The production office for the "Hawaii Five-O" pilot shuts down today here and the wait to hear something from CBS begins. Pilots are sort of like a difficult birth with too many doctors in the delivery room. Everyone wants a successful birth, but between trying to use forceps, a knife or just plain PUSH, it's a pretty stressful operation. In fact, the labor pains lasted 3 weeks for a 50 minute pilot! Usually with pilots, the production team put together to do it seldom follows it to series. In fact, there are those who just specialize in doing pilots and often normally do features so the pilot is quite different than doing regular episodic work. They used to do 90 minute pilots that could be shown as a movie of the week (MOW). That way the studio or network could recoup some of their expenses whether the pilot was successful or not. I can't imagine anyone not liking what we did--unless they are expecting a repeat of the 1970's which this version is definitely not.
Haven't heard anything about a Magnum revival of any sort. I didn't know (but not surprised) about a 5-0 website but I made mention there. www.hawaii-five-0-fans.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=205&t=2022
Thanks for all the good wishes and I'll keep you posted.
Aloha, Rick
9 comments:
Hi Rick,
Do your have any photos that you can post of the Hawaii 5-0 pilot of the various sets that were used?
What will you be working on next?
Also, I think we all miss your blogs regardless as to the content. Wishing you much success!!
No faster way to have CBS lawyers on me and end my career than to post set photos of a pilot that has not yet aired! Cameras on sets are strictly forbidden, but I am allowed to take photos for continuity and record keeping. The reality is that often the sets are so altered by the shooting company for camera set-up reasons that they bear little resemblance to what we actually dressed anyway--I can say that was very much the case with this pilot. Entire sections of furniture were moved to where they would be seen better or to fill a void in the background as seen by the camera--even if they made no sense to the observer looking at the room as a whole. I'm not usually there when this happens, but in the case of a pilot with some possible / potential permanence, my crew and I would always open the set and attempt to make the camera redress look as good as possible in the 3 minutes given to us while the entire company waited as opposed to the 3 hours we spent making it "perfect" the day before!
This pilot was shot much more at a feature pace than episodic so these kinds of changes were possible within the schedule. It does not normally take 16 days of filming for a 50 minute TV show--except maybe on "LOST!"
Despite what the director may have said he wanted or where he wanted it on the final scout, there are always changes, more opinions, and requests made the day of shooting. Sometimes we can comply and sometimes not. Now that it is possible to photograph the set and email the pictures before the director sees the set for the first time, many of these changes can be made ahead of time. However, there is nothing that can take the place of actually standing in the set itself and looking through the camera lens to determine the final placement of things.
I guess I feel a little guilty since I have sort of "mined out" all of my Magnum material--but glad you are still interested!
Hi Rick!
Great news to hear actually and let's hope the make a new series out of it. I liked 5-0 but was no serious follower though. However, I would like to see a new series really set in Hawaii (and not like LOST pretending to be some island) - of course a Magnum reunion is preferred :-)
All the best and keep up the blog - we are still reading also without more Magnum stuff! Sure that does not rule our enthusiasm in case you find more set pictures :-)
Mahalo,
Marco
Hi Rick,
long time since I have made a request, however I have been having dreams about the actual interior of the guest house as it stands, not the set, its driving me nuts...could you or do you have any idea what it is really like inside that boat house.
Kimbosan
Well, keep dreaming about it because it's the only way you will ever see it, unfortunately. To my knowledge, there never was a guesthouse at the Anderson Estate. Upstairs in the main house were were 4 bedroom suites each with a sitting room, lanai, and bath. It was not a house to live in year round in those days--one came for the season. The building nearest the gate was a servant's quarters and the crumbling boathouse were the only buildings on the estate when we filmed there. I'm not sure that the highway that goes by it from town existed but may have been more from the Windward side via the Old Pali Road making it very remote by land originally. Arriving by boat would have been the easiest way to get there when it was built. It would probably have taken the better part of a day to get into Honolulu and back so they probably had other buildings for supplies or livestock back then. Some of the old estates even had their own power generating plants. Maybe someone else knows more about the history of the place?
Hi Rick,
What have you been up to lately.
Any new projects you are working on?
Rick,
What a terrific blog! Yours is the best that I have ever seen on television production; there is more information here than any 3 years of film school. What a great contribution you have made to the industry and anyone interested in it. All the Best!!!
Hey Rick! :) Been a long time. Great news about Hawaii 5-0!! :)
Post a Comment