By Rob Owen
May 4, 2007
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Walking through the Lawrenceville warehouse that houses the sets for Spike TV's "The Kill Point" feels like strolling through Market Square: There's the Original Oyster House and, further down the block, Jenny Lee Bakery. Around the corner, you can see the spires of the PPG building.

No, they didn't rebuild Market Square here, but a large swath of this part of Downtown is visible on a translight, a long, gigantic curtain with a photo of Market Square on it. The translight hangs outside the windows of the Three Rivers Trust, the primary set for "Kill Point."

In the eight-hour series, premiering with its first two hours on July 22, John Leguizamo plays Mr. Wolf, an Iraq War veteran who stages a bank robbery. It turns into a hostage situation and a cop named Horst (Donnie Wahlberg) has to try to end the crisis.

The exterior of Three Rivers Trust is being built as a facade on Forbes Avenue at the real Market Square. The production will take over Market Square beginning May 14 for up to eight days of on-location filming, diverting bus routes and sure to draw onlookers.

The crew was already at Market Square for some filming atop a Three PPG building and scenes of snipers on other rooftops.

When cut together on film, the transitions from real Market Square exteriors to the fake bank interior should be seamless, right down to the bricks that line Forbes Avenue both in reality and the faux bricks that line the street on the soundstage.

The bank interior is painted in a "light dusty rose," per crew members. It has fake marble floors and columns and a stairway to a second story balcony. Along the wall leading up the stairs is a huge mural of steelworkers toiling in a plant. Pictures of steel plants, blast furnaces and steelworkers hang on almost every wall of every room of the set, which includes not only the public areas of the lobby, but also back rooms and offices.

The bank has already sustained heavy damage from a fire fight. Bullet casings lie on the floor and pock marks from an exchange of gunfire dot the walls. The bank's front doors, made of glass, are also riddled with bullet holes.

Attention to detail extends to the smallest touches, including business cards on a desk for a bank employee named "Daniel Spaniel" to Three Rivers Trust home equity loan brochures that tout "Home Mortage" services, complete with a typo. (No one will see it on camera.)

In a scene shot Wednesday, Leguizamo took a call from Wahlberg's negotiator, who tries to strike a deal to secure the release of a hostage. The scene is shot in a small, claustrophobic conference room. Later, another scene was filmed in the bank lobby as Leguizamo's fellow robbers (played by Frank Grillo, Leo Fitzpatrick and J.D. Williams) watch coverage of the crisis on a TV newscast.

One of the challenges in writing about a TV show that I'm going to have to ultimately review is learning enough about it, but not too much. I want to be as surprised by plot turns as the rest of the audience. So when director Steve Shill ("Rome," "The Tudors") started showing me screen grab photos from earlier in the shooting schedule, I finally had to stop looking because I feared the pictures were possibly giving away too much.

But nosing around the set doesn't do much damage. I was able to watch video of a news reporter, played by former WPGH news anchor Leslie McCombs (formerly Leslie Pallotta), relaying information about the hostage situation for a non-existent Pittsburgh TV station, WWEJ Channel 14.

And although I don't know much about the bank manager character, my guess is he's a bit of a suck up: On the wall of his office, separated only by a painting of a steel plant, are framed photos of Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato. (A photo of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell hangs in an outer office.)

Already "Kill Point" has shot on the Duquesne Incline and at the convention center. Future shoots include the vault in a former West End bank and locations in McKees Rocks and along the Allegheny River.

Originally appeared at: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette