New places, new things for 'Dead Zone'

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 -

Sci Fi Wire has quotes from Dead Zone star Anthony Michael Hall on the recent change in production location, plus an apparent revamping of the entire production staff. I wonder if Dead Zone has been struggling in the ratings, and this is a response to that struggle. I've never seen the show, so I can't comment on its quality, and cable shows are a bit harder to follow in the ratings unless it's in the top 15.

Hall said the change has been good for a lot of reasons. "It's been nice to take it to a new city and have all those production changes occur," he said. "Like, we have a new writing staff, new directors, a new cinematographer, all these things that keep it fresh. It makes it new, in a way. And at the same time, it's been a challenge from a production standpoint of catching this whole French-Canadian crew up to speed on how we do the show. But they've all adapted really well."

You know it's all well and great that Hall is enjoying his visits to Canada, but it's actually fairly embarrassing that so many American shows are shot up there when they could easily be shot here in the states, and probably for less money. I don't buy that Canada is a cheaper place to shoot, I've heard that Vancouver is actually one of the most expensive places to shoot these days.

And this isn't really about pride, it's about money. Money spent on production is going to their government, helping their economy, when hardly anyone in that country even watches the show. It would be better to shoot it here in the states, contributing back to our local economies who really need the money and deserve the attention. You need sound and graphics studios, stages to shoot, local crews for location shoots, local talent for extras casting -- it all feeds back into the local economy, and it's ridiculous for us to be sending so much north when we get almost nothing in return.

There are just tons of people living in Hollywood sitting at home wondering when or if the next job will come, out of work, because of runaway productions. Thousands of them.

And it needs to stop.

Topics: Television, The Dead Zone, Sci Fi Channel

Like this post? Subscribe to RSS, or get daily emails:

Got something to say? Post a Comment. Got a question or a tip? Send it to me. If all else fails, you can return to the home page.