#wtba7

Where The Bears Are - Season 7 - Episode 10

The scenes around the Mr. Bear America 2018 pool photo-shoot gone wrong were shot at the Palm Springs house on Sunday March 11th, our 5th day of filming Season 7.

We started by filming the conversation between Tristan, the owner of the pageant, Bentley, the choreographer, and Owen, Reggie and Nelson.

Then we moved to the pool photo-shoot scene itself, where I was actually playing the photographer, and really taking pictures. So these are not just #BehindTheScenes pictures, they are also #InTheScene pictures! 😄

What may not be obvious while watching the episode is that Hunter, Mr. Texas, shot his scene alone on the next day, and did not jump in the pool, just pretended to. @jacobsamplesonstage

♪Bitch please no, not at the bar♪ ♪Hit me up later on GROWLr♪

Where The Bears Are - Season 7 - Episode 12

Scenes for this episode were shot at the Palm Springs house on Tuesday March 13th, 7th day of shooting season 7, and 5th and final day at the house.

This episode includes an homage to the infamous lilypond catfight between Krystle and Alexis in the original “Dynasty” (scene which was remade in the first season of the recent reboot). Here we have Reggie and George fighting over “what happened last night…” 😂

And yes, this episode also includes, as its first scene, a shot-by-shot remake of “Where The Bears Are”s very first scene, back in Season 1, when Nelson wakes up to find Todd in his bed and, for whatever inexplicable reason, very much attracted to him. Except here, it’s between Wood and Reggie and… yew, gross!

I remember as we were setting the bedroom for the scene, I launched the first episode scene on my phone so that we could all watch it and shoot the new scene as close as possible to the original one, including leg positions.

Once again George Sebastian is wearing another one of his famous colorful outfits.

And once again, David Maddux composed a great Dynasty-inspired piece to score this scene, just like last year for George's scene during the trial.

The Palm Springs Zoo scene of episode 7 was also shot at CCBC, along episode 6.

Obviously we couldn’t end the show without a “Jump The Shark” moment and this is it! If the show had any dignity left after 6 seasons, well you can see it flying away in Season 7, right here in episode 7! 😂

This scene went through several iterations, the initial idea was to have Wood wrestling with a crocodile. There is a scene in a later episode where this is discussed, which was actually shot before we knew what it would be, so we recorded several takes of the scene with the dialog referring to different events/animals.

In the end, they found a gorilla suit, worn perfectly by none other than Scott Beauchemin, who had such pleasure wearing this heavy hot suit on a day that was already very hot.

The scene was filmed under the watchful eye of Rick who was just eager to strike more lines from his script with his yellow highlighter pen. Anyway, the filming of that scene was hilarious to watch and, of course, totally inappropriate at times.

OK, so since there are 16 episodes this season, we are now starting the second half. The little commercial videos that were at the end of episodes in the first half are now playing before the episode. And now, it's to inform viewers that the Season 7 DVD is now available for preorder.

The rehearsal scene of episode 5, where things go unraveling fast for the Mr. Bear America 2018 pageant thanks to a (CGI) spider was shot at Platform Productions, a studio in Palm Springs, on Saturday March 24th, our 13th day of shooting Season 7.

Where The Bears Are - Season 7 - Valentine's Day Special

Every season, the DVD has one special holiday episode that is not released on YouTube. This year, we shot the Valentine's Day Special on March 5 and 6, in a beautiful house in Los Angeles. These were our first days of filming Season 7, before moving to Palm Springs to shoot the season itself.

The special episode is usually a bit less stressful to shoot, everybody's coming back together and is getting reacquainted with how to do things. I was able to get a bit more creative with the behind-the-scenes pictures I took on these days.

As the drama between Wood, Reggie and George unfolds by (in) the pool, in another part of the house, another more serious drama takes place: Nelson and Todd sign their divorce papers.

OK, not really but seriously, this is bound to happen, right? 😉

This scene was shot on the same day as the pool fight scene, with the least people around since, for one, the bedroom was quite small, and two, it’s easier for the actors to be in that serious mood for the scene when there are no distractions around.

We shot the bar scene at the Tool Shed on Tuesday March 20 (day 11) at night. This was the same day we shot the book-signing scenes from episode 3.

There were a lot of extras for this, some of our usual extras and some people who just happened to be at the bar that night and agreed to sign Ben Zook’s paperwork to appear on the show. 🙂

We started by filming Reggie’s attack outside the bar, in the back, then moved to the second half of the bar to shoot the big crowd scene. Then Joe, Jeffrey and myself (I don’t think there was audio involved) we went outside the bar, at the front entrance, to film the opening bar scene of two extras entering the bar. Finally we shot that heated argument between Nelson and Todd. I remember it was really an emotional scene and everybody in the bar was watching it with awe.