California's shaking in '10.5'
May 2, 2004
By Jay Bobbin, Zap2it
Many dramas have revolved around earthquakes, so a new one faces two immediate questions: How effective is the quake, and how good are the stories around it?
The new NBC miniseries "10.5" fares quite well on both counts. Airing at 9 p.m. today and Monday on WTHR , the thriller actually serves up several earthquakes, including one in the first five minutes that lays waste to Seattle's landmark Space Needle. Not surprisingly, much of the action is centered in California, the state most associated with seismic activity.
San Francisco pays a price as tremors cause the Golden Gate Bridge to collapse and send cars plummeting into the waters. Monitoring the situation from the White House, the U.S. president (played by Beau Bridges) hopes that's the worst of it; not a chance, when the drama's special-effects team also has the chance to "wreck" the San Andreas Fault.
Deadly predictions
Kim Delaney also stars as a scientist who predicts where and when catastrophe will strike next, and devises a radical plan to stop what is destined to "change the geography of Southern California," as she puts it.
She works with an ex-boyfriend (David Cubitt, "Turks") and the chief (Fred Ward) of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Elsewhere, two doctors -- played by Dule Hill ("The West Wing") and Ivan Sergei ("Crossing Jordan") -- treat the injured.
Among the many victims is California's governor (Rebecca Jenkins), trapped in her demolished office as her asthmatic teenage daughter (Kaley Cuoco, "8 Simple Rules") and estranged husband (John Schneider, "Smallville") reach a new accord while facing perils in the wilderness.
After playing Richard Nixon in the 1995 TV movie "Kissinger and Nixon," Bridges had the opportunity to shape a chief executive from the ground up in "10.5." He reflects, "The obvious thing that's so frustrating is that you're dealing with life-and-death decisions when you're nowhere near the trenches. On top of that, he ends up choosing to send his boyhood friend (the FEMA director played by Ward) into the mouth of the dragon."
Influenced by dad, coach
In portraying a president who eventually orders the evacuation of the entire West Coast, Bridges modeled his performance on "the best leaders I've ever seen close-up: my dad (the late actor Lloyd Bridges) and coach John Wooden (under whom Beau played basketball at UCLA).
"Hopefully, I got a lot of their sensibilities into this. Even though this president is confronted with a tremendous challenge, I wanted him to keep his composure as best he could -- realizing that if he lost it, all of the people around him would not be able to draw the best out of themselves. Also, I kept hearing my coach's words in my head: 'If you do your best, you really can't lose.' "
A born-and-bred Southern Californian, Bridges has experienced his share of earthquakes, so he didn't have to reach far to unearth related emotions. "With movies and miniseries like this," he reasons, "it's also why we all flock to roller coasters. It's a safe way to test your mettle and your psyche; how would you feel if something like this really happened?
"I don't think this pretends to be anything profound, but I have ridden out a few major earthquakes, and they truly are spiritual awakenings."
Bridges and Cuoco don't share any scenes in "10.5," since she spent most of her time outdoors doing her own stunts, particularly in a sequence that nearly buries her and Schneider inside a car.
"I'd cry all day," the young actress concedes. "I was scared to death. That car really did go under, with John still inside. It was horrible. Everybody asked, 'Do you want a stunt double?,' but I just had to do it."
If she had to be isolated with any of the "10.5" cast, Cuoco is glad "Dukes of Hazzard" alumnus Schneider turned out to be the one. "We really connected," she says. "He is just the coolest guy. We had to work through a lot of stuff, and he would say, 'OK, we're gonna do this together.' He was really supportive, because I knew I'd never done anything like this before."
Special-effects challenge
From "San Francisco" (1936) to "Earthquake" (1974) and beyond, filmmakers have used then-up-to-date techniques to depict Mother Nature's rampages.
Visual effects supervisor Lee Wilson brought experience in that area to "10.5," having also worked on the 1999 project "Aftershock: Earthquake in New York" for CBS. "My initial reaction was, 'Aww, another earthquake show?' " Wilson admits. "Then I realized someone else would do it if I didn't, plus it would be a lot cooler to stage a quake on the West Coast, so I decided to give it another shot."
Photographs, models and computer graphics were combined to show famous sites falling apart. "I went back and looked at the mid-'70s 'Earthquake' movie," Wilson reports, "and some of the stuff still looks pretty cool, and other stuff doesn't hold up as well.
"Audiences are more sophisticated now, so you just have to go the extra mile . . . and scale is everything. Water is the biggest giveaway. If you have the Golden Gate Bridge fall, and it doesn't hit water of the same size and magnitude, it looks like something shot in a kids' wading pool. Nothing is better than being able to do something for real."
