A Ball with the supernatural

True Blood deviates from mainstream TV into a world of telepaths, vampires and other non-human characters.


The cast of True Blood.

A NEW 12-episode drama True Blood, from the same creator as HBO’s Six Feet Under, debuts over the MAX (Astro Channel 412) at 10pm today.

It is based on the popular Sookie Stackhouse novels of Charlaine Harris about perky waitress Sookie with telepathic gifts and her attraction to a 173-year-old vampire Bill.

In conjunction with the show’s premiere, Life & Times has a question-and-answer session with creator Alan Ball.

QUESTION: What was it about Charlaine Harris’ novels that made you want to turn them into a series?
ALAN BALL: I was browsing in a bookstore one day and I saw this book titled Dead Until Dark, which had the tag line “Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn’t such a bright idea.”

I thought that sounded like fun, so I bought the book — the first in Charlaine Harris’ series — and I could not put it down.

I loved the way it was funny and scary and sexy and romantic, and it had a lot of interesting things to say about what it’s like to be other than mainstream.

And it’s not just the vampires; Sookie is a telepath, and there are other non-human characters in the story.

I became addicted. And once I finished the book, I thought, “Where’s the next one?” I’d been wanting to pitch a new series to HBO, and I thought this would make a terrific series.

Q: How do you see the series unfolding over the course of the first season?

A: Basically the first season is the first book in the series, with some new stories created for the characters to provide balance.

One of the things I love about Charlaine’s books is the way she treats the supernatural world so matter-of-factly.

We’re trying to do the same thing in our production design and the way we shoot everything. We want to keep the supernatural rooted in nature, so that it’s just more nature than we’re used to in everyday life.

I’m trying to avoid all the vampire clichés. I watched just about every vampire movie, and most of them told me what I don’t want to do.

I wanted to avoid the crazy contact lenses, the opera music, the blue light.

True Blood takes place in a small town in rural Louisiana. It’s hot and humid and there’s not a lot to do there. I want it to be rooted in the characters, and seem like it could be really happening, and not some fantasy world.

Q: What made you want to do another series?

A: I was looking to do another series because Six Feet Under was such a great experience.

TV, especially with the advent of the premium cable channels, is in many ways a much better place to work as a writer than movies.

In a movie, you’ve got to pack it all into two hours, and movies are becoming more and more like amusement park rides. I enjoy a good amusement park ride as much as the next guy, but TV is more like a novel.

You can stay with characters over a long time and really see the subtle and interesting changes that life visits on a person.

You can dramatise their struggle with life, rather than dramatising the struggle with a particular issue that gets resolved over two hours.

Q: How do you approach directing, as opposed to writing?

A: I love to direct. Directing is similar to being a writer, in that I’m a storyteller. It’s all about the stories and the characters.

Q: How do you think viewers of Six Feet Under will respond to True Blood?

A: I think fans of Six Feet Under will like the show because there’s a lot of moral complexity in it, which is something that always fascinates me.

We grow up with notions of good and evil, and the belief that good will always triumph, but if you take a look at the world around you, that’s obviously not the case.

Also, one of the things we kept coming back to on Six Feet Under was the idea that when you do the right thing, the moral thing, a lot of times it makes your life harder and more complicated. And that’s interesting.

But True Blood is different from Six Feet Under in that it has a much lighter tone. It’s more of an adventure. It’s a story you’ve never seen before and a world you’ve never seen before. It’s fun. It’s a show I would watch.

Catch four back-to-back episodes of True Blood’s Asian premiere today. Subsequently, you’ll catch two back-to-back episodes every Thursday. Repeat episodes will be aired every Saturday at 2pm.

(See TV News (pg15) for more on the show).

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