Taping "Saturday Night at the Movies"/"The Interviews"

On Tuesday, September 13, 2005 at 10:00 am, I had my appointment in Downtown Toronto to tape a segment for TVOntario's long-running series "Saturday Night at the Movies," and its acclaimed "The Interviews" segment. A little background on this: Saturday Night at the Movies airs on TVOntario (Canada's public education network), and has broadcast more than 1,500 movies since it first premiered back in 1974. The longest running show on Canadian TV, "Saturday Night at the Movies" is an immensely popular TV series that explores classic Hollywood films.

I was interviewed on-camera by Thom Ernst, a knowledgeable and friendly film writer, researcher and scholar, and he came thoroughly prepared for the taping with a list of great questions.

Relating to my book, Best in Show: The Films of Christopher Guest & Company, we discussed the film-making style of Mr. Guest, both the documentary-style comedies and the more traditional narratives like The Big Picture. We had a good time discussing rock-n-roll and This is Spinal Tap, and Thom's questions were thoughtful and really illuminated the interesting characteristics of Mr. Guest's unusual canon.

Following this discussion, we moved into a talk on another favorite topic of mine: horror movies. In particular, we discussed the 1950s classic, The Bad Seed, starring Patty McCormack and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The free-flowing conversation covered everything from "nature vs. nurture," to theatrical vs. realistic film.

Finally, Thom and I discussed the current re-birth of the movie musical, the topic of my latest book, Singing a New Tune. In all, I felt at ease (after fumbling through my first question), and I put that "ease" down to Thom's skill as an interviewer.

The program on Christopher Guest's film work features interviews also with Harry Shearer and Fred Willard, and is scheduled to air on October 15. The Halloween "Horror" Show - which will feature a double whammy: The Bad Seed and the Peter Jackson film, Heavenly Creatures, will air on October 29, 2005.

So if you have Satellite Television, you'll get to see both installments of this long-running show, and see how I did. The musical show will air sometime later, and has yet to be scheduled.

Anyway, I had a stimulating, fast morning with Thom and his terrific crew. Murray Battle, the director and producer of the segment was also great fun to be with, and even took photos for me on his digital camera that are featured here on the bloog. Thom, Murray and everybody immediately made me feel at home, offered me good advice (on posture/rolling up sleeves, on the speed of my answers) and encouraged me in my responses. It was a great experience being there, and Kathryn and I had a good time. I'll be excited to see the show...

Being with these movie lovers for the morning, and taping this segment, really made the trip to Toronto a memorable one for us.