Here’s a brand new, great behind the scenes video of Kiefer Sutherland and cast talking about The Confession. Includes interviews with Kiefer and co-stars John Hurt, Max Casella, Michael Badalucco, Greg Ellis, and writer/director Brad Mirman among others.

YouTube Link: The Confession Behind the Scenes (original link via Hulu – US only)

Marci Michelle, dialogue consultant on 24 has started a new photo blog with some excellent behind the scenes photos of 24 – the locations, cast, and crew members. There’s a lot of great stuff in there from 24 Redemption and 24 Season 8. Here are a few links:

• 24 Redemption and 24 Season 8 candids
• Filming 24 Redemption in Africa (love the final explosion shot)
• 24 Season 8

Follow Marci on Twitter and check out her new official website MarciMichelle.com for even more pictures!

Here’s an excellent behind the scenes article about the many challenges the Terra Nova crew has faced. Terra Nova is an upcoming FOX series by many former 24 crew members – Brannon Braga is showrunner, Jon Cassar is attached as the series regular director, production designers Joseph Hodges and Carlos Barbosa built the elaborate sets, and actor Mido Hamada (24‘s Samir Mehran) stars in a regular role.

The producers then brought on “24″ writers Brannon Braga and David Fury to rework it. Mr. Fury soon left. “I had issues with the DNA of the project and because there were so many chefs in the kitchen,” he says. Yet another writer was brought in, René Echevarria of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

In September, the group agreed on Queensland, where Mr. Spielberg’s “The Pacific” filmed. But many actors were unwilling to commit to spending months half way around the world. “Once we decided to shoot there, we eradicated half the casting pool,” says Mr. Braga, the writer.

Read the full story at Wall Street Journal.

After being asked by fans on Twitter, Howard Gordon took to his other Twitter account, @24Season8 (shh… I think it’s supposed to be a secret) to explain why bloopers weren’t included on the DVD. The answer is pretty insulting in my opinion.

NO BLOOPER REEL FOR YOU!

What the heck? Blooper reels are a very common part of television shows and movies – fans are smart enough to realize the difference. There was even one on the 24 Season 6 DVD (the Ricky Gervais cameo). It’s not like the bloopers would be integrated into the actual episodes, we access bloopers through a special feature menu. Clear distinction from the show.

24‘s constantly serious nature is precisely why a blooper reel would be so fun to watch. I can understand withholding bloopers until 24‘s final season (like Kiefer promised before) but to not give us any period? Weak move.

Source: 24Season8 Twitter

The Ultimate CTU is a special feature found on disk 6 of the 24 Season 8 DVD.

Production designer Carlos Barbosa, art director Carlos Osorio, construction coordinator Philip Stone, Olivier Benamou who creates the computer graphics, and showrunner Howard Gordon describe the new CTU New York.

Virtually New York special feature found on disk 6 of the 24 Season 8 DVD.

Director Brad Turner, showrunner Howard Gordon, Director of Photography Rodney Charters, producer Paul Gadd, and visual effects supervisors Sam Nicholson, Eddie Bonin, James Riley, digital compositing supervisor Chris Martin, and CGI supervisor Al Lopez describe how they faked New York with creative use of green screens and CG technology.

Kiefer Sutherland has revealed how watching back previous seasons of 24 has been an “eye-opener” for him, and how it has made him feel nostalgic about the last ten years.

The actor – who played counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer – is currently filming a documentary about the series. He explained that he was shocked by how much he had changed over the course of the show.

Speaking to Empire about his time on the series, he said: “Our ageing is documented through the show – it’s a bit of an eye-opener. Though if you actually do the math, Jack Bauer is now about 85 years old!”

He added: “We’re putting a documentary together, so I sat down with Rodney Charters, the cinematographer, to look at behind-the-scenes footage from the last eight years. We were laughing, then it got to stuff from the later seasons and it wasn’t funny anymore.”

Source: Digital Spy (thanks PDFierro)

Update: Check out the FULL special feature for The Ultimate CTU here.

