If Dallas Is Starting to Feel Like One Big TV-Show Set, There's a Good Reason

By Robert Wilonsky Tue., Mar. 16 2010 at 9:40 AM

Categories: From the RTF Dept.

Woodrow principal Ruth Allen Vail and Jesse Metcalfe

Today's the day FOX's Midland starts shooting in and around Dallas, with (500) Days of Summer's Marc Webb directing, Up in the Air and Juno's Eric Steelberg shooting, Jon Voight and David Keith co-starring and In Good Company's Paul Weitz exec producing. It's expected to be a quick shoot too -- they've got the wrap party scheduled for April 3. But, for the moment, Dallas is one big set, with The Good Guys (formerly Code 58) and Jerry Bruckheimer's The Chase also rolling camera 'round town today till that's a wrap.

Several Friends of Unfair Park, among them John M., were wondering only yesterday: "There were two small white helicopters and a single engine plane circling downtown this afternoon. Any idea on what was up?" DPD spokespeoples don't know; I've got calls into special events and the Dallas Film Commission to get the answer to the multiple choice quiz. But here, courtesy a Friend of Unfair Park, is photographic evidence that Jesse Metcalfe was at Woodrow Wilson shooting The Chase Friday -- that's the former Desperate Housewives star with Woodrow principal Dr. Ruth Allen Vail.

Update at 10:32 a.m.: Dallas Film Commission honcho Janis Burklund says she's not sure what we shooting downtown yesterday: The Good Guys is on hiatus for a couple of weeks, The Chase was out in Anna yesterday, and Midland starts today. That said, she says, "it could have been any number of things shooting B-roll and skyline stuff." Meaning, it could have been one of the reality shows shooting 'round town. Or a commercial. "There's stuff going all the time," she says, including two indie films: Rocky Powell's Language of a Broken Heart and, out in Leonard, Beyond the Farthest Star, on which D.B. Sweeney has since been replaced by Dallas native Todd Terry.

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