Monday, February 14, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SHOOTING STARS: PBS' 'American Experience' trains its cameras on Las Vegas

As Las Vegas celebrates its centennial, dozens of television projects come to town to capture Neon Nirvana in all its glittery glory.

But at least one aims to dig beneath the glitz and explore other aspects of Las Vegas' past and present.

That's Insignia Films' three-hour Las Vegas documentary, destined for an October launch on PBS' "American Experience."

Such a prestigious showcase isn't the first place you might think would be interested in a Las Vegas documentary, but "perhaps that's the sort of inferiority" complex Las Vegans have, suggests director Stephen Ives, whose previous PBS documentaries include "The West," the Emmy-nominated "Reporting America at War" and "American Experience" documentaries on "Seabiscuit" and "Lindbergh."

Happily, Ives adds, "American Experience" executive producer Mark Samels "was excited about this project from absolutely the first bell," because "there's something interesting and unavoidable going on in Las Vegas."

And while "you can look down your nose at it and say it's tacky or whatever you want to call it," Ives says, "you can't ignore it."

That's because Las Vegas, "for better or worse, is where a lot of crossroads of American culture are being played out," in his view.

And this Las Vegas documentary hopes to explore them in detail.

For one thing, "Las Vegas' history is always right over its shoulder," Ives says.

As a result, the documentary will interweave contemporary portraits with historical footage, he explains.

"We're trying to shake up the form a little," Ives says. And Las Vegas provides "a wonderful place to stretch the limits."

Those limits stretch beyond the boundaries of the Strip and Glitter Gulch.

"It not only tells the story of the Strip, it looks away from the Strip and at the way the city has grown and changed as a community," Ives says of the show.

In the process, the two-part documentary also examines "the degree to which Vegas has always maintained a wonderful American ability to reinvent itself," he says. "The city has gone from the ultimate outsider to the most American city in the country. It's a remarkable journey."

Ives and his colleagues' latest visit is scheduled to begin Tuesday and continue through the weekend; they'll return in March and, if needed, in April.

"We're on the downward slope of the production process," Ives says, noting that editing is about half complete. And, in the process, "we're getting more and more excited about the story we have to tell."

Fox's "America Most Wanted," meanwhile, returns to Las Vegas Tuesday to shoot footage for Saturday's show, according to show spokesman Avery Mann.

The Las Vegas segment focuses on the hunt for the killer of 69-year-old Mary Moore, a homeless woman who was found strangled to death in August 2003.

Host John Walsh is expected to be on hand for Tuesday's shoot, which will include driving shots and scenes at a downtown motel.

Elsewhere on the TV front, Las Vegas' own Penn & Teller continue work on their fraud-busting Showtime series "Bullshit!"

The Rio headliners are ensconced at Action Sound Stage, taping introductions and transitional segments (known as "interstitials" in the TV biz) for the show's third season, which begins April 25, according to P&T spokesman Glenn Alai.

The Style Network's hour-long makeover show "How Do I Look?" also visits Vegas today and Tuesday, focusing on designated "victim" Doug Marsh, a producer at KOMP-FM 92.3.

Marsh's "Rock 'n' Roll Morning Show" colleagues, on-air personalities Craig Williams and "Sweet" Al Miller, will vie with Los Angeles-based stylist Amy Hall to determine who will give Marsh a makeover, explains associate producer Vanessa Katona.

Each of the three competitors will choose a trio of outfits, a new hairstyle and grooming regimens, after which Marsh will select his favorite, according to Katona. Host Finola Hughes will preside.

The "How Do I Look?" itinerary includes visits to KOMP and Marsh's home, plus a shopping spree at the Fashion Show.

It's the show's first visit to Las Vegas, Katona says, "but we're hoping it won't be the last."

And, with an appropriate Valentine's Day kickoff, the Showtime pilot "Love on the Run" will focus on three guys trying to pick up women on the Strip and at the Fremont Street Experience, today through Thursday. (So, ladies, consider yourselves warned ...)

Cable's Encore channel, meanwhile, will approach Strip pedestrians Thursday and Friday -- but host Eric Mather will ask about famous movie lines for the network's "Movieoke" feature, which runs between features. (More of those interstitials mentioned earlier.)

Possible movie sources range from "Finding Nemo" to "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," according to Starz's Mark Weaver. So, as "Pirates' " Capt. Jack Sparrow would say, "I think we've all arrived at a very special place. Spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically."

On the international front, Britain's Lion Television wraps its "Vegas Virgins" reality series Tuesday with a grand finale pitting the program's winning novice against veteran high-rollers.

The show is scheduled to debut in May on Britain's Challenge Channel, says series producer Fiona Drews, with a possible Stateside telecast to follow.

And the premise of a Swedish reality series titled "Casino," scheduled to shoot here through March 5, sounds similar to that of "Vegas Virgins," with 10 competitors visiting Las Vegas to gamble and endure a series of "challenges." The Fremont Street Experience is among "Casino's" planned locations this week.

Returning to home-grown projects, local filmmaker Phillip Fitzlaff continues production this weekend on his horror movie, "The Oracle," featuring Kristi Menken as a woman whose investigation of her boyfriend's murder leads to a computer link that doubles as a gateway to evil. Locations include a downtown cemetery and a private home in Green Valley.

Speaking of local filmmakers, Jeff Lester of Las Vegas-based Big Picture Studios is in pre-production on an episode of a BBC docudrama series devoted to contemporary "Disasters," which will re-create the 1989 San Francisco earthquake -- in Las Vegas -- with more than a little help from computer-generated effects.

As always, stay tuned to Shooting Stars for more details.