SHOOTING STARS: ‘Dangerous Drives’ hits the road

  Anyone who’s ever driven Interstate 15 between Las Vegas and Southern California knows its potential for traffic nightmares — especially on a holiday weekend.
   That explains why the Speed Channel’s “Dangerous Drives” hit the road for a weeklong shoot (scheduled to conclude Wednesday) that explores road hazards along the I-15 corridor in Nevada and California.
  The upcoming 13-episode series, which is expected to debut early next year, focuses on jobs that call for (you guessed it) dangerous driving, in situations ranging from Iraq war convoys to construction areas.
  For the I-15 episode, “Dangerous Drives” plans to focus on Nevada and California highway patrol officers dealing with heavy Fourth of July weekend traffic.
  But the show’s four producers, riding along with the troopers, also will branch out to capture action involving ambulance and tow truck drivers — along with airplane pilots operating radar-powered speed traps.
  And while most of the action will be on I-15, “Dangerous Drives” will make a detour to another perilous stretch of roadway — the Las Vegas Strip — for some background footage.
  After all, as one of the show’s producers observes, you can’t focus on the NHP without including a shot of the Strip — one of the most famous state highways on the planet.
  In focus: Photographer Rick Guidotti’s used to being behind the camera; his resume includes glamour shots for fashion magazines and cosmetics ads.
  But these days, the New York-based Guidotti has a different focus through Positive Exposure, a nonprofit organization he co-founded that “challenges stigma associated with difference by pioneering a new vision of the beauty and richness of genetic diversity,” according to the group’s Internet site.
  His photographs are “about gorgeous people,” Guidotti writes, describing them as examples of the lasting vision of a beauty that everyone can access, just by being who we are, or encountering each other with honesty and compassion.”
  Now, however, Guidotti isn’t only taking photographs — he’s being photographed for the upcoming documentary “Positive Exposure.”
  Last week, the documentary’s crew followed Guidotti to Las Vegas, where he was scheduled to present a slide show of his work at Red Rock Resort during the Chromosome Registry and Research Society’s Chromosome 18 conference.
  In addition to conference footage at the Red Rock, filmmakers also expected to hit the Strip with Guidotti “and some of the young adults with the condition,” notes Rachel Pikelny of Kartemquin Films, those wonderful folks who brought you such memorable documentaries as “Hoop Dreams.” Joanna Rudnick (“In the Family”) produces and directs.
  The documentary is in the early stages of production, but Kartemquin is “reaching out to a variety of places for broadcast (PBS, among others)” when “Positive Exposure” is complete, Pikelny reports.
  Reality check: G4TV’s upcoming “Two Months, $2 Million” keeps rolling through July (and maybe into early August), as 20-something online poker buddies Emil Patel, Brian Roberts, Jason Rosenkrantz and Dani Stern try to accumulate $2 million in winnings during their two-month residency in a swanky Vegas mansion.
  G4TV may be paying for the deluxe digs, but the quartet’s gambling with their own money. Not at the World Series of Poker, however — because the tournament schedule conflicted with their ongoing TV shoot.
  Meanwhile, RDF Media (the production company behind everything from “Wife Swap” to “Don’t Forget the Lyrics”) was expected in town over the holiday weekend during the casting process for the upcoming series, “Just Doing My Job,” focusing on local tow truck drivers who are in the running to be on the show.
  And three generations of a Las Vegas family — Richard, Rick and Corey Harrison, proprietors of the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop — are about to become reality stars in the History channel’s upcoming 14-part series “Pawn Star$,” which debuts July 19.