"All these people do is eat!" an extra said, marveling as crew members chowed down between filming scenes for Spike TV's "The Kill Point" last month in Market Square.

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Donnie Wahlberg plays the police negotiator in Spike TV's "The Kill Point," filmed in Pittsburgh. Click photo for larger image.

With that, an entertainment business hallmark made its way to Pittsburgh: Food provided by what industry folks call "craft services" is key to sustaining the cast and crew on a Hollywood production.

But Pittsburghers had more to learn about dealing with a film crew in town, something that could become increasingly important if tax breaks currently before the state legislature are approved. (If that doesn't happen, then no worries about educating ourselves; there won't be any films or TV shows coming here -- they'll all go to Connecticut, which has instituted aggressive tax breaks for filmmaking.)

Today is the last day of filming on "Kill Point." I visited the Lawrenceville set for the last time Monday to talk to producers about their overall experience making the eight-hour series (premiering July 22 on Spike TV) in Pittsburgh. My first visit to the set in March was accompanied by snow flurries; my last visit coincided with hot and muggy weather. In between and over 66 days, "Kill Point" employed 250 people full-time, 80 percent of them locals. At the height of the two-week Market Square shoot, an additional 300 extras were on the payroll, and the production spent at least $18 million of its approximate $23 million budget locally.

As for their experience, producers uniformly praised the work ethic of the local crew.

"The crew that's here is exceptional," said co-producer Bill Hill. "Most of these people I would take anywhere in the country. They know what it's like to come to work and show up and do the job. The attitude is wanting to show off Pittsburgh and what Pittsburgh can do. We just need more of them."

Rebecca Droke, Post-Gazette Director and co-executive producer Steve Shill goes over a scene on the set of "The Kill Point" in Market Square. Click photo for larger image.

If the tax breaks go through, Western Pennsylvania is poised to reap the economic rewards, said Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office.

"I had phone conversations with five feature films in the space of two hours," Keezer said from Los Angeles last week. "Those were all based on tax credits. If those don't pass, we're not getting the [films]. They all want to talk to us now because they know it's in the works. People are spreading the word."

Lionsgate, the company that produced "The Kill Point," has also expressed a desire to return if the tax breaks are passed.

If more TV and film projects descend on Pittsburgh, there are lessons to learn from "The Kill Point" shoot in Market Square. The production took over the space for two weeks, upsetting some local businesses that saw their profits erode.

Never mind that WPXI overdid the "angry business owners" story, airing multiple reports, some with inaccuracies and a largely negative slant. But business owners' concerns are legitimate. Even "Kill Point" staffers were sympathetic.

"I think we strained things down there, inevitably," said director Steve Shill. "It was hard for local businesses to deal with it. There are occasions I've opened my front door and found the street full of white [production] trucks, and I didn't like it. I think they grinned and bore it, and we're grateful to them."

Here's where the problems started: Some media reports said Market Square was closed during the filming. Not true. Forbes Avenue was closed to vehicle traffic, but contrary to at least one report, foot traffic was not being stopped at Wood Street, nearly a block away.

Production assistants, some of them young, inexperienced and hired just for the Market Square shoot, were stationed at entry points, stopping pedestrians while the cameras rolled. What they weren't always good about was letting passers-by know they could proceed in just a few minutes. Hill admitted there was a learning process in teaching the new hires to communicate with the populace and let people through between takes.

"I think we've all learned a lot," Keezer said. "This was our first television series, and there's lots of room for improvement. We've begun conversations with the city to find ways we can do things a little better."

Before the next big production takes over part of town, there needs to be a public education campaign. Maybe the Film Office can call a press conference and present a "how-to" guide for citizens on what to expect from a film crew.

"In Los Angeles and other places where there's shooting all the time, people know where they can go and move," said "Kill Point" producer Tim Iacofano, a veteran of "24." "People just do their thing, and it doesn't get in the way."

As TV productions go, the Market Square shoot was also a bit of an anomaly.

"We were in there a long time," Iacofano conceded. "Normally in episodic television you go somewhere for two days, tops. Being there two weeks was probably a bigger disruption than anyone anticipated. If it was two days, it probably wouldn't have been a big deal."

Talking to Market Square business owners, it's clear there's a whole soap opera going on in that space that the rest of us are oblivious to (a recent rumor circulating there that "Kill Point" was coming back for re-shoots in July is not true). Their reactions to the shoot varied wildly.

At City Cafe, which opened just before filming started, Jeremie McKnight said foot traffic got worse during the second week of the shoot.

"It was probably good for the city generally, but locally, we took a hit," he said.

But Sergio Muto, whose La Gondola pizzeria was used as an exterior in the film (he won't say how much he was paid for that), said his sales were down only the first week.

At Dogs Dun Wright, which sits directly across from the exterior of the faux bank used in the show, owner Patty Wright said the production attempted to make good on the disruption by occasionally buying bunches of hot dogs (star Donnie Wahlberg purchased 80 one day for the cast and crew), but it still wasn't enough to make up for a normal day's sales of 150 hot dogs. She ended up satisfied with the production company anyway: Their security guard stopped a man from breaking into her shop one night.

At the opposite end of Market Square, a block from where most of the filming took place, Costanzo's restaurant owner JoHan Costanzo is still trying to collect $2,500, which she says amounts to 10 days' rent, from the production company. She contends that the blockade dissuaded people from coming to her restaurant. She was also offended by the presence of craft services trucks that parked in front of her restaurant.

"I think what they should have done was close down the square completely and paid us all a little bit to do what they wanted to do," Costanzo said.

That sounds like the production-company-as-ATM approach to having a film crew on the block.

"The Film Office was a great in helping to educate the businesses who have not been involved in filmmaking, but I think they need to educate more," Hill said. "Just cause it's Hollywood doesn't mean there's a ton of cash and that cash is not just there to be handed out. I think some people have the misconception that just because someone is shooting, someone will be doling out cash. That's what destroys a town for filmmaking."

Let's not have that happen. With a little more communication before the next big production comes to Pittsburgh, perhaps some of these conflicts can be mitigated.

And so it begins ...

The changing of the guard at NBC (Kevin Reilly out, Ben Silverman in) has already had one negative effect on "Friday Night Lights," a series Reilly championed. NBC had been airing the reruns on Sunday nights so new viewers might have a change to find the show. Not anymore.

NBC yanked "Lights" prior to last weekend's expected broadcast. A network representative says "Lights" will return closer to its season one DVD release, no sooner than late August.

Channel surfing

WTAE's "Project Bundle-Up" auction, which moves to the Web this year, begins Sunday and runs through July 28 at ProjectBundleUp.com. ... Not a good sign for the show's future, TNT is moving Pittsburgh-set "Heartland" from Monday's post-"Closer" 10 p.m. time slot to 8 p.m. beginning July 23 to make room for the new Holly Hunter drama, "Saving Grace."

TV Q&A

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about HGTV's "Groundbreakers," the lack of Boston accents on "Boston Legal" and more Comcast queries. Read it online at post-gazette.com/tv.