Back to articles
May 2, 2004
By Jay Bobbin, Zap2it
Many dramas have revolved around earthquakes, so a new one faces two immediate questions: How effective is the quake, and how good are the stories around it?
The new NBC miniseries "10.5" fares quite well on both counts. Airing at 9 p.m. today and Monday on WTHR , the thriller actually serves up several earthquakes, including one in the first five minutes that lays waste to Seattle's landmark Space Needle. Not surprisingly, much of the action is centered in California, the state most associated with seismic activity.
San Francisco pays a price as tremors cause the Golden Gate Bridge to collapse and send cars plummeting into the waters. Monitoring the situation from the White House, the U.S. president (played by Beau Bridges) hopes that's the worst of it; not a chance, when the drama's special-effects team also has the chance to "wreck" the San Andreas Fault.
Deadly predictions
Kim Delaney also stars as a scientist who predicts where and when catastrophe will strike next, and devises a radical plan to stop what is destined to "change the geography of Southern California," as she puts it.
She works with an ex-boyfriend (David Cubitt, "Turks") and the chief (Fred Ward) of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Elsewhere, two doctors -- played by Dule Hill ("The West Wing") and Ivan Sergei ("Crossing Jordan") -- treat the injured.
Among the many victims is California's governor (Rebecca Jenkins), trapped in her demolished office as her asthmatic teenage daughter (Kaley Cuoco, "8 Simple Rules") and estranged husband (John Schneider, "Smallville") reach a new accord while facing perils in the wilderness.
After playing Richard Nixon in the 1995 TV movie "Kissinger and Nixon," Bridges had the opportunity to shape a chief executive from the ground up in "10.5." He reflects, "The obvious thing that's so frustrating is that you're dealing with life-and-death decisions when you're nowhere near the trenches. On top of that, he ends up choosing to send his boyhood friend (the FEMA director played by Ward) into the mouth of the dragon."
Influenced by dad, coach
In portraying a president who eventually orders the evacuation of the entire West Coast, Bridges modeled his performance on "the best leaders I've ever seen close-up: my dad (the late actor Lloyd Bridges) and coach John Wooden (under whom Beau played basketball at UCLA).
"Hopefully, I got a lot of their sensibilities into this. Even though this president is confronted with a tremendous challenge, I wanted him to keep his composure as best he could -- realizing that if he lost it, all of the people around him would not be able to draw the best out of themselves. Also, I kept hearing my coach's words in my head: 'If you do your best, you really can't lose.' "
A born-and-bred Southern Californian, Bridges has experienced his share of earthquakes, so he didn't have to reach far to unearth related emotions. "With movies and miniseries like this," he reasons, "it's also why we all flock to roller coasters. It's a safe way to test your mettle and your psyche; how would you feel if something like this really happened?
"I don't think this pretends to be anything profound, but I have ridden out a few major earthquakes, and they truly are spiritual awakenings."
Bridges and Cuoco don't share any scenes in "10.5," since she spent most of her time outdoors doing her own stunts, particularly in a sequence that nearly buries her and Schneider inside a car.
"I'd cry all day," the young actress concedes. "I was scared to death. That car really did go under, with John still inside. It was horrible. Everybody asked, 'Do you want a stunt double?,' but I just had to do it."
If she had to be isolated with any of the "10.5" cast, Cuoco is glad "Dukes of Hazzard" alumnus Schneider turned out to be the one. "We really connected," she says. "He is just the coolest guy. We had to work through a lot of stuff, and he would say, 'OK, we're gonna do this together.' He was really supportive, because I knew I'd never done anything like this before."
Special-effects challenge
From "San Francisco" (1936) to "Earthquake" (1974) and beyond, filmmakers have used then-up-to-date techniques to depict Mother Nature's rampages.
Visual effects supervisor Lee Wilson brought experience in that area to "10.5," having also worked on the 1999 project "Aftershock: Earthquake in New York" for CBS. "My initial reaction was, 'Aww, another earthquake show?' " Wilson admits. "Then I realized someone else would do it if I didn't, plus it would be a lot cooler to stage a quake on the West Coast, so I decided to give it another shot."
Photographs, models and computer graphics were combined to show famous sites falling apart. "I went back and looked at the mid-'70s 'Earthquake' movie," Wilson reports, "and some of the stuff still looks pretty cool, and other stuff doesn't hold up as well.
"Audiences are more sophisticated now, so you just have to go the extra mile . . . and scale is everything. Water is the biggest giveaway. If you have the Golden Gate Bridge fall, and it doesn't hit water of the same size and magnitude, it looks like something shot in a kids' wading pool. Nothing is better than being able to do something for real."
Back to articles