SHOOTING STARS: Here she is (again) … Miss America
After last year’s successful inaugural bow on TLC, the Miss America pageant returns Saturday to Planet Hollywood’s Theatre for the Performing Arts.
Mario Lopez, pictured at right, hosts the 84th annual pageant, which begins at 5 p.m. Saturday. (It’ll be shown live on the East Coast and in the Midwest; local TLC viewers will get the tape-delayed version at 8 p.m.)
It’s the fourth time the Theatre for the Performing Arts has played host to the venerable pageant; CMT was Miss America’s TV home in 2006 and 2007 (back when Planet Hollywood was still the Aladdin).
When TLC became the pageant’s TV home last year, the cable channel added a pre-pageant reality series, “Countdown to the Crown,” that “opened the eyes of our viewers” and made Miss America “more relevant and more modern,” explains Brent Zacky, TLC’s vice president of production and development.
The pageant’s move to Las Vegas (from its birthplace in Atlantic City, N.J.) provides an additional spark, he notes.
“In terms of selling to an audience, Las Vegas connotes a certain sense of glamour and fun and style,” Zacky explains.
And in terms of TV production, “Las Vegas is an incredibly dynamic place,” he adds. “It’s a great city to shoot in.”
Feel the heat: When Fox’s reality series “Hell’s Kitchen” returns Jan. 29, two Las Vegans — LA, a 23-year-old line cook, and Charlie, a 24-year-old prep chef — will be among the aspiring culinary stars burning for chef Gordon Ramsay’s approval. Which may explain why “Hell’s Kitchen” has pulled film permits to shoot here Wednesday and Thursday.
It’s a wrap: The locally produced feature “Icon” winds down this week, with shooting scheduled Tuesday through Saturday.
“Icon” is finishing ahead of schedule, according to writer-director Dennis McKinley, who describes the musical drama as “ ‘American Idol’ behind the scenes,” following nine different music hopefuls vying to become a music executive’s next icon.
Las Vegas-based rapper Ashley Joi will figure in final dramatic scenes shooting at Americana 5 motel, McKinley reports, with producer Remixx’s recording studio in northwest Las Vegas serving as an additional location.
“Grounds” for approval: The independent thriller “Dumping Grounds” arrives for a one-day shoot to capture desert scenes — with the Las Vegas skyline in the background.
“We need to have the city in the background to establish that we’re in Nevada,” explains producer Michael Jones of Nightshade Productions. The rest of the movie has already shot — in Los Angeles.
“Dumping Grounds” planned to visit last month, but Las Vegas’ freak transformation into a winter wonderland, complete with freshly fallen snow, prompted the rescheduling, Jones explains.
Hitting the road: They’ve already been and gone, but Germany’s top automotive TV show, “Auto Mobil,” spent three days in Las Vegas last week shooting 10 transition segments (“interstitials,” as they’re known in the biz) featuring some very Vegas locations.
In the 60- to 80-second segments, host Peter Steutzer introduces German viewers to, among other places, the Little White Wedding Chapel’s drive-through wedding service, the Imperial Palace Auto Collection and the Neon Museum (accompanied to the latter by a 1936 convertible), notes Johannes Wiebus of Jynx Productions, one of the show’s producers.
“We do two U.S. specials” every year, Wiebus says. One’s always at the Detroit auto show, he notes, and the other’s usually in Los Angeles. This year, however, “Auto Mobil” decided to visit Vegas instead.
Last call: An open call for “Astro-Zombie M3: Clone” — actors, actresses and camera, sound and lighting crews — will be held from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m. today at MBEG/Vegas Casting, 517 S. Tonopah Drive. Call 866-5924 for more information.
Local production on cult filmmaker Ted V. Mikels’ “Astro-Zombies” sequel resumes Jan. 31. As always, stay tuned to Shooting Stars for all the gory — and we do mean gory — details.
