Instant Star

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Instant Star
Image:Jude_03.jpg
Alex Johnson as Jude Harrison.
Genre Teen drama
Creator(s) Linda Schuyler
Starring Alexz Johnson
Tim Rozon
Laura Vandervoort
Kris Turner
Wes "Maestro" Williams
Tyler Kyte
Simon Reynolds
Narrated by Alexz Johnson
Country of origin Canada
No. of seasons 3
No. of episodes 39 (List of episodes)
Production
Producer(s) Stephen Stohn
Running time 30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel Flag of Canada CTV

Flag of United States The N
Original run 2004 –
Links
Official website
IMDb profile

Instant Star is a Canadian television program starring Alexz Johnson as adolescent music competition winner Jude Harrison. After its release, the program's popularity rose amongst teenagers, particularly in the United States and Canada. The show chronicles Harrison's experience in the recording industry whilst focusing upon character development.

Linda Schuyler and Stephen Stohn of Epitome Pictures produce the show. The program began to air on CTV in Canada prior to being picked up by Viacom-owned teen network channel The N in the United States. The show became the second most popular program on The N with Degrassi: The Next Generation, also produced by Schuyler and Stohn, ranking as most popular.

After its first season, Instant Star was nominated for three Gemini Awards (Canadian equivalent of the American Emmy Award) in the category of Best Children's or Youth Fiction Program or Series. Nominations included: (1) Best Series; (2) Best Performance (Alexz Johnson); and (3) Best Direction (Graeme Campbell). The show won the award for Best Direction for the episode You Can't Always Get What You Want.[1]

Three seasons of the show (each with 13 episodes) have been produced so far, with a fourth season to begin production this spring. [2]

Contents

[edit] Cast and characters

[edit] Starring

[edit] Supporting cast

  • Christopher Gaudet - Wally Robbins
  • Ian Blackwood - Kyle Bateman
  • Cory Lee - Karma (Season 3-?)
  • Zoie Palmer - Patsy Sewer (Season 2-3)
  • Nicholas Rose - Mason Fox (Season 2)
  • Vincent Walsh - Liam Fenway (Season 2)
  • Barbara Mamabolo - Katherine "Kat" Benton (Season 1-2)
  • Jane Sowerby - Victoria Harrison (Season 1-2)
  • Tracey Waterhouse - Georgia Bevans (Season 1)
  • Andrea Lui - E.J. Li (Season 1)
  • Matthew Brown - Shay Mills (Season 1)
  • Katrina Matthews - Eden Taylor (Season 1)

[edit] Guest stars

[edit] Instant Stars

  • Season 1
    • Winner: Jude Harrison
    • Runner-Up: Eden Taylor
  • Season 2
    • Winner: Mason Fox
  • Season 3
    • Winner: Karma

[edit] Series plot

In each episode of the show, Jude Harrison must deal with the problems and challenges of both her musical career and her personal life, as one weaves into the other. She also faces dilemmas and choices in her relationships, dividing her feelings between the loves in her life, such as Tommy Q. (her producer/Soul mate), Jamie (a life-long best friend and ex boyfriend of hers), Spiederman (her lead guitarist/ex-boyfriend), and Shay (a major rap artist/ex boyfriend), while also recording with G-Major Records. These people are important to her music - the one thread that ties her life together. Her best moments are when she is working with others in creating and performing her music. In addition to her music and her loves, there is much else going on in her personal life and in the lives of those around her.

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of Instant Star episodes

[edit] Instant Star Minis

Starting in Season 3, Instant Star Mini webisodes have appeared on The-N.com's The Click.

  1. "If I Should Stay" - Tommy shows Jude how to find her everything.
  2. "The Flame" - Karma makes Tommy her own by sexing up her new single.
  3. "Warrior Princess" - Sadie is a ninja. Like a real, honest to God, nun chuck wielding, kick-your-ass-with-a-pole ninja.
  4. "Geometry Of Love" - Jamie puts on a lab coat and dissects the sordid steaming mass of Instant Star romance.
  5. "Instant Noir" - Gams, hats, dames, and Tommy kissing Jude. Wait, what are "gams" again?
  6. "My Best-Friend's Wedding" -Imagine the not-too-distant future...It's Jude's wedding day...So who the hell is she marrying?
  7. "8 kilometre"-Lose yourself. No seriously, lose yourself before Spiederman starts rapping.

