TOUCH SEASON 2 PREMIERE
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2013
2-HOUR PREMIERE 8 PM - 10 PM ET on FOX
“TOUCH” CONNECTS
WITH A SPECIAL TWO-HOUR SEASON TWO PREMIERE
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, ON FOX
TOUCH, the critically acclaimed adventure drama series starring Emmy Award winner Kiefer Sutherland (“24”), will launch its anticipated second season with a special action-packed two-hour premiere on Friday, Feb. 8 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
In Season Two of TOUCH, the dramatic action shifts from New York to Los Angeles, where single father MARTIN BOHM (Sutherland) and his gifted son, JAKE (David Mazouz), are on the run. Their critical mission is to help distraught mother LUCY ROBBINS (Maria Bello, “ER”) find her missing – and equally gifted – daughter AMELIA (newcomer Saxon Sharbino). When it’s discovered that they are all targets of the mysterious and possibly sinister corporation, Aster Corps., the desperate search for Amelia intensifies. Factoring into the unfolding equation is the genius of Aster Corps., CALVIN NORBURG (Lukas Haas, “24”), who’s on the verge of making a career-defining discovery, as well as the extreme religious zealot GUILLERMO ORTIZ (Said Taghmaoui, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of The Cobra”), who stops at nothing to attain his vision. As ominous connections appear, Martin remains determined to uncover a global conspiracy in order to protect his family and save the lives of the innocent.
TOUCH is a production of Chernin Entertainment and Tailwind Productions, in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Tim Kring created the series and wrote the pilot. Kring, Carol Barbee (“Jericho”) Peter Chernin (NEW GIRL, BEN AND KATE), Katherine Pope (NEW GIRL, BEN AND KATE), Kiefer Sutherland and Suzan Bymel (“The War at Home”) are executive producers. Francis Lawrence (“Water for Elephants”) directed the pilot. “Like” TOUCH on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TOUCHonTV. Follow the series on Twitter @TOUCHonTV and join the discussion at #touch.
-FOX-
Source: FOXFlash.com
WITH A SPECIAL TWO-HOUR SEASON TWO PREMIERE
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, ON FOX
TOUCH, the critically acclaimed adventure drama series starring Emmy Award winner Kiefer Sutherland (“24”), will launch its anticipated second season with a special action-packed two-hour premiere on Friday, Feb. 8 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
In Season Two of TOUCH, the dramatic action shifts from New York to Los Angeles, where single father MARTIN BOHM (Sutherland) and his gifted son, JAKE (David Mazouz), are on the run. Their critical mission is to help distraught mother LUCY ROBBINS (Maria Bello, “ER”) find her missing – and equally gifted – daughter AMELIA (newcomer Saxon Sharbino). When it’s discovered that they are all targets of the mysterious and possibly sinister corporation, Aster Corps., the desperate search for Amelia intensifies. Factoring into the unfolding equation is the genius of Aster Corps., CALVIN NORBURG (Lukas Haas, “24”), who’s on the verge of making a career-defining discovery, as well as the extreme religious zealot GUILLERMO ORTIZ (Said Taghmaoui, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of The Cobra”), who stops at nothing to attain his vision. As ominous connections appear, Martin remains determined to uncover a global conspiracy in order to protect his family and save the lives of the innocent.
TOUCH is a production of Chernin Entertainment and Tailwind Productions, in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Tim Kring created the series and wrote the pilot. Kring, Carol Barbee (“Jericho”) Peter Chernin (NEW GIRL, BEN AND KATE), Katherine Pope (NEW GIRL, BEN AND KATE), Kiefer Sutherland and Suzan Bymel (“The War at Home”) are executive producers. Francis Lawrence (“Water for Elephants”) directed the pilot. “Like” TOUCH on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TOUCHonTV. Follow the series on Twitter @TOUCHonTV and join the discussion at #touch.
-FOX-
Source: FOXFlash.com
Touch-'The Complete 1st Season' of the Kiefer Sutherland Series: Date, Cost, Packaging, Extras
3-disc DVD set is verified to be in stores on October 16th
Posted by David Lambert
We told you over a month ago to expect an October 16th release on DVD (sorry, no Blu version) of Kiefer Sutherland in Touch - The Complete 1st Season. Today Fox Home Entertainment has made it official, confirming that date and the $39.99 SRP for the USA (in Canada, the correct SRP is $59.98).
This 3-disc set included these extras: Deleted Scenes, "Fate's Equations," and "Touch the World."
