"Reincarnationist" Pilot at Pratt Library

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street!



On Wednesday and Thursday my workplace was transformed into the Department of Justice as every film production crew in town was giving the Enoch Pratt Central Library a Hollywood makeover as part of shooting a pilot episode for a Fox TV paranormal series.

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik wrote it up in his online column "Z On TV": "Reincarnation pilot filming here has good shot at Fox". The Z Man says the pilot will follows a team of investigators who use the concept of reincarnation to solve present-day problems in their clients' lives. based on MJ Rose's novel The Reincarnationist, the pilot is being directed by Deran Sarafian (House) and features actors Kelli Giddish (All My Children), Nic Bishop (Home and Away) and Ravi Patel (Scrubs). I don't know who the male actor below is, but apparently the ladies love him (maybe he's supposed to be the reincarnation of Bacchus surrounded by the Maenads):


Bacchus and his clinging vines?

"But the name that matters most in this production is that of David Hudgins, who wrote the script and serves as executive producer," says Zurawik, referring to the man whose scripts for Friday Night Lives have been nominated for Writers Guild of America awards; prior to that, Hudgins wrote for the Treat Williams series Everwood.

"All pilots are longshots," Zurawik writes, "...but Fox is better than most when it comes to investing in pilots, and the one filming this week in Baltimore for the network looks like it could have a future beyond its shooting schedule."

I certainly hope so. Given the current economic downturn and with The Wire's narrative fuse finally blown, this town could sure use the work. God knows a lot of people were working on this production. I've never seen so many trucks unloading for a film shoot downtown...





...and that includes big series like The Wire and Hollywood pics like George Clooney's Syriana (scenes of which were also shot at the Enoch Pratt Central Library), Renee Zellweger's My One and Only and that Sarah Jessica Parker HBO pilot.

Of course, Smalltimore being what it is, inevitably I ran into two friends working on the crew, John Fulcher (proudly wearing a "Pirates of Essex" t-shirt) and Craig Shuman (pictured below).


Shuman the Crewman

I went to school with Craig back in the day (at Towson State University). Shuman the Crewman's group was busy erecting this faux wall on the second stack of the library where our storage audio books are. I wish they kept the foam rubber edifice there because there are a number of days when I feel like banging my head against the wall, and this one probably would have left me with minimal (further) brain damage.


The Wall: "We don't need no edifice-cation..."

Erik "In Name Only" Boring was also working crew, but I didn't see him. (He was probably around back smoking!)

Here are the rest of my pix...


Administrative Offices transformed into the DOJ


Outside the Board Room


Looking down the halls of Justice