FOR WEBSITE POST:

Check out the pilot episode of Mr Sunshine here:

http://abc.go.com/watch/mr-sunshine/SH55106567?CID=google_sem_1

WITH CAST PHOTO AND SMALL IMAGE OF STORY SUBJECT TO USE AS INSET – PLUS CUTLINE

NHS Grad Lands Production Gig On ABC’s ‘Mr Sunshine’

By John Voket

When someone is sitting in front of the television watching a typical half-hour sitcom, they may be thinking about the actors, the outfits, the witty dialog, the location where the show is set, maybe even the catchy theme music under the opening credits. But what about all those people and all those jobs that quickly scroll by when the show is over?

Newtown residents who caught the pilot episode of the new Matthew Perry program, Mr Sunshine, on ABC-TV last week were paying attention to the closing credits, they may have glimpsed the name of former Newtown resident and NHS star athlete Ashley LaRocque. She recently completed work on the first order of 12 episodes of Mr Sunshine which is being produced for the network by Sony Pictures in Culver City, California.

Ms LaRocque spent a few minutes chatting with The Newtown Bee on February 9, a few hours before the pilot was scheduled to air. She was preparing to head to a celebration at the Hollywood home of Mr Perry.

In her capacity as a post production assistant, Ms LaRocque explained, she provides support to the production’s associate producer, the production coordinator, two editors and two assistant editors.

“It was really an entry level position. But I was busy all the time running things all over town, taking episode copies and cuts to producers, and running stuff to other post houses,” said Ms LaRoque.

Mr Sunshine is the new vehicle for Friends co-star Matthew Perry, who plays Ben Donovan, the general operations manager of the Sunshine Center, a second-tier arena in San Diego. Every episode finds him navigating a never-ending series of bizarre behind the scenes requests, curious mishaps, and employee screw-ups to put on a show for 18,000 screaming people.

Working alongside him is his boss and arena owner Crystal Cohen (Allison Janney), who is attractive, powerful and highly erratic; Alice (Andrea Anders), a cute, tomboyish marketing director and Ben’s friend with benefits; Alonzo (James Lesure), a handsome and unbelievably happy former basketball player; Heather (Portia Doubleday), Ben’s assistant; and Roman Cohen (Nate Torrence), Crystal’s sweet-faced and clueless son, who is also Ben’s newest employee.

The show airs Wednesday evenings at 9:30 pm.

For those unfamiliar with the diverse group of personnel who work behind the scenes on a television program or film project, post-production is everything that happens once the filming is complete. A post-production staff may include any of the aforementioned positions, as well as sound editors, publicists, composers, Foley artists (who create and record all the sound effects), and the title sequence designer (who, strangely enough, takes care of developing the opening montage of images, sound, credits and other aspects that play in the introductory moments of a program or film).

One of the best things about being an all around support assistant was the requirement for Ms LaRocque to be on set for almost every minute of filming.

“I got to see the creative process of putting the show together, from its inception until today,” she said. “While we used shots of the Los Angeles Forum for exteriors which were modified into the Sunshine Arena you see in the program, we actually constructed several sets that served as the backstage, offices and luxury suites of the arena. It was a pretty big production that took up two entire sound stages here at the Sony lot.”

While her work on Mr Sunshine is Ms LaRocque’s latest gig, she spent almost a year after graduating from the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, working for Lighthouse Film Company producing DVDs and promotional projects for exclusive summer camps throughout the northeast.

“That job was a lot of fun, and where I started developing a love for the editing process,” she said.

As she started looking for new opportunities to develop her skills, Ms LaRocque was lucky enough to snag an intern job working for Country Music Television, which sent her temporarily to Nashville. She then graduated to intern for MTV, working on the networks music awards show, spent some time in London working with CNN and then at Comedy Central where she did post-production work on sitcom pilots there featuring the comedians Bill Burr and Kevin Hart.

After some soul searching, and arriving at the decision to go where most of the work is, Ms LaRocque pulled up stakes again and headed for Los Angeles. Once she settled in on the left coast, she touched base with a mentor from Comedy Central named James Renfro who had since migrated to Disney, and who just learned about a post-production opening at Sony.

“So within just a few days of landing in LA, I was working for Sony developing the first season of Mr Sunshine,” Ms LaRocque said. Now that filming for the first 12 episodes that will play out into the spring, she has moved on to another ABC pilot called Pan Am.

Pan Am project is already gathering some buzz as a competitor to the wildly successful series Mad Men. Set in the swinging ‘60s, Pan Am takes what is sure to be a machismo fueled look at political incorrectness and gender roles surrounding the titular airline’s pilots and flight attendants. Jack Orman (ER) wrote the script for the pilot and Thomas Schlamme (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, So I Married and Axe Murderer) will direct, according to one advance.

Ms LaRocque is pleased, she said, to be working with a lot of the same crew on Pan Am as she was on Mr Sunshine, and is hopeful one or both series will be picked up for a full season in the fall.

Check out the pilot episode of Mr Sunshine by clicking on:

http://abc.go.com/watch/mr-sunshine/SH55106567?CID=google_sem_1