Here's a pre-order link from Amazon, and a finalized look at the front of the box:
AMAZON.COM
Taken from: http://tvshowsondvd.com/n/17282#ixzz21gSLkVuh
TOUCH OPENING THEME SONG
May 2, 2012: Kiefer Sutherland At 'TOUCH' Press Conference (West Hollywood, LA)
'TOUCH' Billboard In New York City, Times Square
(Photo Credit: Lisa Thomas - 2.19.12)
 2012 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Brian Bowen Smith/FOX |
 2012 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Brian Bowen Smith/FOX |
2012 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Brian Bowen Smith/FOX
Kiefer Sutherland in TOUCH
Promo Photos/FOX TOUCH TCA Photos
Kiefer Sutherland TOUCH: A Lot Going On Behind The Eyes
Kiefer Sutherland TOUCH: A Lot Going On Behind The Eyes
Richard Foreman/FoxKiefer Sutherland, left, and David Mazouz in "Touch," having its premiere on Fox on Jan. 25
By NEIL GENZLINGER Published: January 11, 2012
WHEN, exactly, did Kiefer Sutherland gain access to my head?
Mr. Sutherland is returning to television this month in a Fox drama called “Touch” in which he plays the father of a 10-year-old boy who has never spoken and doesn’t communicate in any traditional way. That’s a world I know something about, since I too have such a child.
It’s a frustrating, anguishing place to live, full of challenges and conflicting emotions that are difficult to convey to an outsider. Yet in the “Touch” pilot, which will be broadcast Jan. 25, Mr. Sutherland and his young co-star, David Mazouz, did a pretty good job of convincing me that they know something about it too.
“Touch” was created by Tim Kring, whose previous shows include the much-loved “Heroes,” about ordinary people who discover they have superpowers. That lineage is clear in “Touch” because the mute boy, Jake, has a superpower of sorts: He has a relentless fascination with numbers and finds patterns that, if deciphered properly by his father, lead to connections among disparate people all over the globe. The pilot involves a British man’s lost cellphone, a broken oven in Baghdad, a lottery jackpot in New York, a sex worker in Tokyo and more.
Mr. Kring said that finding the right actor to play Jake wasn’t easy; the role requires an ability to affect the blank, isolated look often seen in autistic children, yet also to suggest there is a lot going on behind the eyes.
“David is an extraordinary child,” Mr. Kring said. “He is extremely focused, and you can see the internal life in him. He’s also very still. Most kids we auditioned, you’d catch moments here and there between their general fidgetiness.
”The casting was made all the more difficult by the fact that Jake is silent to the other characters but not to viewers: his thoughts are heard in voice-over, and are fairly complex for a 10-year-old.
“Because we hear his internal voice, we have an understanding of just how intelligent he is, so we had to cast someone who fit that,” Mr. Kring said. “Some of the kids, they had wonderful-looking faces, but you just could not imagine the very bright kid inside.
”Mr. Sutherland said David was the first of about two dozen children he read with during auditions. “There was just something really natural between the two of us,” he said, something that wasn’t there with those who came after. “Around the 25th kid I was like, ‘Would you guys just hire the first kid, please?’
”What makes his co-star right for the part? “David does an amazing thing where he is completely physically disconnected from you, but I always felt I could feel him listening,” Mr. Sutherland said.
The role of Jake presented one sort of acting challenge, but Mr. Sutherland, of course, has a lot to convey as well. Raising a child like Jake — or like my own, who has a disability called Rett syndrome — requires letting go of a lot of traditional parental goals and peak experiences.
“There was a book that I got for Kiefer about parenting children with these kinds of disabilities,” Mr. Kring said. “I remember there was one chapter on something called chronic sorrow. Both Kiefer and I kind of focused on that.
”It’s a term coined in the 1960s by the sociologist Simon Olshansky to refer to the day-to-day grief parents of severely disabled children experience over the challenges they and their children face, the lost opportunities, the unforgiving future. Mr. Sutherland seems to find the essence of it in his character, Martin Bohm. This struggling father is a long way from Jack Bauer, the tough terrorism fighter of Mr. Sutherland’s best-known series, “24.” As Mr. Kring put it, when Martin is punched in the stomach in the pilot, “he reacts very much the way you or I would: he doubles over in pain.
”Being the parent of an uncommunicative child may entail sorrow, but it also requires not giving up on him, even if others do. The pilot introduces what Mr. Kring said would be a season-long struggle for Martin, a widower, to retain custody of the boy — institutionalization, for Martin, being something like throwing in the towel and acknowledging that there is no potential behind Jake’s intense gaze.
“Have you ever truly communicated with him?” a child services worker barks at Martin. “Does he even know who you are?” Maybe not, but a parent in Martin’s position constantly has to tell himself that those questions are irrelevant.
The problem with making a series about a family dealing with disability is not unlike the problem with making a medical drama or a police procedural: What actually goes on in these worlds doesn’t make very good television. Just as most real police work is drudgery, raising a child with a profound disability is mostly a daily slog in which simple things like feeding or bathing can take hours.
That’s why Mr. Kring and his team try to establish early on that, though Jake may look autistic, “Touch” is not about autism, and Jake’s condition is something else entirely.
