Gail Shister | Here, there, everywhere: 'Hack' roams Phila.

By Gail Shister
Inquirer Columnist

Location, location, location.

That's the mantra for Hack, the new CBS drama-on-wheels that debuts at 9 tomorrow night on KYW. Shot entirely here, it stars David Morse as a disgraced Philly cop turned vigilante cabbie.

Because Morse's gritty Mike Olshansky boogies all over town, location manager Demian Resnick must find 12 to 15 unique spots for every episode. Sometimes five in one day.

"This show is about a character on the move all the time," says Resnick, 27, whose credits include HBO's Sex and the City and NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, both shot on location in New York. "I'm constantly on the lookout for everything."

Hack is on the run for at least six days of each episode's eight-day production schedule, Resnick says. Half the shoots are at night.

For Resnick and his staff of eight, that means coordinating 12 monster trucks (and many, many parking spaces) for each location.

Hack has only one standing set - highly unusual for an hourlong drama. (Even Resnick calls that "the extreme.") It's a diner where Olshansky hangs, and it's housed in the Philadelphia Civic Center.

When producer Nan Bernstein signed on, "my friends thought I was nuts," she says. "It's really, really tough to pull off a show like this when you don't have a fixed base where you can turn on the lights, rehearse, and walk away.

"I slept about three hours a night for the first two shows. I was stumbling around. Now the show has its own rhythm going, and we've gotten better as a unit," Bernstein says.

Hack is shooting its seventh episode. Thirteen - including the pilot - are ordered. If CBS orders "the back nine," it will go a full season's 22 episodes.

Resnick, a New Yorker, is knocked out by the diversity of our town's neighborhoods and the richness of its architecture.

"Block to block, it changes on a dime," he says. "Shooting here is a lot more fresh than in New York. It's had so many shows over the years, stuff becomes similar and recognizable. There's amazing stuff here."

Thus far, Hack's locations have included Larchwood Avenue in West Philly, 22d and Ridge, Delaware Avenue, and venues throughout Center City. The only non-Philly scenes have been in Bala Cynwyd, for episode two.

Having authentic Philly shots is essential, Resnick says, because "it adds a reality and look that makes a show like this come alive."