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<\/p>\nTampa filmmaker Todd Wiseman Jr. has been shooting the limited series A Land Remembered in Hillsborough and Pasco counties for several weeks. A proposed move into Pinellas County, however, may have hit a snag.<\/p>\n
A Land Remembered is an adaptation of the historical fiction by Patrick D. Smith, following three generations of the MacIvey family, who relocate from Georgia to homestead in the Florida wilderness. The book follows the MacIveys from the 1860s to the 1960s.<\/p>\n
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Filmmaker Todd Wiseman Jr. Photo provided.<\/p>\n
Wiseman\u2019s proposal for a Pinellas shoot was submitted March 28 to the St. Petersburg\/Clearwater Film Commission. It asks permission to film on location at Fort DeSoto State Park\u2019s remote east beach in early May.<\/p>\n
Scenes are for a flashback episode to the 16th century arrival of Florida\u2019s earliest pioneers. \u201cSupplies \u2013 grain, tools, and livestock \u2013 are off-loaded and staged as the settlers prepare to push inland into the wilderness,\u201d reads the proposal. \u201cSpanish soldiers and settlers ready themselves for the perilous journey just as a band of Calusa warriors strides into camp, setting the stage for a fierce struggle over who will claim this land.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cattle, oxen, horses and pigs will be introduced, as well as rough-hewn animal pens and small human domiciles.<\/p>\n
When local environmentalists caught wind of the Fort DeSoto proposal, they cried foul.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot have a hoof running on this beach,\u201d said Lorraine Margeson, a longtime environmental activist and shorebird nesting monitor. \u201cThere\u2019s no way to do this without having some sort of environmental impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cSea turtle nesting season starts May 1. Guess what? You\u2019re going to need an FDE (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) permit to do anything at Fort DeSoto Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to flood the County Commission with emails, so whatever little thing he thinks he\u2019s going to do is getting shut down. Because the parks can\u2019t start doing this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wiseman said he\u2019s extremely sensitive to environmental concerns. \u201cI think people are jumping the gun a little bit,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey just need to let me do the show. It\u2019s going to be amazing, and absolutely not something that disrupts the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company is currently shooting on a \u201chomestead\u201d constructed on a private ranch in Pasco. \u201cThere are several beach options,\u201d Wiseman added, \u201cbecause there are a lot of sensitivities this time of year. There\u2019s nothing set in stone.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the Film Commission would only confirm that the proposal was \u201cunder review.\u201d A meeting between the filmmakers, park representatives and environmentalists is scheduled for Monday.<\/p>\n
A Land Remembered is financed with a $500,000 state grant, along with a matching grant from Visit Tampa, and other donors. Wiseman intends to complete the first season (four episodes) before shopping the project for distribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s going to disrupt things, we\u2019re just not going to film there,\u201d offered Wiseman. \u201cBecause our operation is so logistically focused, we have to have multiple inquiries open.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we film there, which I would love to, it will very minimally impactful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fort DeSoto State Park, he said, would benefit from its exposure in a TV series. \u201cIt\u2019s harder to protect something that you don\u2019t know about, that you can\u2019t see. I think Fort DeSoto is an example of a place that has all this natural beauty that should be protected. And I think this would be in service of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not good enough, according to Margeson. \u201cIf he brings one horse running around the beach in there, one, two cattle, we\u2019ll be screaming,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause that is a pristine property.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just can\u2019t believe that someone would come to the most popular park in the county \u2026 we are at the height of season. So we already have shorebird nests, all over the park. There\u2019s not a place he can go where he might not trample a gopher tortoise burrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
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