“In the pilot we were pretty set on trying to state that as early as possible,” Mr. Kring said. “Clearly the autism community deserves to have champions out there, but by the same token we wanted to have the ability as storytellers to float above reality a little bit. There’s something special going on with this child, something metaphysical, almost supernatural.
”Carol Barbee, an executive producer of the show, added, “We also wanted to be sure not to be coming from a place of saying your autistic child is also a magical child.” To real-life parents that approach would be dismissive, like the old “special gift from God” line that well-meaning strangers often use because they don’t know what else to say.
In the premiere Martin finds his way to a cryptic fellow played by Danny Glover who tells him that Jake and others like him have psychic powers of sorts.
“Your son sees everything,” Mr. Glover’s character says. “The past, the present, the future. He sees how it’s all connected.” Then he adds, “It’s a road map, and your job now, your purpose, is to follow it for him.
”That paranormal-sounding assignment actually mimics the role that a parent of such a child assumes in real life. Though you try to provide tools that might let the child use language the way other people do — my daughter is currently working with a MyTobii, a keyboardless, mouseless computer that reads the gaze of her eyes in order to speak for her — you come to realize that the real task is to meet the child where she lives and decode what you can. For Martin, Mr. Sutherland said, that realization brings a breakthrough.
“That’s the first kind of real empowering moment that Martin has as a father,” he said. “One of the things that’s so fantastic in the first five episodes is you really see their ability to communicate take leaps and bounds.
”For Mr. Kring, Jake and his father are a means into a subject that has long interested him. “I’ve been really exploring this theme of interconnectivity between people,” he said. “With ‘Heroes’ I sort of buried the interconnectivity under the theme of superheroes. Here I wanted to put it front and center.
”Why make the linchpin a child without words? “How I arrived at him being mute was really just by trying to create a character who had this extraordinary gift but was possibly the most disenfranchised person on the planet.” Mr. Kring said. “If the theme was about interconnectivity, the microcosm of it was about a father who couldn’t really connect with his own son.
”The “haiku storytelling,” as Mr. Kring called it, will stretch all over the globe. Future episodes will include plotlines set in Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Australia. “Anything that we can make Southern California look like,” Ms. Barbee said, “that’s where we’re going.
”Wherever it goes “Touch” seems as if it has a chance to do what many shows that use characters with disabilities don’t: go beyond the superficial and avoid easy, feel-good solutions. Jake’s disability may be a fantastical construct, but the communication challenges are real.
Source: NYTimes.com
Screen Caps From New TOUCH Promo Video Aired On FOX, 12.16.11
12.8.2011: Kiefer Sutherland Attends TOUCH Screening At FOX Along With Executive Producer Tim Kring In LA
(photo credits: FOX Broadcasting & Associated Press)
11.29.2011: TOUCH Begins Production in Los Angeles
From Twitter:
mhsutaylor Just went to ep 101 read-through for #Touch -- great, great cast. Have been meeting awesome crew members. Completed sets are beautiful. 11.29.2011
marcimichelle Ok, quickly, had an AWESOME day! So fun seeing some of the 24 fam & meeting new crew too! More tomorrow:)) 11.29.2011
marcimichelle Officially day 1 of shooting @TouchFOX, script is excellent, so ready to do this!!:) 11.30.2011
marcimichelle Watched another amazing scene w/@RealKiefer yesterday. Sooo excited to see this start up!! @TouchFOX 12.8.11
@mhsutaylor Dailies for #Touch look great - storylines are set all over the world and in NYC and we still get to shoot in LA. our production crew rocks. 12.8.11
@mhsutaylor Among topics discussed today: the golden mean (1.618), music, spirituality, romance. & advance promos which people are going to enjoy #Touch 12.15.11
@marcimichelle Amazing day on @TouchonFOX incredible incredible gasp inducing stunt done today! All of us were audibly shocked:)) how's that for a tease;D 12.15.11
@nickyaya111 @RealKiefer Great working with you today on Touch (I was the pointer). You are truly a genuine and gracious person. And a great actor! 12.16.11
@mrdannyglover Sitting on set with Kiefer Sutherland eating butter pecan chocolate chip cookies from Karen's Country Cakes & Pies. Addictive! 12.16.11
@MilesFrmOrdnary Cool. Watching them shoot a scene for new Fox series Touch here on the lot. Kiefer Sutherland is right over there. #fb 12.18.11
@mhsutaylor Starting prep for #Touch ep 104, breaking story for ep 109 -- very exciting. Production crew is working miracles. 12.22.11
@mhsutaylor prep for #Touch ep 104: casting, location scouting, props, costumes, construction, visual FX, stunts & more. grateful to be making this show 1.5.12
9.22.11 - IT'S OFFICIAL: 'TOUCH' IS PICKED UP BY FOX, ORDERS 13 EPISODES WILL PREMIERE, SPRING 2012!
