A colourful character shocked the Centennial Square lunch crowd at Friday’s Truck-Up street food festival by saying someone was going postal inside City Hall, but he didn’t mean it literally.
There was nothing to worry about because the postal workers taking centre stage in council chambers were as benevolent as Mr. McFeely, the pleasant “speedy delivery” mailman in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Maybe that’s why cinematographer Adam Sliwinski could be heard singing “It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood…” at his chambers post beside Kevin Fair, director of Signed Sealed Delivered. The movie being filmed here is the third in a series of Hallmark Movies & Mystery channel movies inspired by the hit series created by Martha Willliamson, the executive producer and writer behind the CBS television series hit Touched by an Angel.
The spacious room where issues such as sewage treatment and the Johnson Street Bridge are usually discussed doubled as a gallery in the U.S. Capitol, with B.C. actress Karin Konoval presiding over a U.S. Senate hearing.
Seated in the Victoria mayor’s chair, Konoval was a stern, no-nonsense presence.
Appearing before her to state their case were Eric Mabius, Kristin Booth, Crystal Lowe and Geoff Gustafson, the franchise stars who play the Postables, the series’ four postal detectives who track down people who never received letters or packages intended for them. The quartet’s mission is to finally deliver the unreceived mail that can change lives, make dreams come true and solve crimes.
“Our main characters are members of the DLO, the Dead Letter Office,” said production manager Allen Lewis. “They’re trying to get more information to find out who sent a letter from behind enemy lines.”
While the Canadian flag flapped high above city hall outside, American flags dominated the decor in the room upstairs adjacent to a holding area for day players and background performers.
“We’re doubling Victoria as Washington, D.C., and Afghanistan, and using a Butler Bros. [Keating Cross Road] gravel pit,” Lewis said. “We’ll be building an Afghan village, and erecting a tower as a landmark.”
Since the shoot began June 29, crews have filmed at Parkside Victoria, St. Ann’s Academy, a piano bar scene at Bartholomew’s and Chateau Victoria. They even spent one long night at the museum.
“We had to come in after they closed and we shot until 3 a.m.,” said Lewis, the Metchosin-based filmmaker whose crews transformed Royal B.C. Museum into the National Postal Museum.
They shot one scene in Old Town and another in the farming diorama, where a horse stands behind a fence.
It was dressed to become a pony express exhibit.
Other scenes being filmed include one at a hangar at Victoria International Airport and a climactic sequence involving “a dummy helicopter, a firefight, explosions and some special effects,” he said.
The filmmakers haven’t had any complaints about the hazy skies over Victoria caused by the residual effects of wildfires, said Lewis, whose crews avoided the worst of it last Sunday, their day off.
“We were indoors on the orange day,” he said. “We really lucked out because we actually like it a little cloudy. It knocks out the brightness, so it’s easier for us a light.”
