Heating up Castleberry Hill

Do you know the phrase, "Be careful what you wish for... it might come true?"

I was reminded of those sage words of advice while we were shooting this weekend's edition of "News To Me" in the Castleberry Hill neighborhood of Atlanta.

Earlier in the week I had complained mentioned that we were always shooting out in a park or in the forest or by a river... we hadn't shot in the CITY in a long time. Sure, nature centers are nice, but there is something to be said for the urban landscape as well. We live and work in a thriving metropolis. The tallest building in the United States outside of Chicago and NYC is in our skyline! It's true! That's impressive! "Let's take advantage of that," I whined said.

On the day I got my cityscape demand wish, it was about 4 million degrees in the shade, we were under a code red smog alert and I got sunblock in my eye. Then we got caught in some kind of time loop where we re-shot one scene about 30 times, because of Eric's inflection of one word. I think the word was "is." We all had suggestions for Eric on how to say, "is." "Funnier," "punchier," "faster," "with a sly grin," "edgier," "in Lithuanian!" Not since Bill Clinton's Lewinsky deposition did "is" carry so much weight.

Needless to say, 30 "is's," two locations and five hours later we got it all done... and I'm still complaining really looking forward to seeing it on air.

Take a look at a couple more shots from the shoot .

Watch closely this weekend and you'll see how the scene we're shooting in the pic above comes off on air. It looks like Eric is pinching the lens of the camera, but on your TV it will look like he's holding a box that contains the "coming up" video.

This is REALLY behind the scenes. In fact, it's behind our crew van. All that electronic gear surrounding a broken Styrofoam cooler full of rapidly melting ice. Dangerous? Maybe, but did I mention it was 4 million degrees outside? That ice was WAY more valuable to me than our spare lighting kit.

The young lady with Eric in the picture above is Kirsten. I'm pretty sure she made the final cut for this weekend's show. She happened to be walking by with her Mom, recognized Eric, and 5 minutes later we had her on cam. Hollywood... remember where you saw her first! On "News To Me."