I expected him to be a nice guy, but as the exec. producer with a thousand things to do I figured he'd be in a "get in, do the interview, and head out immediately to his next meeting" type of mindset. But not only did he give us way more time than was scheduled, but he gave us a personal tour of the set while talking about how cool Gaia was to several of the actresses. I literally can't say enough nice things about him.

eaTaiaG and I flew down to LA on Monday morning, where omgwill (from our marketing dept) picked us up. Since we arrived around 11 and weren't scheduled to be at the studio until 2, we headed over to CityWalk by Universal Studios (which is kind of an outdoor mall with a lot of restaurants and themed stores - including some off-the-wall ones like a sock store and a flip-flop store) to wander around and have lunch. Outside of the $12 parking(!), it was a lot of fun. We grabbed lunch at the Karl Strauss Brewing Company for a energy-boosting BBQ chicken sandwich, and then took some pics outside of Universal Studios in our Gaia shirts to share on the company Twitter account (http://www.twitter.com/gaiaonline).

After that, we headed over to the Walk of Fame (that thing is LONG) to check out a few of the names, and found George Takei. While best known for his work on the original Star Trek series, it was quite timely since also is Hiro's dad on Heroes.

At 2 we headed over to the studio to meet with Tim's assistant Jim. He was a young, energetic guy who did everything he could to make us comfortable. We were going to be shooting in an old conference room that used to be someone's office. It was pretty spartan - blank walls, a couch to one side, and a few bookcases. But he hurried about and brought in a bunch of props, including a replica of the "helix" symbol that appears throughout the show, some enormous posters, and a really collection of comics that were used in the pilot. Awesome stuff, even if we failed in our efforts to smuggle them out the building.

After doing a battery of tests to make sure our internet and various computers and cameras were working correctly, we were ready to go. Tim came in about 20 minutes prior to the filming to walk through the whole setup, and I think he was kinda surprised at our low-budgetness. We had our two handheld cameras on tripods, and that was it. No lighting, no mics, no professional host, no nothing. But he was totally cool with it, and I'm actually kinda proud that we can pull off this type of stuff without needing a lot of sophisticated equipment.

At 4 o'clock things started rolling. I won't repeat the questions we asked (check out the video for that!), but he was awesome. Long (in a good way), detailed answers that really gave a lot of insight into his thoughts behind the show and the plot. He was very honest about how the writer's strike had affected some of their plans, how they change direction with characters sometimes based on the actor, and how they come up with some of the powers the characters exhibit. I've done a few of these now, and while I've always enjoyed my guests (honestly), this was the most fascinating interview I've done. And it was even better because really, he could've just come in there, said "oh, this is just some online site and not big important media", given boring answers, and that's it. But he was fantastic, treating us like we were the most important people he could be talking to. And not only that, he was extremely complimentary about Gaia (more on that in a second). Plus, he actually really did keep the "Gremmy" that we made for him. On a sidenote, MASSIVE props to our admin Siskataya, who made that thing by hand specifically for the occasion.

The interview was supposed to end around 4:45 PT, but it ended up running until 5, which is when Season 4 of Heroes was premiering on the East Coast. Instead of hustling out of there, he stuck around, autographed a few things that will be handed out to lucky members, and then asked if we wanted to see the set. Tough decision there.

He led us on a personal tour through some of the sets, and while we can't really talk about details b/c we can't give anything away, it was really really cool. I always forget how small the sets actually are when they're filming. We happened to catch a scene being filmed with Peter Petrelli, and then walked over to another one. Here both Hayden Panatierre and Ali Larter (the two main female characters, for those who aren't Heroes-watchers) were getting ready to shoot a scene. Tim took us over there, and both introduced themselves to us, as we basically fumbled about to say something intelligent. Not only that, but Tim told them about what an awesome site Gaia was, which was phenomenal, and a testament to all of you guys. I was wearing my Garlic shirt from zOMG, and Ali really liked it, so we're going to send her one hoping she'll wear it sometime.

Finally it was time to take off, so we headed to a locale joint called The Waffle to grab food before our flight home (we had salmon-and-chive waffles as a sampler, which are WAY better than they sound). It just so happened that one of the biggest Heroes fan clubs was using that place for a viewing party, so we ended up talking to them for a bit. Turns out that several of them were Gaians already, so that was doubly awesome, and left me pretty pumped up on the way home.

Thanks again to everyone who tuned in (or is going to watch the archive), and especially to Tim, Jim, and the rest of the cast for treating us so well. Can't wait for the next interview!