Source: Free New Mexican
Article By: Wolf Schneider
Date: June 26, 2005

Wildfire, a TV series about a sexy teenager with a rebellious streak, the thoroughbred horse named Wildfire she gets attached to while serving time in a juveniledetention camp and the family racehorse ranch that hires her afterwards to work for them, is filming entirely in the Albuquerque area until mid-August, and maybe longer. The first scripted series for ABC Family, it debuted on the cable channel Monday with a pilot movie, and is premiering new episodes on Monday nights throughout the summer. Sometime during that run, possibly as soon as Tuesday if the ratings are good, the network will decide if it’s going to renew the series for a second season.

Now midway through filming 11 episodes on a budget of $17 million, the series — it’s sort of The Outsiders meets The O.C. with horses — means a steady gig for local crews, a chance for New Mexico to show off its locations on weekly television (although Albuquerque is doubling for Fremont, Calif., where the Ritter racehorse ranch is supposedly situated); and the emergence of four hotties-in-the-making. There’s vivacious lead actress Genevieve Cortese as Kris, the edgy bad girl; Micah Alberti, a striking Bruce Webber photoshoot alum as Matt Ritter, who intended to leave the family ranch until Kris got there; Ryan Sypek as Matt’s Porsche-driving best friend; and Nicole Tubiola as Matt’s steamy former girlfriend who wants him back. Solar-home proponent and sometime-Taoseño Dennis Weaver plays the Ritter patriarch.

Since it’s set on a racehorse ranch, everyone mounts up. Five thoroughbreds play the lead horse, Wildfire, including a California trick horse named Finder who was a Seabiscuit double in the film Seabiscuit.

“He does the tricks, another one does the close-ups, one is from the track and does the running, and if they get nervous we switch them out,” said boss wrangler Tim Carroll, who lives in Abiquiú.

Carroll joined this shoot after doing Into The West (the TNT miniseries, airing weekends into July, shot three episodes in New Mexico). He’s running mostly quarter horses and thoroughbreds on Wildfire. “Quarter horses are the calmest — they’re the best. They’re built a little closer to the ground. Thoroughbreds are tall and lanky and they move good, but they’re not quite as quick in the tight places,” Carroll said.

Fastest on the track though, right? “What gets them really high is the feed —the sweet feed, the grass hay. That gets them feeling really good,” Carroll said.

On a late-June day, Wildfire is shooting its fifth episode at an Algodones horse ranch, where wispy cotton balls drift off the leafy cottonwoods under a baking sun. Most of the horse action takes place here, but sites at Zia Pueblo, The Downs at Albuquerque, the Baca Ranch, and along the bosque in Albuquerque are used. Other locations include a Rio Rancho soundstage, a Bernalillo diner, Albuquerque club OPM and Casa Rondena Winery.

Carroll estimates that the actors do about 50 percent of their own riding, mostly at a walk and slow lope (the best is Cortese, second is Alberti, he appraises).

Stunt doubles handle the rest, including Chama’s Luke Shulla and Abiquiú’s Tom Berto, with racing speeds up to 35 miles an hour. Horses and stunt riders are from California and New Mexico.

“So far, on the pilot we had a major cop chase and we jumped a jeep with a thoroughbred jumping horse,” Carroll said. “Mainly it’s just a lot of fast riding for the horses. In this episode, Wildfire breaks out with several of the others because the mustangs come through and they break out to go with them. We have a lot of rearing and stuff.”

Alberti — the most experienced of the twentysomething stars, having done stints on All My Children and Smallville — swings up into the saddle today with panache, looking swift in a Hollister Western shirt. “I’ve had a few years riding under my belt. I can definitely hold my own,” he offers gamely. “I love to have fun and get down and dirty.”

Just as important as the riding on this show is the look: think Everwood with Ariats and Seven jeans. “Our look is horsy, but not cowboy,” says key set costumer Susan Weese, a Santa Fean.

Weese said she frequents Santa Fe boutiques Spirit and Hot Tamale and Albuquerque’s Relish and Elsa Ross for the hip wardrobe. Cortese wears Seven jeans; Alberti favors Levi 527s; the jewelry is chunky silver-andturquoise by Arnold Goldstein; and everybody sports Ariat, Justin and Durango boots.

“We spend a lot of money on boots and jeans. You know how much a pair of Seven jeans costs? Like, $170 and up. And we’ve got to have them for the stunt doubles, too,” Weese said.

Another Santa Fean on the shoot is second-unit director of photography Ward Russell, who owns Brite Lite Productions camera rental.

“We do all the action stuff — the chases and the beauty shots, the sunrises and sunsets,” he says. “It’s just nice to see a TV series that goes on for a while here. It’s one of the first chances for us to have steady work. To actually get bank accounts.”

On a typical day, about 75 percent of the Wildfire crew is from New Mexico. With seven shooting days per episode, they cover five to seven script pages per day. “Of 238 belowthe-line technicians that’ve worked on this, 221 were local,” said production manager Lester Berman.

Running the set today for Lions Gate Entertainment and ABC Family, and discussing check-signing at the moment with Berman, is producer Gary Goodman, a Californian who resembles Garry Shandling — and who emphasizes the significance of New Mexico’s filmmaking incentives. “It’s a business, and in order to greenlight the series we needed to make sure we could take advantage of all the incentives — the 20 percent tax rebate plus the training program,” he said.

Goodman and Berman figure that 75 percent to 80 percent of the Wildfire budget is being spent in New Mexico. “Plus we’re training the community,” Goodman points out. “So long after we’re gone — and that’s hopefully not for four to five years more — it’ll go on.”

This is the state’s first series since 1994′s Earth 2. Besides the tax rebate, the state investment council also extended a no-interest negotiated loan for $15 million to the production, according to Lisa Strout, director of the New Mexico Film Office.

For that loan, New Mexico gains an 11 percent post-breakeven profit participation on the back end. “The more seasons it goes into, the more likely we’re making money,” Strout said.

Also shooting in New Mexico is the Jennifer Lopez film Bordertown, which films 42 days here and nine in Mexico; it started production June 13.

No matter how long Wildfire stays — and no, producers say it’s not based on the Michael Martin Murphey song of the same name — it’s got a heartfelt theme: “It’s a show about redemption,” Goodman said. “It’s about a second chance and how this girl’s love of a horse has given her the opportunity to have a second chance in life.”