TOUCH premiering Spring 2012 on FOX. ©Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Brian Bowen Smith/FOX
 TOUCH premiering Spring 2012 on FOX. ©Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Brian Bowen Smith/FOX |
 TOUCH premiering Spring 2012 on FOX. ©Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Brian Bowen Smith/FOX |
Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Reilly and Tim Kring
at MIPCOM TOUCH Q&A Oct 4, 2011
Kiefer Sutherland Photocall at MIPCOM Cannes, France Oct 3, 2011
Click Images to Enlarge
Kiefer Sutherland Q&A at MIPCOM about TOUCH Oct 4, 2011
By Stuart Dredge
There was a buzz of anticipation in the Grand Auditorium for the Media Mastermind keynote session today. Fox Broadcasting Company’s president of entertainment Kevin Reilly took to the stage first, talking about his firm’s strategy and view of the evolving media market. He was then joined by creator/writer/executive producer Tim Kring and actorKiefer Sutherland for the second half of the session to discuss their new show Touch.
Mark Kaner, president of 20th Century Fox Television Distribution introduced the session, reminding the audience that Reilly has launched “countless” shows over his career, making his first mark by developing ER, and subsequently bringing The Sopranosto television. A stint as president of NBC Entertainment ensued, overseeing The Office, 30 Rock, Heroes and The Biggest Loser among other shows, before he returned to Fox for his current role.
“He’s in charge of all social media initiatives and all of our digital initiatives, and he really is pushing our new business going forward,” said Kaner, before Reilly strolled on-stage to begin the keynote.
Reilly began by saying he continues to be inspired by moments of creative innovation, and by the idea of having a foot in each world: the talent that creates the product, and the business that distributes and makes money from that product.
“I love talent (actors), because they’re passionate. They can be emotional and irrational and unpredictable, but that’s okay,” he said. “However, in business we like things to be quantifiable and predictable. I don’t really want my head of finance to be passionate and emotional…” So moving a creative idea through this system, while retaining a spark of eccentricity and imagination, is his favourite task.
“What makes an idea viable versus what’s needed to make it original?” he continued. “For all the ambition and good intentions, far too often we end up with conventional product and organisations that can’t re-imagine their futures. How can that happen at a time when we need that most?”
Reilly moved on to a discussion of what creativity is, saying that the contradictory process is wired into our very nature: creativity is “a reversing of gears: to know and to unknow, simultaneously”. Which requires liberating ourselves from the established rules – often a hard task.
Reilly said he’s often asked how he can be sure that a particular show is going to be a hit. “The truth is, in some ways, the less I am sure, the more excited I am about the possibilities,” he said, before moving on to the subject of research.
“We often look to research to guide our decisions,” he continued. “I’ve seen it accurately identify a breakout hit like ER that many executives didn’t understand at first.” But… “Had I relied solely in research results, I would never have gone forward with some of the hit shows that I’m most proud of. The Office was a horrificially testing pilot!” British fans didn’t get it, and US viewers found it boring.
“When we tested Glee for example, we got the same result four times: It was a show nobody liked… It seemed to be rejected, and therein lies the problem. When you poll people about what they want, they don’t know how to tell you about what they want… when they can’t yet reimagine. Steve Jobs makes products that people never knew they couldn’t live without.”
“Creative incubation requires open-ended, uninterrupted time to step away from a problem we’re trying to solve,” he continued, while warning that business today is driven by “more, bigger, faster”. Thus, it’s important to actively schedule time for innovation.
So how is the media ecosystem evolving? “Our business is changing and more challenging than it’s ever been,” he said. “The marketplace is fragmented. Consumer behaviour is evolving amidst an explosion of new technologies… People want choice, mobility and free. We’re no longer just competing against other channels.”
However, Reilly said that for all this upheaval, “the web is showing its limitations“, with the value of premium TV content still creating emotional connections with viewers. “Potent TV franchises can migrate across all technologies and behaviours… they need us and we need them… The future isn’t either traditional or digital: it’s a feedback loop between the two.”
Reilly talked about audiences starting to use filtering mechanisms and social networks to decide when to watch TV shows (and which ones to watch). “Last week, Facebook kicked social TV into high gear,” noted Reilly.
“Today our network business model has been set up to count impressions. What we haven’t put enough thought into is how to count expressions… It’s how creative we are in engaging those fans and keeping them connected, even as they move away from the traditional network, that will determine how potent and powerful the networks are in the future.”
New comedy New Girl was pre-released for free on iTunes and video-on-demand services a fortnight before the official premiere. “We had over two million downloads for the two weeks prior to air,” he said, pointing to positive reaction on social networks. “We spiked in both viewer awareness and intent to view… The show opened with the biggest comedy ratings Fox has had in over 10 years.”
Reilly unveiled an extended trailer of the new Kring/Sutherland show Touch at this point in the keynote, before sitting down for some questions with journalist Kate Bulkley, as well as show creator Kring and star Sutherland.