Here’s a clip from the 24 Season 8 DVD feature “The Ultimate CTU”. Production designer Carlos Barbosa explains how he chose the location for CTU NY.

24 Season 8 is out now in the UK on DVD and Blu-Ray. The US release date is December 14th, just over a month from now.

You can buy the 24 Season 8 on DVD on Amazon – it’s also available on on Blu-Ray.

Howard Gordon did an interview with Sky UK and revealed that at one point early on, network executives were considering Jeff Goldblum for the role of Jack Bauer. “But once Kiefer [Sutherland] came up that was pretty much done”, he says.

He also speaks of the final scene in the series finale and briefly about the upcoming 24 movie.

Source: Sky

24UK Podcast was granted an extensive tour of the 24 sets (both CTU and the United Nations) with production designer Carlos Barbosa, and they just posted the video which is in four parts.

THR: So Jack lives. I know you’ve got the movie planned, but how much did you seriously consider killing him in the finale?

Gordon: We certainly considered it. We considered killing him earlier (in the season) as an off-rhythm thing. But every time we went there and penciled it out, it didn’t feel satisfying. It felt frustrating or it felt affected or something.

Read the rest at LiveFeed/THR

Gordon also spoke with Entertainment Weekly. He is asked about many things including the fan reaction to Dana Walsh and the death of Renee Walker. Gordon was also asked about the lack of returning characters – where was Tony Almeida, Aaron Pierce, Mandy, and Alan Wilson?

How come you didn’t bring back Tony Almeida this season?
We tempted fate once with him, for sure. I seem to have gotten away with it, so we consider ourselves lucky and ahead of the game.

What about Alan Wilson, who masterminded the Sentox nerve gas conspiracy last year?
I think you got a sense that Renee broke him and broke the back of the conspiracy at a tremendous personal and professional price.

Did you ever consider bringing back Mandy, the professional assassin from seasons 1, 2 and 4?
Mandy always came up a bunch of times, but unfortunately, it felt like a sensational move. We chose not to go down that path.

Aaron Pierce?
We always considered bringing back Aaron Pierce. The story never presented itself. Other than Kiefer, he is the only one who has been in every season. Unfortunately, we couldn’t give him a perfect run.

Read the rest at EW.com

The final ‘Scenemakers’ behind the scenes video of 24 Season 8 with director Brad Turner and actors Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer) and Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe O’Brian).

Here’s a behind the scenes movie from the 24 series wrap. (NOTE: The first 20 seconds have no audio, that’s just the way the video is).

Kiefer Sutherland, Mary Lynn Rajskub, showrunner Howard Gordon, crew members Rodney Charters, Marci Michelle, and more are visible. 24 co-creator Joel Surnow showed up too and gives Kiefer a hug. Loved the “damnit” cake.

YouTube Link: 24 Series Finale Wrap Footage (Behind the Scenes)

I thought this was a pretty cute story and a creative way one of the directors worked around 24‘s limited budget.

What’s better than a book trailer, print advertising, billboards, or television spots for your book? One lucky writer landed a gigantic billboard on the set of the hit television show 24–exposing her book to millions of viewers during one of the final episodes of the popular action series.

Author Lori Lansens has a new book entitled The Wife’s Tale, and her supportive husband happens to be a producer on 24.

While planning a shot for tonight’s episode, her husband needed to block out a few pesky palm trees. Instead of expensive special effects work, he had the art department build a billboard for his wife’s book to cover up the trees–in the photo above, you can see their handiwork.

After the jump, check out a photo of a shadowy Kiefer Sutherland perched on a car roof, blasting a machine gun in the general direction of the billboard–a bullet-ridden piece of brilliant book publicity for a book with “sharp humour and delicate grace.”

Source: GalleyCat

The 20th Scenemakers of 24 Season 8 with director Milan Cheylov and Special FX coordinator Stan Blackwell. “Director Milan Cheylov and crew take us behind the scenes of Jack’s revenge against Logan”.