[edit] Instant Star: On the set

Along with with Instant Star mini's, The-N.com takes you backstage of Instant Star. Also appearing on The-N.com's The Click.

  1. "Time to Sing Again" - Be there as Alexz steps on stage to perform the first song from the new season of Instant Star.
  2. "Tim and Alexz Time" - What Tim and Alexz have together no one can take away. Not that anyone's tried.
  3. "20 Minute Rain Delay" - The cast shot the boob-out bar mitzvah at a real celeb's house. Whose house was it is top secret. But after 20 minutes standing in the rain, they told us anyway.
  4. "One Flew Over the Photo Shoot" - Nothing say's "photo shoot day" like Tim Rozon doing the cabbage patch.
  5. "Going Out With a Bang" - The thing about TV is, when you need to shoot a deadly car crash, you can't actually kill anybody.
  6. "On the Steps of a Mansion" - Tim Rozon proves it's not how well you sing, it's how well you do The Grab.
  7. "A Day in the Country" - Ahh, the Instant Star life: relaxing in a verdant meadow, napping with Tim Rozon, busting up $100,000 sports cars...
  8. "The Making of 'What You Need'" - It's true: Tyler Kyte did write and perform Spiederman's first solo record. It's also true that Alex Johnson's dressing room is way nicer than his.

[edit] Music

Each episode of the series features a new song performed by Jude. Usually, the song is about something that occurs in the episode, however, in some episodes there is no direct explanation to the lyrics. Some episodes can feature more than one song, but there is only one song per episode that is to be featured on the soundtrack for that season. For instance, there is 13 episodes per season, 13 main songs.

Alexz Johnson has done the vocals for Jude on both soundtracks, while even co-writing some of the songs with her brother Brendan. For the third soundtrack, it has been mentioned that Alexz will not be featured for all of the songs on the CD, because of the release of her upcoming debut album.

Just before the broadcast of the second season on The N, viewers had a chance to see Alexz Johnson in concert in a show called "Backstage Pass", singing two of the songs from each season of the show, accompanied by her band from the show (and in real life), Spiederman Mind Explosion.

[edit] Soundtracks

[edit] References to Popular Culture / Trivia

  • In the series premiere episode, Even Better Than The Real Thing, one character says that the company will bring in a well known song writer. Immediately, Jamie suggests Billie Joe Armstrong from the band Green Day. Jude also asks if Tim Armstrong from Rancid was the person they were talking about.
  • Jude is a fan of The Ramones.
  • While Jude and Spiederman are talking about their relationship, Jude suggests that they were never really a Romeo-and-Juliet couple. Spiederman then says they were more like Bart and Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons.
  • In the episode I Fought the Law, a poster of Eminem is hanging on the glass wall during the opening scene.
  • Another episode has a wall poster of the group Shaye who also can also be heard singing one of their songs on the show. Shaye includes Damhnait Doyle (see "Discography" above). and Jude has a relationship with her sexy producer Tommy Quincy
  • Nicholas Rose and Tyler Kyte play in a band together called Sweet Thing.
  • The Harrison family all have names that reference the Beatles. The last name comes from George Harrison; Stuart Harrison's name comes from Stuart Sutcliffe (who was a Beatles member before he died and is credited with the naming of the band); Jude's name comes from the song "Hey, Jude" and Sadie is named after the song "Sexy Sadie'; Victoria is taken from Stuart Sutcliffe's middle name, Victor. Both parents, then, are named after a founding member of the band and the daughters are named after songs that seem to pertain to their personalities.
  • Each episode has the same name as a popular song.
  • In the season 3 episode "Lose Yourself" when Jude is getting ready for her performance at the Instant Star finale, a poster of Hilary Duff can be seen in the background.
  • The show has made intermittent use of product placement, presumably by arrangement with advertisers. Examples include: Herbal Essences shampoo (several times in Season 1) and Dorito's chips (Season 3), and Burts Bees chapstick (Season 2)
  • Season 3 premiered on The N on February 16, 2007.
  • In the third season a poster of the Scissor Sisters was on the wall in a studio.
  • In "Start Me Up", season 3 there's a Busta Rhymes poster on the door in Jude's rehearsal space.
  • Instant Star seasons 1-3 and On The Set are currently on Itunes.
  • In the episode "18," Jamie compares Kwest with Degrassi character Joey Jeramiah.

[edit] Broadcasters

Instant Star is broadcast in over 120 countries.

[edit] External links

[edit] Official websites

[edit] Fan websites

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