Filming is set to get underway in Dallas this month on two television pilots for NBC that are set in North Texas.
Filming for "Salvation" - a drama centered on a megachurch starring Ashley Judd begins filming March 10, according to the Dallas Film Commission. Filming for "Two for One," a comedy, begins in late March.
Now, the production team is asking for extras from the local area to help fill out the background of the episodes.
"Everybody: short, tall, fat, skinny. Anybody and everybody, we want you. We want kids. We want adults. Everybody has a chance to be on set," said Rachel Constantinescu, extras casting coordinator with Dallas-based Legacy Casting. "Because if you look at what's on TV, it's always things that are every day things. Sometimes you may be a nurse, sometimes you might be a teacher, you might be a congregant in a congregation, at a church, and so we need people to fill all of those roles."
If you are interested in being considered as a background extra, sign up here.
If either of the pilots get picked up as an actual television series, much of the shooting for either show is also expected to happen here in Dallas-Fort Worth.
That is no mistake, according to Janis Burkland, executive director of the Dallas Film Commission. The commission does extensive outreach to lure Hollywood to North Texas, Burkland told NBC DFW.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
The NBC pilots were two of "several projects that were circling; these were just the first two that landed," Burkland said.
Both the City of Dallas and the State of Texas offer tax incentives for film crews that decide to make a production here. And the Dallas Film Commission maintains an extensive catalog of photographs to pitch potential filming locations, as well as a production directory which "enables producers and clients to locate local film, television, and digital media industry professionals and support services" in the area, according to the commission's website.
The opportunity for more work in Dallas-Fort Worth would be a big boost to Legacy Casting's business, which sends most of its actors to Louisiana for film and TV work.
"We want them to really look to us and say, 'Dallas is the new place to go.' It's been New Orleans in the past, they've gone to Shreveport, they've gone to Austin. Let's make sure they come to Dallas as well," Constantinescu said.
If more productions were to be made here, film crews would require trained professionals from the local area, in order to comply with the local and state tax incentive programs. And in his Video Technology classes at North Lake College, Andy Chiles is helping to teach and train the next wave of TV and film pros.
"I've started to see an increase of our students getting work, getting more freelance work and even students getting staff jobs now," Chiles said Thursday. "I don't think there's any reason why everyone that comes through the program can't find work eventually."
Others who could stand to benefit from more productions being made in the Metroplex are the actors and performers who choose to call North Texas home -- people like Larry Brantley.
Primarily a voice actor, Brantley, who lives in McKinney, provided the voice for the dog "Wishbone" in the Emmy-winning PBS program of the same name in the 1990s.
"The biggest phrase you'll ever hear from anyone who works in this industry -- whether they're shooting commercials or whether they're shooting series television, or they're shooting film, on either side of the lens is, 'I wish I could work more.'"