“I didn’t expect to come back to television as quickly as I have,” said Sutherland. “There were some films that I wanted to do, some things I was developing… I got a call from Peter Chernin and a call from Kevin, who both asked me to take a look at the script. And I said ‘I’m really not anticipating going back to work at this time, so I don’t wanna waste your time’. And they told me ‘Just read it…’”
Hence the show, which Sutherland knew he wanted to do after reading 25 pages. “It’s a genius concept, but at the root of the story it is a very intimate personal story that has a thrilling aspect to it; that has drama attached to it… It had everything.”
Touch is about a man whose son never speaks, but sees the world through mathematical formulae, which may give him the power to see the future.
Sutherland said there are some familiar grounds in Touch, but that it’s a step on from 24. “The format for 24 was ‘Jack Bauer is gonna have a bad day’. It’s not that hard to catch up. This is a little more complicated than that… It’s the openness that this character provides for me that is what actually becomes challenging and very exciting.”
Over to Kring, who explained that Touch borrows some elements from Heroes, in that it tries to tell stories with an international scope through characters around the world who are interconnected in various ways. “We talked a lot about interconnectivity in Heroes. This takes that theme and really crystallises it. It’s the emerging story of our time: we are more connected than we ever dreamed, both biologically and spiritually.”
How does it differ from Heroes? Kring said that he tried to tell self-contained stories every week, rather than Heroes-style cliffhangers at the end of every episode. But there will be an overall mythology and story arc that fans can follow.
What about digital disruption and transmedia extensions? “Anyone that is pitching a show right now that’s not thinking about how it’s going to live across multiple platforms doesn’t have their eye on the idea that the audience. Once I started to see that the audience was fragmenting to different platforms, it became my job as a storyteller to figure out how to reach them… You have to fish where the fish are.”
He went on to talk about the idea of the audience connecting to one another around the show. “We are very interested in this idea of a synchronous experience,” he said. “People will text one another if you don’t create that experience for them to have a synchronous experience.”
Kiefer Sutherland has also gone into digital, acting in webisodes called The Confession. Why? Partly because he liked the script creatively, but also because “I wanted to find out how difficult it would be to access an audience out there… We did find an audience, and I think next time out, we’ll find a larger audience.”
With Touch, ”we’re trying to release this globally at the same time… at least close enough so that audience members… let’s say we create an area for all of our audience to congregate too. Someone in Africa or Australia can be talking to someone in Europe… and sharing specific interest.”
“I don’t wanna be held to day and date!” jumped in Reilly, quickly. “We’re going to get as close as we can.” And then he moved on to the idea of the extra material across different platforms and devices: “Just tacking that on as part of the marketing isn’t going to cut it any more“.
Kring talked about “aiming high” with the show: “a show that attempted to not only move people but to challenge people. In a sea of content out there, how do you break out? How do you make people feel? That’s the most important thing whether we challenge people intellectually or spiritually, I’m interested in making people feel something. At the end of an hour, you’ve had an emotional journey.”
So, not dumbed down, but not going too far with the complexity either. “The art of it is not to confuse the audience, because confusion is a killer,” added Reilly.
Touch is a 13-episode show in its current state.
Is it a problem or a benefit that Touch is 13 episodes in its current state? “The Fall lineup is a complicated one; you line up at the starting line, everybody beats each other up for a few weeks, and one is left standing,” said Kring, noting that Touch launches in Spring 2012 instead.
Was Sutherland always in mind for the hero’s role in Touch? “It was a list of one,” said Reilly. “The conversation with Tim was very short and we really had to figure out what Plan B was if he said no!”
Sutherland is also executive producer of Touch, and said he’ll be getting involved with the music side of the show – which will also get fans involved online in some way, helping to choose the music. “There’s a whole other idea to break international music through the show,” added Reilly.
Finally: 24, the movie. Is it happening? “We’re very close. We’ve worked very hard and long for the last two years on a screenplay. It was actually much more difficult to take this idea that was 24 that had 24 hours and 24 episodes to tell a story, to condense that into two hours. We thought it was going to be easier, but it was much more difficult… Hopefully we’re looking at end of April to start production. Again, we’ll see.”
Source: MIPCOM
There was a buzz of anticipation in the Grand Auditorium for the Media Mastermind keynote session today. Fox Broadcasting Company’s president of entertainment Kevin Reilly took to the stage first, talking about his firm’s strategy and view of the evolving media market. He was then joined by creator/writer/executive producer Tim Kring and actorKiefer Sutherland for the second half of the session to discuss their new show Touch.
Mark Kaner, president of 20th Century Fox Television Distribution introduced the session, reminding the audience that Reilly has launched “countless” shows over his career, making his first mark by developing ER, and subsequently bringing The Sopranosto television. A stint as president of NBC Entertainment ensued, overseeing The Office, 30 Rock, Heroes and The Biggest Loser among other shows, before he returned to Fox for his current role.
