Who said Fair Park was boring? Take II...

From: Fair Park
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 4:09 PM
To: Fair Park Campus Members
Subject: Filming and Explosion at Fitzhugh Bridge Feb 24

Fair Park Campus Members:

Campus Alert for Filming and Explosion underneath Fitzhugh Bridge. Code 58 will be filming and there will be a controlled explosion underneath Fitzhugh Bridge between 1pm-5pm. If you have any questions please contact Steven...

This must be related to THIS article I read in the DMN on Friday:

'Code 58' TV crew feels at home in Dallas

12:00 AM CST on Friday, February 19, 2010

By JOE O'CONNELL

How do you turn a city into an attractive location to shoot television shows? Make it easy to blow things up.

That's just part of the equation that brought Code 58 to Dallas to shoot 13 episodes. It's an important part of the mix, says Bob Lemchen, head of physical production for Fox Television Studios and perhaps the prime decision-maker for the filming location.

"We did one in an unnamed city in December, and we won't go back there," Lemchen says. "You're looking for people who are happy to have you there and who don't make your work more difficult."

That's just one intangible that has pilots for NBC's Chase, a Jerry Bruckheimer-produced crime drama, and Fox's soapy oil-business tale, Midland, shooting here. It also led The Deep End to shoot six episodes recently in the Studios at Las Colinas.

Code 58 is shooting all around North Texas, but Lemchen says the buddy cop show from Burn Notice creator Matt Nix is particularly pleased to be handed the keys to Fair Park, originally the site of the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition, when it's not otherwise in use.

"We can blow stuff up at Fair Park without impacting residents," says Lemchen, who knew Dallas from days working the television movie Breaking Home Ties in the late 1980s. "It's a great financial benefit offered to us above and beyond the rebate."

That rebate is from a filming incentives program the Texas Legislature pumped up in 2009. Texas offers up to 15 percent of in-state spending or up to 25 percent of wages, with both figures increased slightly for filming in areas deemed underutilized.

It's still not higher than the rebate offered by the most competitive states, but Lemchen says it was close enough when taking into account other factors like available trained film crew and appropriate locations. Georgia and Louisiana were the other possibilities, but the available film crews were already stretched thin.

"It's a complex decision," Lemchen says. "We're always balancing creative needs of the show along with the financial needs. [Show creator Nix] felt the show overall would require a certain amount of action, which it does. Dallas was a better opportunity for us to physically shoot the show. Plus, it has a very beautiful downtown."

Will it result in even more television coming to North Texas? It's likely. "Other producers here have had good experiences, and we all talk to each other," Lemchen says.

I especially enjoy the fact that Fair Park is the place to film because we allow film crews to blow things up. Awesome.

I love Fair Park.