In the meantime, studios have also stepped up inspection of audience members at the tapings of sitcoms and game shows. At Paramount, guards open bags and usher visitors through metal detectors. ''Security is tight,'' says a source. ''They're really checking these people.'' Warner has gone even further, banning outsiders altogether. At the Sept. 21 'Friends' taping, the studio asked employees to fill the seats. ''We definitely had room for some more audience members,'' admits a source close to the production.
In L.A., Las Vegas, and New York, shrinking tourism since Sept. 11 has meant fewer audience members to secure. Even tough tickets like CBS' ''Late Show With David Letterman'' are more available. And MTV's ''Total Request Live'' has suspended its caffeinated Times Square crowd shots—and shooed away onlookers—until at least the second week of October; producers ''don't want to give the police extra work,'' says an MTV spokeswoman.
New York-based film and TV production, a $2.5 billion industry, is gradually ramping back up. A few productions shooting in the boroughs outside of hard-hit Manhattan were allowed to resume immediately after the attacks. ''100 Centre Street,'' the A&E series produced by Sidney Lumet, continued work in Queens nearly uninterrupted. NBC's ''Law & Order'' is on hiatus until November because the show shot extra episodes last spring in anticipation of a threatened actors' strike.
Meanwhile, at press time, shooting in Manhattan was scheduled to resume Sept. 26, after about half of the 32-member NYPD Movie and TV Unit, which handles traffic and crowds, were released from ground zero duty. ''We're still trying to figure out exactly how to work Manhattan,'' admits film commissioner Patricia Reed Scott. First in line: NBC's rescue drama ''Third Watch,'' which was due to start shooting in the northern part of Manhattan only. ''They understand the situation,'' Scott says. ''Some of their advisers were lost in the conflagration.''
It's only fitting that a show that focuses on New York City's firefighters, police, and paramedics would be one of the first back on the street. ''We're not just a show about them.... Some of the people that were missing [at the World Trade Center] are from a squad that we've used as extras. We have a tech adviser from every branch of the service and they were all there,'' says Third Watch executive producer Ed Bernero. ''We have a lot of close ties to what happened.''
Additional reporting by Brian M. Raftery, Allison Hope Weiner, and Sandy Yang
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