“He’s in charge of all social media initiatives and all of our digital initiatives, and he really is pushing our new business going forward,” said Kaner, before Reilly strolled on-stage to begin the keynote.
Reilly began by saying he continues to be inspired by moments of creative innovation, and by the idea of having a foot in each world: the talent that creates the product, and the business that distributes and makes money from that product.
“I love talent (actors), because they’re passionate. They can be emotional and irrational and unpredictable, but that’s okay,” he said. “However, in business we like things to be quantifiable and predictable. I don’t really want my head of finance to be passionate and emotional…” So moving a creative idea through this system, while retaining a spark of eccentricity and imagination, is his favourite task.
“What makes an idea viable versus what’s needed to make it original?” he continued. “For all the ambition and good intentions, far too often we end up with conventional product and organisations that can’t re-imagine their futures. How can that happen at a time when we need that most?”
Reilly moved on to a discussion of what creativity is, saying that the contradictory process is wired into our very nature: creativity is “a reversing of gears: to know and to unknow, simultaneously”. Which requires liberating ourselves from the established rules – often a hard task.
Reilly said he’s often asked how he can be sure that a particular show is going to be a hit. “The truth is, in some ways, the less I am sure, the more excited I am about the possibilities,” he said, before moving on to the subject of research.
“We often look to research to guide our decisions,” he continued. “I’ve seen it accurately identify a breakout hit like ER that many executives didn’t understand at first.” But… “Had I relied solely in research results, I would never have gone forward with some of the hit shows that I’m most proud of. The Office was a horrificially testing pilot!” British fans didn’t get it, and US viewers found it boring.
“When we tested Glee for example, we got the same result four times: It was a show nobody liked… It seemed to be rejected, and therein lies the problem. When you poll people about what they want, they don’t know how to tell you about what they want… when they can’t yet reimagine. Steve Jobs makes products that people never knew they couldn’t live without.”
“Creative incubation requires open-ended, uninterrupted time to step away from a problem we’re trying to solve,” he continued, while warning that business today is driven by “more, bigger, faster”. Thus, it’s important to actively schedule time for innovation.
So how is the media ecosystem evolving? “Our business is changing and more challenging than it’s ever been,” he said. “The marketplace is fragmented. Consumer behaviour is evolving amidst an explosion of new technologies… People want choice, mobility and free. We’re no longer just competing against other channels.”
However, Reilly said that for all this upheaval, “the web is showing its limitations“, with the value of premium TV content still creating emotional connections with viewers. “Potent TV franchises can migrate across all technologies and behaviours… they need us and we need them… The future isn’t either traditional or digital: it’s a feedback loop between the two.”
Reilly talked about audiences starting to use filtering mechanisms and social networks to decide when to watch TV shows (and which ones to watch). “Last week, Facebook kicked social TV into high gear,” noted Reilly.
“Today our network business model has been set up to count impressions. What we haven’t put enough thought into is how to count expressions… It’s how creative we are in engaging those fans and keeping them connected, even as they move away from the traditional network, that will determine how potent and powerful the networks are in the future.”
New comedy New Girl was pre-released for free on iTunes and video-on-demand services a fortnight before the official premiere. “We had over two million downloads for the two weeks prior to air,” he said, pointing to positive reaction on social networks. “We spiked in both viewer awareness and intent to view… The show opened with the biggest comedy ratings Fox has had in over 10 years.”
Reilly unveiled an extended trailer of the new Kring/Sutherland show Touch at this point in the keynote, before sitting down for some questions with journalist Kate Bulkley, as well as show creator Kring and star Sutherland.
“I didn’t expect to come back to television as quickly as I have,” said Sutherland. “There were some films that I wanted to do, some things I was developing… I got a call from Peter Chernin and a call from Kevin, who both asked me to take a look at the script. And I said ‘I’m really not anticipating going back to work at this time, so I don’t wanna waste your time’. And they told me ‘Just read it…’”
Hence the show, which Sutherland knew he wanted to do after reading 25 pages. “It’s a genius concept, but at the root of the story it is a very intimate personal story that has a thrilling aspect to it; that has drama attached to it… It had everything.”
Touch is about a man whose son never speaks, but sees the world through mathematical formulae, which may give him the power to see the future.
Sutherland said there are some familiar grounds in Touch, but that it’s a step on from 24. “The format for 24 was ‘Jack Bauer is gonna have a bad day’. It’s not that hard to catch up. This is a little more complicated than that… It’s the openness that this character provides for me that is what actually becomes challenging and very exciting.”
Over to Kring, who explained that Touch borrows some elements from Heroes, in that it tries to tell stories with an international scope through characters around the world who are interconnected in various ways. “We talked a lot about interconnectivity in Heroes. This takes that theme and really crystallises it. It’s the emerging story of our time: we are more connected than we ever dreamed, both biologically and spiritually.”
