Dallas Stands in For Los Angeles on Proposed ABC Series ‘The Deep End’

Creator of new ABC television series The Deep End, David Hemingson, slaps a pink Post-it on his forehead. Visible through the glass of the law-office conference room, his arms flap wildly and a grin creeps across his face. The five sharply dressed actors – including Tina Majorino ( the ponytailed Deb of Napoleon Dynamite), Austin native Mehcad Brooks (True Blood) and Matt Long (Jack of Jack & Bobby) – huddle around a conference table littered with pizza remnants and soda bottles and intently watch him before breaking into laughter.

The Deep End was taping its fourth episode last Tuesday in a positive sign of life for what recently has been a slow time for Texas’ film and television industry. The series is about five newly minted lawyers trying to survive in a powerful law firm; it mirrors the early experiences of Hemingson, an attorney turned comedy writer for shows including How I Met Your Mother and Family Guy. Our scene is on an upper floor of the Arco Tower in downtown Los Angeles, only it isn’t. The pilot for the ABC series produced by 20th Century Fox was shot in Los Angeles. This is a reproduction created in the Studios at Las Colinas, complete with “Star Trek doors,” Hemingson says as he touches a button that magically zips open a massive wooden gateway.

“It’s significantly less expensive to shoot here in Dallas just because of the cost of doing business here” as opposed to Los Angeles, says Garry Brown, the show’s co-executive producer and a driving force in both persuading the Texas Legislature to recently increase the size of financial incentives for filming in the Lone Star State and Fox to shoot in Dallas.

The irony of Dallas stepping in for Los Angeles is that films portraying Texas have lately been shot out of state. The Dallas Film Commission fought to have a film based on the television series Dallas shoot in North Texas (the film has never materialized), and rumors are now rampant of a modern-day version of the Dallas series that may or may not shoot in its title town.

CLICK HERE to read the entire article by Joe O’Connell.

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