Quirky cop series spends about $15M filming in Toronto

By Sid Adilman

LIVING IN Toronto for just six months, Fern Field has been responsible for spending about $15 million in the city during that time.

She is not a big spender; in fact, she lives modestly, and because she has been working 15 to 18 hours at least six days a week, she hasn't had time to shop, except for necessities, or to dine fancy.

Field is a U.S. TV producer who's been in the city on assignment since April 22.
That is, to get the new cop series, Monk, prepared and filmed mainly on the streets of Toronto and Mississauga, and to ensure that each episode is fully edited and delivered just two days before the first air date to its broadcasters: the USA Network, ABC and Barrie's VR.

She reckons that filming of its 11, hour-long episodes left an estimated $15 million in the city, considering fees paid to all but U.S.-import actors, Canadian crews and all the show's related expenses.

In a crowded field of cop shows this season, Monk, which stars crinkly faced, cherubic Tony Shalhoub, stands out for several reasons.

It's a light-hearted show, with a goofy and klutzy main character.

Shalhoub plays a neurotic detective with harmless obsessive-compulsive disorders. Suspended by the force for solving crimes by unorthodox methods and now trying to get reinstated, he is hired by his former boss on a freelance basis to keep doing just that.

He is unnerved by paintings hanging askew on the wall; his hands wrapped in cloth, he can't stop wiping tabletops and window panes for dirt and germs. In one episode, he insists on driving a car, but within seconds bangs it against a pole. Ah, but he sees clues where no one else does.

Also unusual: Crimes occur (and are solved) in Monk, but there is no violence (except for one episode that, Field admits, got "a bit away from us").
The show is set in San Francisco, but all viewers see of that city is a sweeping camera shot over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Most scenes were filmed outside, a real problem as it turned out, but not because Toronto is the stand-in, Field noted.

Field is a veteran of filming in Toronto, having worked on U.S. syndication series Nikita, Beastmaster and Counterstrike and, going back to the 1980s, the Kane And Abel miniseries and the TV movie Heartsounds.

She is fond of Toronto and likes filming here.

But "there are more restrictions now to film on the streets than when I did Kane And Abel in 1985," she said.

"More limitations, fewer choices of locations. For example, you can only shoot on one side of a (residential) street because the guy across the street doesn't want filming on his side. You can't shoot for as many hours a day as you once could, to avoid people getting angry ...

"They're building lots of (film) studios in Toronto, so maybe that will make filming easier."

Monk is a prime example of how filming of all TV shows and movies injects about $700 million directly into the local economy annually and, indirectly into provincial and federal taxes.

It employed about 200 Canadian actors (one of them Jason Gray-Stanford, the only Canadian among the four lead players).

About 130 other Canadians worked on the show full-time, from camera personnel to costumers, hairdressers, clerks, lighting and sound technicians, caterers, transportation drivers and gofers. These numbers do not include those involved in editing and other post-production services by the city's Eyes Post and Deluxe companies. Monk also hired about 1,000 local extras.

Shalhoub, also one of the show's producers, was housed in rented quarters in the high-end Yorkville area and Field in an apartment on the Esplanade. Guest actors such as Willie Nelson and some of his band, Adam Arkin, Kevin Nealon (of Saturday Night Live), Garry Marshall and Canadians Nicholas Campbell and Steven McHattie were put up at Sutton Place Hotel.

A converted warehouse in the Royal York Rd. and Queensway area was rented for Monk's production offices and soundstages for cop shop offices and apartment interiors.

Everything about getting Monk filmed was a rush, Field conceded.

The two-hour pilot was shot in Vancouver, which could have become Monk's regular stand-in for San Francisco. But, she said, Shalhoub was filming a movie in Toronto late last spring with Meg Ryan, "and he has a home in Martha's Vineyard so he could get there easily on days off, and Monk had to start quickly because of the (early September) premiere air date. So, Toronto was picked." Filming began on July 19.
Ontario film officials sent Monk's personnel possible matches for San Francisco, she said, "but these locations didn't allow filming there. And we didn't have time to look too far afield."

But, she chuckled, one U.S. TV critic praised the show for what he said was Los Angeles passing excellently for San Francisco.

Judging by the good reviews across the U.S., by its generally good ratings and by inside word, Field figures Monk will be back for a second season.
Back in Toronto? Maybe not.

Shalhoub, his actor wife Brooke Adams (also a guest on Monk) and their young children live in Los Angeles, "and being away from the family for so long is hard," Field said.

"Being away from home in L.A. is okay with a movie of the week that takes about 25 days. When you're away for months and working such long hours and coming back to an empty apartment, that's lonely." Proximity to Los Angeles is a key reason why Vancouver gets more filming for TV series than Toronto (which has more movies of the week and features).

Field praises Toronto filming crews and concedes that expertise plus the combination of the low Canadian dollar and the total 22 per cent rebate for Canadian filming personnel, which Ottawa and Ontario jointly provide, were the chief reasons for doing Monk in Toronto. Filming in British Columbia provides the same rebates.

After a week's holiday in Europe, which began two days ago, Field returns to Toronto to wind up operations and head back to the home she built two years ago in Palm Desert, Calif. It's a gypsy life.

"I've spent only 10 days consecutive there since the house was built," she said with a sigh.