NECESSARY ROUGHNESS Set Visit and Photos

The great folks over at USA Network invited Daemon’s TV to visit the set of their brand new show, Necessary Roughness, which premieres on June 29 at 10pm. Though it is set in Long Island, the drama is actually filmed in Georgia, minutes away from beautiful midtown Atlanta.

Here’s some info on the show:

Necessary Roughness centers on Dr. Dani Santino (Callie Thorne) a Long Island psychotherapist whose personal life unravels when she finds her husband cheating. Diving fully into her work, she takes on the challenge of rehabbing a bad boy professional football player (Mehcad Brooks) whose off-the-field antics threaten his career and the team franchise. Underestimated at every turn, she succeeds beyond expectations and soon finds herself as the most sought-after therapist for high-profile clients. Athletes, entertainers, politicians and others living in the spotlight clamor for her unique brand of tough love therapy during their moments of crisis. Although her career is reenergized, it wreaks havoc on her life as a newly minted single mom of two teenagers. Recognizing her ability to change people’s lives, she’s determined to strike a balance between both worlds. The series also stars Marc Blucas and Scott Cohen.

Created and executive produced by Liz Kruger & Craig Shapiro (Miami Medical, The Challenge). Kevin Dowling (Sons of Tucson) directed the pilot and also serves as executive producer. Jeffrey Lieber (Lost,Chase) also serves as executive producer. Inspired by a true story, Necessary Roughness is a Sony Pictures Television and Universal Cable Productions co-production and shoots in Atlanta, Georgia.

The series is located at a brand new studio and Necessary Roughness is the first production to be shot there. After being loaded on to a bus, I and my fellow writers were off to see the soundstages and production offices. First up we were given a tour of the set for Dani’s house, which was completely recreated on the stage to match the real house that was used in the pilot. A perfect replica of the real house, the stage was quite large, allowing most rooms to be enclosed by four walls (rather than having one side open as is usual in most sets. It even featured a second floor, which we were able to peek at and see part of one of the kids’ rooms.

After getting a chance to wander around the house set and take pictures, we were taken over by our guide for the day (aka Brad) to the other side of the soundstage to another set where filming was taking place for the show’s fourth episode. We had to turn off all cell phones and quietly walked over to check out the action, even getting the chance to listen to the dialogue with headsets provided by the welcoming crew. Standing silently in our little corner, we watched as series star Marc Blucas shot a scene with guest star Andrea Anders. Never having seen a live production in progress before, I was fascinated by the process as they first rehearsed the scene with the director and then set up to film. Barely three minutes long, Marc and Andrea ran through the scene multiple times, starting over when things like the boom mike getting in the way stopped the filming.

After that, we were taken back to the production offices (walking down a rocky slope as the offices and soundstages were on different levels of the studio). We were accompanied for part of our trip down the hill by Marc and a friend he referred to as his “publicist on the road” – which was a very large dog that I never got the name of but seemed really sweet. Marc jokingly remarked that he would sic his buddy on us if any of us didn’t behave ourselves. He was kidding….I think.

Once back at the offices, we sat down for interviews with Scott Cohen and then Marc. Then it was back to the soundstages for another tour. This time we got to wander around the set for the offices, locker room and physical therapy room for the fictional football team on the show, the New York Hawks.

After a brief tour from Brad, we were left somewhat on our own again to wander to our hearts’ content and take more photos. A couple of us had fun taking pictures not only of the sets themselves, but of ourselves sitting at Matt’s (Marc Blucas) desk and riding on one of the exercise bikes (come on, how could we resist?).

We also peeked at the desks in the fictional Hawk’s promotional offices and got a chance to read (and take pictures of) some of the notes the crew had written on various notebooks in the room – the sort of little things you’d never see when watching the show.

After that, we were again taken back to the house set, this time to walk up a set of stairs erected on the outside of the set, leading up to the second floor. The entire crew perched on a large platform as another scene was shot inside one of the bedroom sets, this time with Patrick Johnson, Hannah Marks (who play Dani’s kids on the show) and a guest actress playing Hannah’s friend. Once again we watched as the scene was shot over and over, with slight adjustments made in between to do things like adjust an air condition vent that was interfering with sound, give Hannah and the other actress another prop to play with during the scene, and fix makeup and hair. I even got to see my very first live blooper, when Patrick completely forgot his line and the scene had to be shot again.

After that it was another trip back down the hill (we sure got our exercise!), where we were treated to a very nice lunch and some of us further treated ourselves to the ice cream cones being offered as dessert.

Then it was time to sit down for an interview with executive producer and co-creator, Craig Shapiro, who was so busy that he had to stop twice to take various phone calls (one of which was from his son calling about a ride home from school, too cute), proving just how busy the life of an executive producer of a television series is.

Finally we sat down with Patrick and Hannah for our final interview of the day. Before boarding our bus back to the hotel, we were warmly thanked for visiting the set by the people from USA and the cast and crew.

Interviews with the cast are coming soon, so stay tuned!

Also stay tuned for my next set visit to USA’s hit Covert Affairs and another brand new series from the network, Suits.

Follow me on Twitter @mokibobolink