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Filming begins
for ‘29 Down’

Oahu's fourth TV series in a year and the first of '05, "29 Down," began filming yesterday on the North Shore for 13 episodes, at about $400,000 each, through March. Cast members Hallee Hirsh, Lauren Storm, Johnny Pacar and Corbin Bleu arrived Monday aboard an Aloha Airlines flight from Burbank, Calif. They, along with executives producer Stan Rogow, director/writer DJ McHale, Rann and Gina Watumull of Hawaii Film Partners and David Jackson of Showcase Entertainment, met with local media.

The series centers around teenagers whose plane crashes on a deserted and unnamed Pacific island. "29 Down" will join NBC's Saturday morning lineup sometime this year ...

Fox's "North Shore" cast and crew might not know until February whether the hotel drama will be picked up for a second season. The network and studio are, according to a source, "thinking heavily to bring it back ... because the network realizes the series didn't get a fair shake." The crew is moving production office furnishings and other equipment into the Hawaii Film Studio sound stage, which was used as the hotel set. Producers are looking for another facility since the state begins a major remodeling project at the studio Feb. 1.

If the series does return, the hotel set will be used again, but the beach bar set, now at a Ko Olina lagoon, could be rebuilt on the studio parking lot.

"North Shore" will premiere in Australia on the Seven Network sometime this year ...

ABC's "Lost" resumed filming Monday. Tonight's new episode, "Whatever the Case May Be," has more of Kate's (Evangeline Lilly) past revealed as she begins to have nightmares of a disturbing event. Casting calls went out for actors to play a gruffly handsome guy from New Mexico, who is not a model citizen, and a Hasidic Jew "with attitude" who is questioned by Los Angeles police as a possible suspect fleeing through the airport dressed as Santa ...

"Aloha Scooby-Doo!" surfs into video stores next month. The animated feature includes the voice work of Tia Carrere. Scooby and the gang head to Hawaii for a surf contest that's disrupted by a volcano. "The Wiki-Tiki Tail" featurette on the DVD includes songs from Don Ho ...