How does it differ from Heroes? Kring said that he tried to tell self-contained stories every week, rather than Heroes-style cliffhangers at the end of every episode. But there will be an overall mythology and story arc that fans can follow.
What about digital disruption and transmedia extensions? “Anyone that is pitching a show right now that’s not thinking about how it’s going to live across multiple platforms doesn’t have their eye on the idea that the audience. Once I started to see that the audience was fragmenting to different platforms, it became my job as a storyteller to figure out how to reach them… You have to fish where the fish are.”
He went on to talk about the idea of the audience connecting to one another around the show. “We are very interested in this idea of a synchronous experience,” he said. “People will text one another if you don’t create that experience for them to have a synchronous experience.”
Kiefer Sutherland has also gone into digital, acting in webisodes called The Confession. Why? Partly because he liked the script creatively, but also because “I wanted to find out how difficult it would be to access an audience out there… We did find an audience, and I think next time out, we’ll find a larger audience.”
With Touch, ”we’re trying to release this globally at the same time… at least close enough so that audience members… let’s say we create an area for all of our audience to congregate too. Someone in Africa or Australia can be talking to someone in Europe… and sharing specific interest.”
“I don’t wanna be held to day and date!” jumped in Reilly, quickly. “We’re going to get as close as we can.” And then he moved on to the idea of the extra material across different platforms and devices: “Just tacking that on as part of the marketing isn’t going to cut it any more“.
Kring talked about “aiming high” with the show: “a show that attempted to not only move people but to challenge people. In a sea of content out there, how do you break out? How do you make people feel? That’s the most important thing whether we challenge people intellectually or spiritually, I’m interested in making people feel something. At the end of an hour, you’ve had an emotional journey.”
So, not dumbed down, but not going too far with the complexity either. “The art of it is not to confuse the audience, because confusion is a killer,” added Reilly.
Touch is a 13-episode show in its current state.
Is it a problem or a benefit that Touch is 13 episodes in its current state? “The Fall lineup is a complicated one; you line up at the starting line, everybody beats each other up for a few weeks, and one is left standing,” said Kring, noting that Touch launches in Spring 2012 instead.
Was Sutherland always in mind for the hero’s role in Touch? “It was a list of one,” said Reilly. “The conversation with Tim was very short and we really had to figure out what Plan B was if he said no!”
Sutherland is also executive producer of Touch, and said he’ll be getting involved with the music side of the show – which will also get fans involved online in some way, helping to choose the music. “There’s a whole other idea to break international music through the show,” added Reilly.
Finally: 24, the movie. Is it happening? “We’re very close. We’ve worked very hard and long for the last two years on a screenplay. It was actually much more difficult to take this idea that was 24 that had 24 hours and 24 episodes to tell a story, to condense that into two hours. We thought it was going to be easier, but it was much more difficult… Hopefully we’re looking at end of April to start production. Again, we’ll see.”
Source: MIPCOM
FOX Summer TCA Beverly Hills, California Aug 5, 2011 Fox's Kevin Reilly Calls Kiefer Sutherland Pilot, TOUCH "Extraordinary"
8.5.2011: Not that there was ever any doubt that Tim Kring's Fox pilot TOUCH starring Kiefer Sutherland would get on the air, but the network wanted to reserve final judgement until after it sees the finished pilot. Fox entertainment president Kevin Reilly told reporters at TCA today that he saw the pilot last night and it was "extraordinary", firmly sealing the project's midseason series pickup. "It's a new character but it does have some doze of Jack Bauer in it," Reilly said about Kiefer Sutherland's new role. TOUCH will be joining Fox's schedule this season.
Source: www.deadline.com
'TOUCH' Now Filming in LA
6.20.2011: The Production Company 20th Century Fox will be filming TOUCH on 6/20/11 in Los Angeles 5am - 10pm Description of Scene: Driving scenes. Equipment on property, sidewalk, in curb lane and across the street. Interior & exterior dialogue. Occasional traffic and pedestrian control. Fight scene. Static picture bus. Generator. Picture vehicles.
6.20.2011: @marcimichelle Great day so far on @touchFOX with @RealKiefer! So good to see some other familiar faces too:)
6.29.11: @marcimichelle @RealKiefer yet again, blew me away today (& everyone else at video village!)...wait till you guys see this @TouchFOX pilot it is so good!
7.1.11: @marcimichelle wowza, got home this morning from set at 3:45am! Great scenes, Kiefer continues to surprise w/an ever expanding range of emotion! @TouchFOX
7.5.11: @marcimichelle night ladies and gents, thanks for all the feedback today...big dialogue day for @RealKiefer tomorrow, should be GREAT!
