SHOOTING STARS: PBS, Cirque team up for pledge-month special
It’s going to be a December to remember for PBS audiences — and Las Vegas showrooms.
Recently, The Venetian hosted a salute to Italian-American music, featuring the vocal group Bell’ Aria, slated for a December airdate.
And this week, Cirque du Soleil’s Strip productions will be in the PBS spotlight for an upcoming December pledge special.
Titled “Cirque du Soleil: Flowers in the Desert,” the two-hour show will focus on Cirque’s permanent Las Vegas extravaganzas, according to Jennifer Kowalczyk, director of communications for Mountain Lake PBS of Plattsburgh, N.Y., which is producing the show.
“Cirque hasn’t been on PBS for years,” she notes — but this special, shot in high-definition digital video, will change all that.
Most of the program’s Cirque footage already has been taped, Kowalczyk explains, but this week’s shoot will concentrate on behind-the-scenes footage at several Cirque shows — along with pledge-break material.
Although specific shows to be featured hadn’t been determined by deadline (Bellagio’s “O,” MGM Grand’s “Ka,” Mirage’s “Love” and Aria’s “Viva Elvis” are reported possibilities), this week’s shoot also is expected to feature background footage of the Strip — including views shot from the top of the Trump hotel.
And if you’re wondering how an East Coast PBS station wound up shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, chalk it up to Mountain Lake PBS’ location in (far) upstate New York, “very close to Montreal,” Kowalczyk points out.
The PBS station’s previous documentaries include one on French explorer Samuel de Champlain, who mapped out much of northeastern North America — including what’s now Lake Champlain, where Plattsburgh is located. The Champlain documentary took Mountain Lake staffers to nearby Montreal — which happens to be Cirque du Soleil headquarters.
Independent’s day: It’s been a long haul — since late February — but local filmmaker Andrew Freeman’s finally ready to call “That’s a wrap!” on his made-in-Vegas feature debut, “A Different Corner.”
One pickup shot — at a local cemetery — remains this week; principal photography concluded last week on what Freeman describes as “definitely a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of production.”
The no-budget drama, which Freeman filmed for “less than $5,000,” focuses on a trio of characters: Marcus (Evan Litt), a grieving husband and father trying to recover from his daughter’s death; Dani (Valerie Dunwoody), a troubled Arizona hairdresser looking for a new start in Las Vegas; and Madison (Tierra Peters) “a Bible-thumping stripper with a heart of gold” who believes “she’s doing the Lord’s work in a dark place” — all while caring for her ill grandfather, Freeman explains.
Their stories “jump back and forth,” then “slowly start intertwining,” says Freeman, who decided to revise a script he originally wrote for HBO’s 2001 “Project Greenlight” competition after reading (and rejecting) other writers’ scripts for more than a year.
“I wanted to do a character-driven piece,” he explains.
And after he tried (and failed) to get the project financed, a friend said, “ ‘Let’s just start shooting,’ ’’ Freeman recalls. On the fourth day of production, Freeman decided, “I guess we’ll keep going.”
Because “everyone in the film has full-time jobs — and I couldn’t convince anyone to quit their day job,” the shoot took several months, he says. (Freeman’s day job is at Las Vegas-based Press Play Productions; his colleagues include executive producer Shelby Seiler, producer Lisa Freeman, assistant producer Carrie Collins and director of photography Alex Salahi.)
“I knew if I got it shot, I could finish the film,” Freeman adds — because he’s a certified trainer on the computer programs he’ll be using in post-production.
During the shoot, Freeman found various locations — from local hair salons and clubs to a Pahrump hospital — willing to allow “A Different Corner” to film without charge.
“The biggest ticket-item price,” he notes, was a Las Vegas Boulevard motel that charged him $150 — half of the original price they quoted.
“I wanted this story to come out of Las Vegas,” says Freeman, who’s been here 15 years and wanted to focus on aspects of life in Pair-a-dice that most Hollywood productions routinely overlook.
Freeman plans to complete post-production by mid-September — just in time to submit the feature to the Sundance film festival.
Road rules: Sharp-eyed Southern Nevadans know that Valley of Fire State Park ranks high as a favorite backdrop for car commercials.
Another one’s scheduled to hit the road this week, spotlighting a new “concept car,” according to park officials. Concrete Images, which has produced advertisements showcasing motor vehicles from Audi to Mercedes, is producing the shoot.
Reality bites: “Fantasia for Real” — the VH1 reality show about troubled “American Idol” champ Fantasia Barrino — was scheduled to hit the Strip over the weekend; the show’s second season debuts Sept. 19. And History’s “Pawn Stars,” from Leftfield Pictures, just keeps rolling along at downtown’s Gold & Silver Pawn. But WEtv has passed on another proposed Leftfield series, “Wild Flowers,” about the women of Enchanted Florist on Highland Drive. Leftfield’s currently shopping the project elsewhere, reports Brent Montgomery, the production company’s president.
