Episode: Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire combusted the FIRST time on Wednesday, October 25th, 1995. The crew had a 9 am call. (I had a 7:45 am call.) The first scene(s) listed reads
EXT.598 LILAC WAY (REALITY)--Gail drives up to house

Other thoughts and memories:
Ring of Fire covered the longest span of time for production of any AG episode. The first round of shooting ended on November 2nd, 1995. But after assembling a rough cut, AG's producers decided to rework the episode. Part of the reason was to reduce the amount of Dr. Matt in it, since it was during this episode that Jake Weber got the news that he was being let go. Reshooting was planned for the time around the production of the last few episodes, but then matters were complicated by the fact that Gary Cole had to leave suddenly for A Very Brady Sequel. (More on this when we get to those episodes). So, on January 22nd, 1996, during the shooting of the double episode The Buck Stops Here/Requiem, the crew also started reshoots for Ring of Fire. Were we confused? After 6 months of 15-18 hour days--you bet! We continued picking up a reshoot scene for this episode here and there until February 9th, 1996. Nutty!

Sonny Shroyer returned for this episode, which was a delight to me. I did not work on AG's pilot, but had met Mr. Shroyer on another project, and it was fantastic to see him again. (And to show what kind of guy he is-Mr. S remembered my name, even though it had been four months since we had met!)

Sonny was less than thrilled, however, as rewrites came out to the set a couple of days before he was to shoot--rewrites which completely eliminated all of Gage's lines in this episode! I'm not sure why the writers reduced him to silence, but Sonny was upset because of the time and effort he had put in to learning those lines and preparing his acting of them. (I don't blame him, really.)

Sandi Fix took over the role of Christine Emory with this episode. (As usual, I have no clue why anyone was ever recast) She was a lot of fun, especially when joking around with John Keenan, who played Peter Emory. They were especially funny in their reactions to the 1976 clothes they wore.

Colin Wilcox played the Hall of Records lady (whose name was Evelyn Gardner). She was a wonderful lady who I knew from her appearance in To Kill a Mockingbird. It was extremely cold in the building where we set the Hall of Records, but she never complained.

Little David Cutting (the toddler in Gail's visions) is a cute little kid I've worked with before. His parents were also very nice. Sadly, in the episode you don't get to see a clever bit of business meant to show the "weirdness" of the child--the director ("Uncle" Lou Antonio) had lil David wander out a door of the hospital hallway, while Paige followed, then had lil David wander back into the hallway through another door, making the child seem to walk through walls. In reality, of course, he was stepping off the set onto the soundstage and walking back onto the set through another open door. It was also funny watching his parents standing outside each of the doors, gently herding him to his next mark.

Halloween Day fell on this episode, a fitting holiday for a scary series. We spent the morning out at Wrightsville Beach shooting a (later cut) scene with Selena and Matt walking along the water. We followed this with a (later reshot) scene of Lucas and Gail arriving at the cabin. After that it was back to the Timme Building to finish up in the hospital set, shooting two scenes involving Gail and Matt and a third that also included Selena.

The scene where Ben gives the message to Selena that Lucas won't be joining her for dinner was a lot of fun to shoot. Brenda did the rehearsals whispering something innocuous to Nick, but when we shot the scene, she whispered SOMETHING that made his flabbergasted reaction all the easier to achieve. He came off the set blushing, but to this day will not tell me what she said!

We shot the scenes of Gail's parents meeting their fate on day six of this one. The big shot from this sequence has Christine and Peter struggling to escape the burning office. You can see the actors through the frosted glass, banging and screaming. I was also inside the office with them (to cue them) and was pretty close, since anything more than about a foot from the frosted glass was invisible. It was kind of scary to be in there, I have to say. I know the special effects guys were good, and the whole thing was being done safely, but to be in a room, watching huge flames shoot up outside the window while two people scream to be let out can be a little chilling.

When we came back in January to shoot on this episode, we mainly worked with Gary, Paige, and the returning Sandi and John for the new footage. Of course, by this time, the AG Makeup Kings (Jeff Goodwin and Rick Pour) had moved on, and the new makeup people did a pretty goofy job matching stuff to the earlier footage. Especially silly was the makeup effects on Gail's parents when they come up out of the grave in her vision. These new makeup people used store bought Halloween masks which they slightly tricked up. Not at all what JG would have done, and the results were not very good.

Looking over the production reports--I see that on day one we also shot some CBS promos with Gary. That took two hours, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm.

And I think with that, this fire is extinguished!

Your hopes he never spontaneously combusts AG PA,
Craig




(The following was from the AG mailing list)

<Tom Lynn wrote:
No, this is a definite continuity error. I'm afraid I'm not good on Ep names, but it's the one where Gail finds Caleb's mother's medical info taped to a wall. As I remember, Gail and Lucas drive up in a car, then Lucas asks Gail why she really wants to know or something. At this point, they are standing outside this rickety old building, and Lucas's haircut suddenly changes to swept completely back, then suddenly changes back.

Craig:
Ah--I have the answer to that one, (and I'll expand on it during the Episode Discussion for Ring of Fire). Ring of Fire was the second most reshot episode (after A Tree Grows in Trinity), and the reshoots for it didn't take place until Gary was about to leave for A Very Brady Sequel some months after the original shoot! So, those months, plus the change from AG Makeup King Jeff Goodwin and his assistant Rick Pour to the *ahem!* OTHER AG makeup team, must have resulted in this bumpy bit.

Your slow to respond but hopefully helpful AG PA,
Craig