[ MAUKA MAKAI ]
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Former Los Angeles producers Frank and Margaret South are hoping to successfully launch a television series made from start to finish in Hawaii.
Taking Hawaii
to HollywoodAfter 'Baywatch Hawaii' went
south, the Souths moved here'Diamond Head' cast of characters
Frank and Margaret South are together on the lanai of their Waimanalo home. Being together, sitting, taking the time for a lengthy chat -- these were once rare opportunities for two producers who survived 16 years in the Hollywood maelstrom.
"When Frank was doing 'Melrose,' it was nice because there was that steady paycheck, but he was never, ever home," says Margaret. "He would leave before the kids were up and get home after they were in bed. Seven years, 34 episodes a year, no hiatus. It was very tough."
After "Melrose Place" it was the short-lived "Hyperion Bay."
As for Margaret, although she worked part time after her son was born, she also had a frenetic career as co-founder, with Bette Midler and Bonnie Bruckheimer, of All Girl Productions.
She also developed scripts for Disney, Fox and Tri-Star Studios and produced the Midler films "Beaches," "For the Boys" and "Man of the House." And she once served as a consultant for ABC Daytime Television in New York, where she met Frank, who was having his plays produced in the city.
Hawaii has been the Souths' home since 2001, when Frank was hired to take over "Baywatch Hawaii" in its second season. Margaret, content being a full-time mom with her second child, was ready for a change from the City of Angels.
So the Souths moved to paradise for what they hoped would be several seasons of a revitalized "Baywatch Hawaii." When the show was canceled prior to season three, the family felt more kamaaina than visitor, embracing the slower lifestyle and unique culture.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARGARET SOUTH
Margaret South, center, in her Hollywood days in the '90s, heads off to the Oscars with All Girl Productions cofounders Bette Midler, left, and Bonnie Bruckheimer.
"We had to decide to stay or leave," Frank says. "Nobody wants to move back to L.A."
So they remained in Hawaii, "sort of," he says.
"I went back and forth to L.A. for about a year for work and to try to get shows started -- then come home when I could," he says. "It was nuts. I went to so many (Hollywood) deal meetings and got close over and over, then nothing would happen.
"The more I thought about the situation, the more I started thinking that maybe it means Hawaii is where we're supposed to be."
Margaret smiles, reflecting on her "single mom" year in Hawaii while her husband was mostly away.
"I was able to focus on the kids and on me for a change; the house was a lot more quiet than when Frank is working and the phone was ringing all the time or there are videos he wants me to (evaluate). I needed to be away from that pressure."
The year away also made Frank realize a family is not meant to be separated.
"We had to choose one place to live," he said.
So, like other Hollywood entertainment refugees, the couple decided to work on bringing Hawaii to Hollywood, creating self-contained, locally made programs they would sell in Los Angeles.
They've been focused on a television series -- or TV movie -- with all-local financing and an all-local crew, including producers, directors and writers.
The ambitious plan includes doing post-production here, with local editors. The show's music would be recorded here by local musicians.
Charles Memminger, the Star-Bulletin's "Honolulu Lite" columnist, joined Frank this year in writing "Diamond Head," a pilot about the last family-owned hotel in Waikiki. South hopes it will become a series.
The $2.4 million to $2.5 pilot is being shopped to network, cable stations and syndicators by South's agent, Scott Schwartz, of Vision Art Management.
Frank and Margaret say having completely local funding will allow for unprecedented control and make it easier to sell the show to studios because "the risk is all here."
"It's all or nothing," Margaret said. "A studio won't want to split the investment because it gets too complicated. They'd want to own the whole thing."
Georja Skinner, former Maui film commissioner, director of the Maui-based Hawaii Film Institute and a producer on "Diamond Head," has been introducing the Souths to potential investors.
To better their odds, the Souths and Memminger wrote "Diamond Head" as either a series or TV movie, and they have a back-up pilot -- "Army Brats" -- which is more mainstream.
