11:10-11:30am

PANEL #4: KILLJOYS Panelists: Aaron Ashmore, Michelle Lovretta (Creator/Executive Producer) and Emily Andras (Consulting Producer) Bill McGoldrick Intro ** Panel Participants Mingle with the Press (15-Minutes) **

The Killjoys panel opened with a short trailer for the series—unfortunately there has been no official trailer released as of yet. (Character profiles can be found in the official press release.)

The show looks like a great mix of action and humor. The premise is that it “follows a fun-loving, hard living trio of interplanetary bounty hunters sworn to remain impartial as they chase deadly warrants throughout the Quad, a distant system on the brink of a bloody, multi-planetary class war.”

The panel included star Aaron Ashmore, Creator/Executive Producer Michelle Lovretta and Consulting Producer Emily Andras. Aaron Ashmore talked about returning to Syfy and why he loves working on sci-fi projects. The woman talked about the casting of the series and how they had originally written down that they needed “an Aaron Ashmore type” for one of the main characters. When the topic of the show’s similarities to Firefly arose, creator Michelle Lovretta had this to say:

We are definitely full of bad-assery.
I am not a Firefly expert, so I don’t want to sort of make a running list of differences. I think that tonally, I think you’re right. They definitely sort of live in the neighborhood. They have similar personalities, because they both have fun. And I think the main difference would be we aren’t all western, and also that person — I think a lot of shows are driven basically by their protagonist. And I think Mal, who from everything I have seen is an amazing character, is still very different from our Dutch, who is a young female, who is sort of full of the bad-ass, but in a very distinctive way.

Killjoys basically are a hybrid form of law enforcement, so they are still, a little bit, sort of working for the man. They’re trying to figure out their way in terms of how they conduct themselves, how they are able to go after their warrants without being entire renegades. They have a system that they have to work within, and I think those are probably some of the cardinal differences.

To which Syfy EVP Bill McGoldrick jokingly added:

But I think Firefly fans, who often e-mail me, will enjoy this show. So if you all could print that, give them something else to think about, that would be great.

During the “mingling” time, I spoke with Michelle Lovretta, and asked her where the title of “Killjoys” came from. She admitted it was partially because she just liked the word, but then went on to explain that in the world of the show the currency is called “joy”, and that there are various types of warrants the bounty hunters can obtain, one of which ia a “kill warrant”. So these Killjoys are folks who are killing for “joy” (i.e. money).

Watch the full panel below:

11:45-12:05pm

PANEL #5: TOWN OF THE LIVING DEAD Panelists: Bryan Boylen, John Ware (Director), Tina Teeter (Producer) and Glenda Hersh (Executive Producer) Bill McGoldrick Intro ** Panel Participants Mingle with the Press (15-Minutes) **

Next up was possibly (and ironically) the liveliest panel of the day. Town of the Living Dead is Syfy’s docuseries that follows a group of folks who have been trying to complete the zombie movie they have been working on for the past 6 years. The panelists included Bryan Boylen (the lead actor of the film), John Ware (the director of the film), Tina Teeter (the producer of the film) and Glenda Hersh (the executive producer of the Syfy docuseries).

They talked about how they got involved in making the zombie movie, some of the films that inspired them, their special effects and more.

During the Q&A I asked how the production changed once they had the Syfy show following them and watching every move they made:

TINA TEETER: Really, not a whole lot, other than we had people there watching us look like idiots. Basically, that’s how that went. We continued on, just like we have always done. We continued on making our own blood and our own props, everything is still the same. We just had a film crew there with us.
They were very good about staying out of the way when we were filming. So, yeah, I mean, it rocked on the same. We just had more people watching.

JOHN WARE: It’s definitely a challenge having somebody watch you through a camera while you’re trying to watch somebody else through a camera.

…

BRYAN BOYLEN: Yeah, speaking of challenges, the biggest challenge for me, you know, this is my first time out. I’ve done a lot of extra work and sort of paid my dues in that respect, and I was ready to move on to the next level and, you know, actually speak, have a role. And it was horrifying to me when I knew Syfy was going to do a show about this because, like I said, this was the first time for me. So now the whole world is going to see how awful I was as an actor. I didn’t get the chance to sort of cut my teeth like most people do, and that’s what I was trying to do with this movie, you know, get a chance to sort of hone my craft in an independent film that would, you know, not have so much exposure. Well, now, everybody gets to see it and so they’re expecting me to be better than I am.

Watch the full panel below:

12:30-1:30pm

LUNCH with FACE OFF’s McKenzie Westmore Location: Wantilan Pavilion / Royal Pacific Resort

We took a break from the panels to have some lunch. We were led to another area of the hotel where there was a buffet lunch set up.

As we ate, Face Off host McKenzie Westmore made her way from table-to-table, spending about 8 minutes talking with each group about the upcoming season of Face Off. She mentioned that judge Ve Neill would be returning for the show’s eighth season, and that there would be some other new twists. One of these was that the 15 new contestants would be broken into 3 teams, each coached by a former champion. The returning champions include Rayce Bird (Season 2), Anthony Kosar (Season 4) and Laura Tyler (Season 5). I asked if her father would also be returning and she said that he would, but that she would not be joining him in the work room—with the coaches and Michael Westmore, there were already plenty of folks to give the contestants advice.