Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

This is Chris Bridges with the Daytona Beach News-Journal, and I’m talking with Joss Whedon, creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Angel,” the show “Firefly,” the movie “Serenity,” the upcoming FOX show “Dollhouse,” and now an original online musical mini-series, “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.” Thank you for talking to me.

Thanks for having me.

Go ahead and give me the elevator pitch for “Dr. Horrible.”

There’s an elevator pitch?

I hope so.

I’ve never heard that phrase. Basically it’s your typical Internet musical about a super villain who’s trying to make his bones in the super villain community and get some respect, and maybe even work up the nerve to talk to the girl at the Laundromat.

So, like every other Internet serial musical.

Yeah, you know, I mean it’s a tired genre but I thought I could wring a few bucks out of it before it dies.

How did this get started? What made you decide to go straight to the Internet?

You know, there’s been a lot of talk about that during the (writers) strike, I’ve been interested in doing things that were smaller, lower budget, more filled with my friends, and sillier than I’m allowed to do in the normal course of Hollywood, so I decided I’d just fund a little something myself. It kind of ballooned, in terms of the amount of talent that we were able to attract, but it’s been true to its tiny roots of “Let’s just put on a show.”

A “my dad has a barn” sort of feeling.

You know, when I was a kid, he did. And we put on shows.

How did you choose the cast? Does Nathan Fillion have pictures of you, or–

You know, you’re not the first person to ask that so I’m beginning to wonder. After I passed out, what happened…?

You know, who wouldn’t cast Nathan Fillion in absolutely everything. I mean, he can play the hero, he can play the idiot, he can play the ingénue, he can play the ficus and be the most interesting thing in the room. He’s amazing. And you know he’s a dear, smart, centered guy, so that’s a no-brainer. And he’s so great as that character, you know. It very much reflects some of his own humor that the moment he signed on Zack and I were writing a bunch of his scenes, we raced to our typewriters. No, we use computers, we’re not that old.

But you know, Neil was… I wasn’t as sure Neil would be interested in it and he said yes faster than I had the question out. But he’s, you know. Just incre.. I’ve seen him do everything, including, you know, sing on Broadway, so I knew he had the chops. He still brought more to it than I even imagined he could. And Felicia, you know, has been a friend since she was on “Buffy.” Her show “The Guild” has been kind of an inspiration for this and I suspected she had some singing pipes as well and she also blew me away. The first time she and Neil sang together, I may have cried a little.

Will there be a soundtrack?

Yes there will! Although I’m not positive when.

Making it up as we go along?

There is no truer statement of this entire endeavor than that.

Has it been more… I’m not sure “relaxing” is the right word, but has there been a different feel to it because you’re totally in control of everything?

Yeah, you know, “relaxing” is definitely not the right word? Because being in control of everything means being responsible for everything, including signing all the checks. You definitely learn, oh, this is really complicated. I understand why it’s so hard to settle contracts of studios and things. But… And I got very nervous, before we had line producers on, I just thought “This is never going to happen!” But the flip side, the creative side, yeah, it is like a warm bath. It’s just the sweetest, the most delightful, relaxing thing, just in terms of “This is just us, this is what we want to do with our time. Everybody is having the time of their lives.” That’s something that’s hard to capture.

What time will the episodes be posted?

We’re planning to post them pretty much at 12:01 in the morning.

Are you ready for the entire Internet to land on you?

You know, if we don’t crash it, we’ve failed.

No, we only have the bandwidth to support 17 viewers at a time.

No, none of those things are true, we do hope that a lot of people will show up, ‘cause we think it’s kind of an event. But we’re also prepared for the numbers to be even smaller than anybody thought, for everyone to go “awwww.” Because, you know, you have to be prepared for that and the great thing about it is I don’t have anybody worrying about it. We don’t have anybody we’re beholden to, to be like “You failed us! We loved the musical.” We think the people who see it will love it as well, and how many people see it, well, that’s not really up to us.

Click on the link for more :

http://cabridges.com/2008/07/joss-whedon-on-dr-horrible/