"Army Brats" is an idea Margaret had been pushing since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when the couple knew reservist families uprooted to report to active status. The story focuses on an Ohio family -- the physician-parents are reservists called to active duty, first moving with their two children to Virginia, then Hawaii.
But it is "Diamond Head" over which the couple is crossing their fingers.
"Our specific purpose was to write a series for Hawaii," Frank said.
Economically, a TV series contributes more than a feature to a community -- at least $1.5 million an episode.
Hiring an all-local crew and casting at least half the principal actors locally also costs less overall, saving on the per diem required when workers are hired from the mainland.
"Diamond Head" was inspired by the late George Hueu Sanford Kanahele, a historian who published several books and papers on Hawaiian values and was a cultural advisor on "Baywatch Hawaii."
"George turned my head around about what Hawaii really is," Frank says. "I remember one day when I was very upset, screaming and yelling about some 'Baywatch' problems, so George tells me, 'The aloha spirit is a real thing, Frank, if you just open your heart to it.'
"He was right. The more I met local people, the more I got the sense of how things could be right."
To capture that "magic" in a show, Frank settled on creating a special hotel where visitors arrive all messed up and are healed -- "without too much 'Touched by an Angel' stuff in it," he said.
The couple has traded L.A.'s congested 405 and 101 freeways for walks on the beach, collaboration and striving to stop work at 5 p.m., "like normal people," Margaret said.
She also is teaching screenwriting classes (the next is "The Art of the Story," Sept. 23 at the Academy of Film & Television; details at www.theartofstory.com).
"Hawaii is capable of doing all these things," Frank says. "For us, we want to make a living, not a killing, and we want to stay in Hawaii."
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Here’s the show’s
cast of characters
"DIAMOND HEAD" is an hour-long, family-friendly story that combines emotion and action with Hawaii's culture and scenery. Though based in Waikiki, "Diamond Head" stories will feature all the Hawaiian Islands.
Screenwriters Frank South and Charles Memminger set their story in an exclusive beachside Waikiki resort -- strikingly similar to the Sheraton Moana Waikiki.
In their summary for the pilot, which they hope will lead to a series, the writers describe their resort as the last family-owned hotel in the area, with a banyan tree at the center of "a beachside courtyard and gleaming white beaux-arts architecture ... anchored in the history and traditions of old Hawaii and aloha."
Each week guests arrive from all over the world, intent on burying their defeats and traumas "under mai tais and room service," but instead find their lives transformed by the resort's uncommon staff and the spirit of aloha.
The cast:
Jack Young, 25: Well educated, athletic, one-quarter Hawaiian. The eldest child of the owners of the resort. Raised in the family business, Jack yearns to travel the world.
Lili Young, 18: Beautiful, intelligent, athletic, rebellious. Jack's younger sister is athletic director of the resort. She was supposed to start college, but before her father died he let her take a year off to "discover herself."
Makana Young, 14: The youngest, most emotionally complex of the children. A touch of his mother's talent gives him flashes of surprising wisdom and compassion. He's also a ball of adolescent hormones and raw nerves.
Emma Young, 50: The hapa-Hawaiian mother, protective of her family's long history, which includes 18th-century missionaries. She's more interested in the community than in the business.
Kate Beaumont, 24: The San Francisco-born assistant manager and Jack's potential love interest.
Mariko Beaumont, 28: Kate's older sister and CFO of a competing Waikiki hotel chain. Calculating and beautiful, Mariko also is attracted to Jack, but primarily for the joy of taking him away from Kate.
Brian Kaahea, 34: Head of security with an uncanny ability to "read" people, picking up character clues that no one else sees.
Joe Kaahea, 37: Restaurant and bar manager and Brian's older brother. He's selfless and very funny -- you'd never know that he's living with cancer. (The Kaahea brothers were written with Ray and Andy Bumatai in mind.)
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