Production
Temple Street Productions filmed the series in Toronto.
The pilot episode was shot in November 2007, while the rest of Season One was shot from July through December 2008.
In the show's final season, Being Erica faced some criticism for several examples of product placement which appeared awkward or poorly executed. In one episode, Julianne decided (seemingly arbitrarily) to quit drinking her trademark lattés, and Rachel repeatedly offered her Tetley Infusions iced tea as a substitute; during the summer hiatus before the fourth season aired, Tetley Infusions sponsored a contest whose prize was a trip to Toronto to visit the set of Being Erica.
In another episode, the cold open essentially situated Erica and Julianne in an extended commercial for the 2012 Ford Focus, with Erica and Julianne test driving the car while a salesman in the back seat explained its features and selling points; the scene's only narrative connection to the rest of the episode came in the form of Erica occasionally weighing whether or not to buy it (which she ultimately did.) National Post arts journalist Jessica Leigh Johnston wrote that this episode was effectively the end of the show for her, writing that "I didn’t actually make it to the finale. I broke up with Erica, my TV BFF, because she tried way too hard to sell me a car." In the weekly episode recap on its entertainment blog "The Hype", Toronto Life called it "the most blatant example of in-show advertising we’ve ever witnessed (even more than Julianne’s legendary love of Tetley Infusions)", and opined that the scene went on for so long that it almost seemed as though the car was going to be Erica's patient for the week.
In addition, McCain Foods sponsored a viewer contest whose winner would appear as a non-speaking extra eating a slice of McCain's pizza in a Season 5 episode of Being Erica, several months after the fact that the show was concluding production at the end of Season 4 had already been announced. The contest was subsequently revised to offer an alternate prize "in the event that Being Erica is not renewed for the fall 2012 season".
Read more about this topic: Being Erica
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)
“Perestroika basically is creating material incentives for the individual. Some of the comrades deny that, but I can’t see it any other way. In that sense human nature kinda goes backwards. It’s a step backwards. You have to realize the people weren’t quite ready for a socialist production system.”
—Gus Hall (b. 1910)
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)