@RealKiefer Sun is going down on LA, 2nd to last day on @TouchFOX hope you like it~
Source: @RealKiefer Via TwitPic
Kiefer Sutherland On Location At Union Station In LA To Film FOX TV Show 'TOUCH' - 6/28/11
Photo Credit: yfrog.com Via Twitter
Kiefer Sutherland on the set of 'TOUCH' filming at San Bernardino Airport June 27, 2011
Twitter: RealKiefer On set today with prop man Sterling Rush..yup, I'm a baggage handler http://t.co/H0VaZ3i
Kiefer Sutherland's New TV Show Coming Soon To FOX
From writer/creator Tim Kring (“Heroes,” “Crossing Jordan”) and executive producers Peter Chernin (TERRA NOVA) and Katherine Pope (TERRA NOVA) comes TOUCH, a preternatural drama in which science and spirituality intersect with the hopeful premise that we are all interconnected, tied in invisible ways to those whose lives we are destined to alter and impact.
Through masterful storytelling, the series follows a group of seemingly unrelated characters – beginning with a former firefighter tormented by his inability to save a dying woman, an Iraqi teenager who will go to great risks to help his family, a gifted singer whose actions at a karaoke bar save lives thousands of miles away and a British businessman desperately trying to retrieve a key piece of information from his lost mobile phone – who affect each other in ways seen and unseen.
At the center is MARTIN BOHM (Kiefer Sutherland, “24”), a widower and single father, haunted by an inability to connect to his mute, severely autistic 10-year-old son, JAKE. Caring, intelligent and thoughtful, Martin has tried everything to reach his son who shows little emotion and never allows himself to be touched by anyone, including Martin. Jake busies himself with cast-off cell phones, disassembling them and manipulating the parts, allowing him to see the world in his own special way.
After multiple failed attempts at keeping Jake in school, Martin is visited by social worker CLEA HOPKINS, who insists on doing an evaluation of the Bohms’ living situation. Although new at her job, Clea sees a man whose life has become dominated by a child he can no longer control. She believes his attempts to communicate with Jake are just wish fulfillment, and determines that it’s time for the state to intervene. But everything changes when Martin discovers that Jake possesses a gift of staggering genius – the ability to see things that no one else can, the patterns that connect everything. Jake is indeed communicating after all. But it’s not with words, it’s with numbers. And now he needs Martin to decipher their meaning and connect these numbers to the cast of seemingly unrelated characters whose lives they affect.
Along the way, Martin will be guided by BORIS PODOLSKY, a discredited aging professor who offers Martin a compelling but unorthodox theory about Jake and his rare ability. Whether it be chance, coincidence, timing, synergy or fate, there are events that touch us all, as part of an interconnected, dazzlingly precise universe.
TOUCH is a production of 20th Century Fox Television, Tailwind Productions and Chernin Entertainment. The series is created and written by Tim Kring. Kring, Francis Lawrence (“Water for Elephants”), Peter Chernin, Katherine Pope, Kiefer Sutherland and Suzan Bymel (“The War at Home”) are executive producers. Lawrence will direct the pilot.
Source: www.facebook.com/touchonFOX
Follow Official TOUCH Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/touchfox
Follow Fan-Based TOUCH Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/touchnews314
Touch IMDB Page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821681
TOUCH Cast
Kiefer Sutherland as Martin Bohm
Kiefer Sutherland stars in TOUCH. The project, which is considered a lock for a midseason series order, centers on Martin (Sutherland) who discovers that his genius son Jake is communicating with him through a complex series of numbers and may even be able to predict events before they happen. Jake rarely shows emotion, refuses to be touched, and instead busies himself with cast-off cell phones, able to see the world with something akin to the eye of God, where every action, thought, breath is interconnected.
David Mazouz as Jake Bohm
Child actor David Mazouz has landed the younger lead opposite Kiefer Sutherland in the Fox drama pilot Touch.
Danny Glover as Professor Arthur DeWitt
Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Clean Hopkins
Franco Vega as Police Officer
Franco Vega has been cast in Touch, as a cop in who is dealing with a very serious situation.
More on TOUCH Cast at IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821681
FOX Exec: 'Touch Is Really Compelling'
Monday, May 16 2011, 11:35am EDT
By Catriona Wightman, TV Reporter
Fox's entertainment president Kevin Reilly has described upcoming drama Touch as "compelling".
The network confirmed earlier today that it has picked up the show, which stars Kiefer Sutherland.
However, a pilot has not yet been shot as Sutherland is working on a Broadway play.
"We're going to schedule this show opportunistically," Reilly told reporters.
"Touch was a really extraordinary script, a compelling drama, that stars Kiefer Sutherland as a father whose world changes when he discovers that his child with special needs has the ability to see patterns and connections that no-one else can."
Reilly explained that the pilot will be shot in June and added: "The script blew us away, getting Kiefer back to the network [after 24] was something... we think this could be really special."
Source: digitalspy.com
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