Beyond “Baywatch”

“Baywatch” made county lifeguards into global sex symbols—and made them leery for years about celebrity.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department is rarely surprised when Hollywood comes knocking. After all, their firefighters and lifeguards have some of the more exciting real-world jobs here in Tinseltown.

But for more than a decade, the department has shied away from film depictions.  

“Our image is very important to us,” says Capt. Thomas Richards of the department’s public information unit. And, he says, shows like “Baywatch”—which turned L.A. County lifeguards into global eye candy in the 1990s—left county taxpayers, as well as some lifeguards, feeling burned.

Now, however, the department is dipping a cautious toe back into the show biz waters with a proposal to streamline the approval process for film requests.

Scheduled for consideration next week by the Board of Supervisors, the plan would let the department contract on its own with film production companies to do the limited filming necessary to create TV pilots, “sizzle reels” and other supporting material for pitches to the county.

The idea, Richards says, is to give fire officials—and ultimately the Board—a fuller sense of how county employees might be affected by or depicted in a proposed film or series while easing the frustration of producers, who often get a flat “no” from the department or wait weeks or months for an answer. Such filming would not be for public consumption, and the Board would retain final approval for any use on film of the department’s image, personnel, facilities or equipment.

“If we can show firefighters and lifeguards in a positive light, that’s a good thing, and these requests come to us all the time,” says Richards. But, he says, the current approval framework can be cumbersome and lengthy, and the requests are often time-sensitive.

That’s an understatement, says Bud Brutsman, chief executive officer of Brentwood Communications International, Inc., a North Hills production company that came to the county six months ago with a request to film county lifeguards for a reality show proposal featuring Venice Beach.

Brutsman says the show, operating under the working title “Venice 24/7”, has been commissioned by the Travel Channel as a West Coast spinoff of its successful “Airport 24/7: Miami,” a reality show about Miami International Airport. “The concept is to follow all aspects of the city—police, HazMat guys, lifeguards. For Venice, it’s a very positive thing.”

As part of the deal, he says, he has to shoot a so-called “sizzle reel”—a 2-to-3-minute collection of scenes that functions both as a preview and as proof that the producers have the access to generate a whole series. To do this, he has had to seek permission to film from both the City of Los Angeles and the county, which share responsibility for the community’s various municipal services.

But while the city services were shot in a matter of weeks, he says, he’s still awaiting permission from the county, which provides the community’s lifeguards. 

Richards says that’s partly because the department decided to seek the policy change before responding. But, he says, decisions on filming, even for small proposals, currently require Board approval, which can be time-consuming.

The department spokesman adds that county lifeguards actually like the Venice project, viewing it as an opportunity to show real people performing a real public service. That’s a far cry from the way the department has viewed past TV depictions.

“Baywatch was very successful—for the producers of Baywatch. And that’s something that still comes up,” says Richards, noting that little revenue from the series ever found its way into county coffers, and that lifeguards came away feeling objectified by the show’s slow-motion scenes of god- and goddess-like actors loping down local beaches.

“Our lifeguards are the best in the business,” he says. “And the county got very little from that experience.”

Brutsman, the producer, hopes to convince the department that his show will be different. Still, he notes, delays and distrust just make it harder to do show business in the industry’s backyard.

“I gotta bear the cross for Baywatch?” he jokes. “”Hey, I didn’t like that show either! But if it helps, we can leave our slow-mo camera at home.”

A proposed reality show about Venice Beach has been waiting for months to shoot a 3-minute “sizzle reel.”

Posted 8/1/13