“One Tree Hill” Executive Producer Greg Prange needed a basketball arena for an episode of the TV show’s new season.
He found it in the Crown Coliseum. The location was perfect, too, since Fayetteville is close to Wilmington, where the CW Television Network drama is filmed.
“It’s kind of a cool place, and everybody is fantastic that works here,” Prange said Wednesday. “It’s a good choice.”
Prange, along with a film crew of 110 people, turned the inside of the coliseum into the fictional setting for episode five of the drama’s new season, which premiers Sept 1. The episode, titled “You dug your own grave, now lay in it,” centers on one of the show’s five main characters, Nathan Scott, as he works to regain his basketball career. It’s scheduled to air at 9 p.m. Sept. 29.
“We’re in season six,” Prange said. “We celebrated over 100 episodes last year, so it’s a big deal.”
“One Tree Hill” is set in the fictional Tree Hill, a small North Carolina town. The show tells the stories of two half-brothers, Lucas Scott, played by Chad Michael Murray, and Nathan Scott, played by James Lafferty.
Lafferty, who is 23 and a California native, said this was his first trip to Fayetteville. Shooting on location, he said, is a nice change of pace.
“It’s refreshing. It gives a change of scenery,” he said. “The whole crew gets to come out and gets a bonding experience that way.”
His impression of Fayetteville?
“The only part of Fayetteville I’ve seen is this stadium,” Lafferty said with a laugh. “I think it’s actually really nice. I don’t know how big Fayetteville is, but this is a good size arena for a town.”
Lafferty, who played basketball in high school, gets to use his skills on the television series. His character was injured and is now trying to get back in the game.
Prange couldn’t disclose details of the upcoming season. A news photographer was not permitted on set.
Shooting in Wilmington, Prange said, gives the show an authentic feel. Keeping the true-life atmosphere is part of the reason producers wanted to shoot the basketball scenes in a real arena.
“We just needed something that looked like a nice, beautiful, big-time basketball arena,” he said.
Paul Beard, the Crown Center’s chief executive, said having a national TV show filmed at the coliseum is a big coup. He hopes it will open the door for other television shows and movie productions to shoot at the Crown.
“It’s great prestige for us,” Beard said. “It’s another feather in the cap for the community.”
The show’s art department came to Fayetteville on Tuesday to make cosmetic changes to the Crown to give it the look they wanted for the show. They changed the name on the marquees to reflect the fictional basketball team that is being portrayed in the show.
Seats were placed on the arena floor, and the basketball court was installed. Lights were added to the bottom of the score board, and the advertisements in the arena were replaced with ads from fictional companies.
“It’s a lot of work to come and shoot for one day,” Prange said. “But you got to do it. So it’s good.”
Working with the Crown has been a positive experience, he said, and he isn’t ruling out the possibility of returning.
“We still have 16 more scripts to do this year,” Prange said. “So you never know. We could be back.”
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