Amazon Prime show about love and cars films at Rockton fairgrounds
Colourful midway built for the new coming of age series ‘Motorheads’
It looked like the Rockton’s World Fair was starting early this year.
A large midway — with many games and even a ferris wheel — was operating during the second week of April at the fairgrounds off Highway 8 in Flamborough. At night, with its thousands of lights blazing in the dark, it was hard to miss.
The fair runs Thanksgiving weekend, but looks can be deceiving.
It was actually a midway built for the Amazon Prime show “Motorheads,” which is about a group of outsiders in a once-thriving rustbelt town who form an unlikely friendship over a mutual love of automobiles. Filming took place April 11-12 and cameras hovered about the set in huge cranes.
A synopsis on the Film and Television Industry Alliance website says the show is “a coming of age ensemble drama that leans into the escapism and joy that comes from everything from changing the oil on your first car to your first kiss.
“In a blue-collar steel town trying to reinvent itself, some characters will navigate the hierarchy and rules of high school, while others will be running from a dark past looking for new beginnings.”
The big name attached to the project is Ryan Phillippe (“MacGruber,” “Gosford Park” and “The Shooter” TV show). He is playing Logan, a former NASCAR mechanic who now owns an auto body shop in his hometown of Ironwood, Pa. He faces trouble keeping his shop afloat and lives in the shadow of his infamous brother.
The series also stars Australian actor Nathalie Kelley (“The Fast and Furious” series), Michael Cimino (“How I Met Your Father” sitcom) and Melissa Collazo (“Lena and Snowball”).
Kelley is playing Samantha, an ER nurse who’s left her job in New York City to move back to Ironwood with her children. Cimino plays Zac, who is trying to live up to his father’s reputation as a street racing legend. Collazo plays Zac’s sister Caitlin, who is a top mechanic.
The show was written by John A. Norris (TV series “One Tree Hill” and “All American”) and is being directed by Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland”).
“Motorheads is a gripping story, anchored around the series of ‘firsts’ that accompany young adulthood,” Lauren Anderson, an Amazon MGM Studios production executive, said in a statement. “We have an incredible group of actors bringing John’s (out) cast of characters to life.”
The show also filmed rolling car scenes on Valens Road and Orkney Road in Flamborough. Last Friday night, there were four cars sitting in an Orkney Road laneway, surrounded by dozens of crew members. One of the vehicles was a1960s Mustang.
Earlier in the week, scenes were shot in Paris at the Brant County service centre in the downtown, Penman’s Dam Park and Bean Park. The centre was made to look like the office for Allegheny County in Pennsylvania.
Cars parked on the set included a 1961 Cadillac.
Farewell to “The Umbrella Academy.”
Netflix has announced the fourth and final season of the time-travelling superhero show that filmed in Hamilton will drop Aug. 8. A former bank on King Street East, near Gore Park, played the academy.
The show started shooting here in 2018. It filmed at such locales as Dundurn Castle, Liuna Station, Gage Park, Gore Park, The Cotton Factory, Ottawa Street North and Dyment’s Farm Market in Flamborough.
For the final season last year, it shot a car crash on Brant Street in the city’s industrial core and at the RBG Arboretum. It also filmed a robbery in Brantford and at an indoor playground shop in Burlington.
The series is about seven children born with superpowers who are adopted by Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) and go through some time-travelling adventures. The show also starred Elliot Page, Robert Sheehan and Emmy-Raver Lampman. Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally and David Cross appear in the last season.
Page says in a release the season promises “surprises, excitement and humour, twists and turns, action, of course.”