lucastalent.com

October 1, 2008

TRICIA HELFER reports from location in MIAMI…shooting BURN NOTICE:

Tricia Helfer should be up for “the hardest workin’ woman in show biz award” as she has been doing triple duty shooting a 2 hour Battlestar Galactica MOW, her new FOX pilot Inseparable and this report comes from Miami where she is in the middle of an “arc” play of USA ‘s Burn Notice where she plays Carla, Michael’s sleek sexy and lethal “handler”. (click ‘more’ tab to continue reading Tricia’s report)

Well, I’m back in Vancouver this month shooting two shows - a Battlestar Galactica MOW and a pilot for Fox, called Inseparable. It’s making for a busy few weeks bouncing back and forth between being multiple cylon characters and being a cop psychologist treating a cop with multiple personality disorder. Jeez, what is it with me and multiple characters - I think I’m seeing a pattern here, haha. At least they are both in Vancouver so I’m not also bouncing back and forth between countries. I spent most of July and August though at the opposite end of North America, Miami, shooting Burn Notice for USA Network. I have one episode more to film in October and then I’ll be finished my stint for them. It’s been a great experience on Burn. The crew and cast were really fun and professional. I was a little worried after doing mostly serious drama, to get the right tone of the show. Burn has a wonderful mix of seriousness and frivolity that you can easily push too hard to achieve. It’s gotta happen organically to work well, so you have to understand the tone going in. It’s the threat with a smile thing, ya know. Anyway, everyone was very welcoming and cool so the tone just happened and I seemed to fit right in. One of the first things I noticed though was how fast they work. I don’t know if after coming off of Battlestar, which has such huge sets and cast that everything takes longer to film or what, but they move quickly on Burn and get a lot done in a day. I play a spy, but a spy that is higher up and has agents to do the dirty work for her so I didn’t really have many stunts or the like to do. I was kinda craving it because I love doing stunts. One of the exec producers, Jeff, knows I ride a motorbike and he rides himself, so I think he was instrumental in getting a bike chase written in. It was a lot of fun to get to ride on set instead of the norm where most producers will do everything to try to get you not to ride at all. They had me on a Harley Davidson 100th anniversary V-Rod (which has a Porsche made engine). All silver and chrome and was pretty lovely. What I learned doing the stunt driving is that you only go really slow. Of course, they had a stunt double do the more challenging driving (skidding to a stop) for insurance purposes, but the driving I did myself (close ups during the chase) was really slow. I didn’t even get out of first gear. On my little test drive around the lot I at least got it into second, but for the shot, first gear was fast enough with the camera and frames per minute they were shooting. Made me realize that even the stunt drivers didn’t get up much speed. Makes it very odd to try to “look” like you’re in a high speed chase when you’re actually barely moving and having to keep pulling in the clutch so you don’t stall, haha. Made me think back to when I did my first independent film and I was suppose to be running really fast through the woods but I had to fake the run so the camera operator could run backwards in front of me. Low budget so no track and dolly, of course. Anyway, I ended up bouncing up and down in a really bad fake run and I cringe now just thinking about it. I’m hoping in the bike chase I look a little more real. Makes me want to start an acting class where they actually teach the odd things you do working on a real set - like fake running or doing your intense emotion close up looking at a piece of tape on the matbox because of eyeline issues you can’t look at the other actor. Oh, I digress. What else can I say about filming in Miami - even for pasty white Scandinavian skin like mine, you get a tan. It’s super hot and humid to film there in the summer. So hot and humid that you have to focus on staying present or you start to zone out. Unlike shooting in the rain and cold (as I’ve done plenty of times here in Vancouver) which keeps you awake because you’re shivering, shooting in the intense heat makes you easily fog over and zone out. Imagine how the bike leathers and helmut felt - good lord. Makeup tends to just melt off so the makeup on the show is very light. I enjoyed that since I’ve had so much makeup on Battlestar that it was a treat to go more natural. The makeup artist was laughing that some women come on the show and don’t like the very little makeup look and try to add more in their trailors but it ends up just melting off anyway.

That’s it from Burn Notice.
Tricia Helfer