Joe Biz - September 12, 2009

Joe Biz – September 12, 2009

In the poker game that is Hollywood, it’s no exaggeration that JJ Abrams holds a very hot hand these days. As the creator of the multi-layered drama, ‘Lost’ and Fox-TV’s latest sci-fi hit series, ‘Fringe’, along with this year’s epic blockbuster, ‘Star Trek’, it seems that the multi-faceted producer, screenwriter, director and composer can do no wrong. In Vancouver for the recent red carpet gala for the Season One DVD release of his latest creation, ‘Fringe’, the Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner told me how excited he was to have his newest series transplanted to Vancouver for this, its second season.
“I’ve been a huge fan of Vancouver since I visited with my daughter on a vacation, and we loved it,” says Abrams. “When the opportunity came up to move ‘Fringe’ - and among the options we saw was Vancouver - I thought, Oh my God, that would be the greatest – I love it there. Very luckily, it all worked out.”
It did indeed.
‘Fringe’ follows a Boston-based FBI organization; utilizing a series of rather unorthodox, often incorporating ‘fringe’ techniques to investigate unexplained and macabre occurrences around the world. While innately elaborate by its very nature, Abrams says this storyline differs in its evolution from that of his other current hit series, ‘Lost’.
“The thing about ‘Fringe’ that I love is that the mythology of the story is connected to the characters,” Abrams tells me. “I think in the second season especially, it’s going to become more and more touched on than we alluded to in the first season and I think because it’s going to become more and more tangible, I think there’s going to be that kind of fodder; the investment in the back stories and where the stories are going.
I think we can do something every week that is more stand alone and less connected to the characters. It’s hard to develop that kind of connection because it doesn’t have the roots and doesn’t go as deep. ‘Lost’ did that very early; getting to know one character at a time per episode and had that kind of intense back story for each character and I think that ‘Fringe’ is going to be doing a little bit more of that; going a bit deeper with who the characters are and what their history’s are”.

A couple of disparate hit-makers of the past gracing the City of Vancouver with their presence this week as sixties songstress Petula Clark and eighties chart-topper Richard Marx made their respective appearances. It was a particular treat to talk to the now 76 year old Clark, who rocketed to fame in 1965 with ‘Downtown’, a song since inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and introduced to her all those years ago by her then recording manager Tony Hatch.
“I was living in Paris at the time and Tony came over to talk about my next French recording session,” Clark recalls. “He told me that I really should be recording in English and said that he had started writing this song called ‘Downtown’ and hadn’t finished the lyric yet but had the tune. When I heard it, I told him it was a great tune if he could write the lyric and I would love to go in and record it. That’s what we did two weeks later.”
Clark told me that despite a recording career with over 70 million records sold worldwide, fifteen consecutive Top 40 hits and a Guiness Book of World Records declaration of being the most successful British female solo recording artist ever, you never really know a song is going to be a hit, despite its pedigree. “When you go into the studio, you’re never really quite sure what you’re going to come out with,” she says. “When we made ‘Downtown’, all the elements were there and it came out great but we really had no idea that we were making a monster and I don’t honestly think anybody ever does.”
As for Richard Marx, he carved out a pretty good streak of hit singles himself in the late eighties and nineties, securing him a place in the record books by being the first solo artist to have his first seven singles hit the Top 5. Marx told me that Vancouver holds special significance to him. “Vancouver has always been a great city for me professionally since the first leg of my very first tour but it’s also been a part of my life. I started coming to Vancouver when I was eighteen or nineteen working with David Foster there, and I actually spent part of my honeymoon in this city.”

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