Updated with embedded video below. Pretty cool...
And for an NBC pilot, Trauma, no less. What did they do? They staged a tanker-trailer explosion and one that no doubt snared traffic and might have confused uneducated onlookers. But I have a feeling San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom hopes the show gets greenlit.
Newsom is married in real life to Jennifer Siebel who plays Charlie Crews ex-wife on the soon-to-be-canceled NBC series Life. Don't worry, the mayor and Siebel will be just fine and the couple are expecting their first child, but I'm sure the mayor would love for Hollywood to have an excuse to frequently be in San Francisco.
The last show that I remember regularly filming in San Francisco was the ill-fated Journeyman that filmed several scenes within a block of where I was living at the time. But while the Journeyman episode attempted to recreate the 1989 earthquake (speaking of which, I felt this one, though I am no longer in San Francisco proper) they did most of that in the studio with special effects and didn't actually blow anything up.
The Trauma pilot obviously isn't being done on the cheap.
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
Close down a major San Francisco freeway ramp, add an exploding tanker-trailer, helicopters flying overhead and dozens of extras, and you got yourself an unusual spectacle for a Sunday afternoon.
San Francisco residents by the dozens gathered from various vantage points in the city to watch the filming of the made-for-TV tanker-trailer explosion, which was supposed to happen at 3 p.m. but didn't go off until moments before 6 p.m., on the King Street off-ramp to northbound Interstate 280 near Mission Bay.
The waiting was worth it, onlookers said, and a great shot in the arm for Bay Area film and TV production, which like most other industries is suffering with the national economic downturn.
The explosion - a fireball at least five stories tall - will be part of an NBC pilot of "Trauma," a show about the lives of a team of San Francisco-based emergency medical technicians, described as an edgier "ER."
For NBC’s sake, I hope Trauma gets picked up and is at least somewhat of a success. It’s sad to any network in such a dire predicament.
If you’re blowing up a tanker truck in the middle of a highway you better hope your pilot gets picked…
Personally I’d like to see this on air just so I can see the explosion, which looks pretty cool.
I think I will prefer Southland…
If you need to low a tanker in your pilot, how crappy is it, and what are you going to do for sweeps?
I didn’t feel the earthquake this morning, but I was walking around at the time, and that’s pretty far (from me) away to have felt a 4.3, but much closer to Robert.
That’s crazy. Looks desperate
Looks interesting. I’ll probably watch the first few episodes if it gets picked up. I like that it is sort of an edgier ER.
that’s it?
I live in San Francisco, was sacked out at the time of the quake but awake so I did feel the bed shake.
San Francisco gets loads of Hollywood action, although I think the last show I remember being filmed here regularly was “Nash Bridges”.
Wikipedia even has an entry called “San Francisco in popular culture” which lists the films, TV shows, video games and novels set there or based on it.
You see film crew vans lined up around Union Square quite frequently.
The pic looks good!
I hope this pilot gets picked up because San Francisco needs something to get it back on its feet. seems like we’re falling in this recession. hopefully “Hollywood” will brace us.
This is the kind od bang the Best City in the country needs… We have a super cool Mayor and locations..sooo tired of New York!!
I just watched the Trauma crew shoot a silly car ”wreck” in front of my apt. in S.F. I sure hope their using CG, or the pilot is sure to be anti-climactic.
Can anybody help me find the casting agency for this show? I’m a Bay Area actor and was a Paramedic/Firefighter for over 20 years, so the role would come easy for me. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Doug Olsson