On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Mark J. <[email protected]> wrote: > On Dec 14, 11:24 am, Steve Timko <[email protected]> wrote: >> I've been catching some of the shows on the Retro channel and two >> stand out for their laughably poor portrayal of overseas locations. >> "I Spy" actually does a better job of the two. They seem to have a >> simple formula: Shoot a lot at night, or make it look like night, so >> viewers don't get a good view of the surroundings. Robert Culp was >> running around in one episode in what's supposed to be a southeast >> Asia jungle but it reminded me a lot of that park I used to drive by >> on Los Feliz on my way from the Burbank airport to my friend's West >> Hollywood home. >> I don't know what it looked like on 1960s TV screens, but one episode >> showed Cosby and Culp at a Tet parade. They did an especially poor job >> of blending stock New Year's footage on a street with what was >> obviously a group of people sitting on a stage in Burbank or Studio >> City or some place like that. It just stuck out on my high def screen. > > That's surprising, considering that "I Spy" always made a big deal > that Cosby and Culp did a lot of overseas shooting. In fact, I always > thought the show was shot entirely on location and seem to remember > the credit "The producers thank the National Broadcasting Company's > Far East News Bureau for their cooperation in the production of this > program."
I agree with Mark on this one. I own "I Spy" on DVD, including the two episodes with "DVD commentary" (I put that in quotes because all they really did was put Robert Culp in a room and let him babble to himself about the series, then laid that track over the first two episodes of the series). All of the exteriors were shot on location, though most of the interiors were shot back in Hollywood. Granted, Hong Kong doubled or tripled as every major Asian city, but the exteriors were filmed in Hong Kong. I know they went to Japan for a while, too. And Italy doubled as Greece. When I watch the episodes, I'm usually impressed with the location shooting, and wish there was a way to find room in the budget for modern shows to shoot around the world as opposed to New York, Canada, or Hollywood. One way "I Spy" worked out budgeting location shoots was to shoot several scripts in a given place at once, but stagger the episodes in the schedule. So they might film eight episodes in Hong Kong, but they wouldn't air eight Hong Kong episodes in a row. The network committed to a full season, which allowed the crew the freedom to plan that far in advance. -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
