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Reality comes to Coeur d'Alene

by Rick Thomas
| March 17, 2010 9:00 PM

In the coming days and months, video crews will be downtown and in other parts of the area shooting footage for a proposed reality show to be called "Icon Coeur d'Alene."

COEUR d'ALENE - If a budding movie maker has his way, the Lake City will become even more iconic than it already is.

In the coming days and months, video crews will be downtown and in other parts of the area shooting footage for a proposed reality show to be called "Icon Coeur d'Alene."

The downtown nightclub Icon, owner Jerry Goggin and his employees, customers and many they come in contact with will be the focus of what is planned as a six-part series.

"I'm fascinated with people, with relationships," said Brad Kline, director and owner of production company North Pole Mystery created for the project. "We won't stop at the front door of Icon."

He visited the city last summer, shooting a water filter ad, and stayed with Luke Jiles at Hayden Lake Country Club.

Jiles, a promoter, had been scouting for locations and scripts for feature films and documentary subjects and reality TV shows.

"I fell in love with this place," Kline said. "Jerry fascinates me. A top gun pilot, entrepreneur in a tough economy, interested in the community."

He previously did campaign ads for his uncle, Phil Kline, former attorney general of Kansas, then marketing, editing and special effects. His lifelong dream was to make movies. Now 30, he saw "Big" at age 9, and immediately set about recruiting neighbor kids to help him, dragging a black tarp across a lawn to create a special effect for a "mini horror movie."

The visit to Idaho first resulted in joking around about the idea for a reality series, but soon kidding turned serious and Jiles gave him the basic idea for the series.

"I want to accomplish getting everyone, bartenders, servers, involved," Kline said. "Identify different story lines and interesting relationships, let the story tell itself, and how people who work here are connected with Coeur d'Alene."

Using high-definition video cameras, three crews will follow Goggin and others through different aspects of their lives, from the nightclub to their time together outside work, and to other area business establishments, especially downtown.

Crews could be following Goggin, a bartender, and a bouncer, sometimes apart, other times together.

"There is enough intrigue in this town to tell a story," Goggin said. "We are going to run our business, these guys are going to capture it on film. It's not about me so much as about the town, the people who work here and the town. The employees work together and play together.

"This is the core, the people who work here and the regular customers. The idea is to get into their lives."

Days off, on the lake or the golf course, and sometimes the personal drama of their lives are part of what Kline plans to document, but hopefully less contrived than most "reality" shows. He hopes to take a more artistic approach.

"Modern reality shows are plagued by producer intervention," he said. "I want to find good subject matter and stay out of the way."

The first week of the project involved some shooting, interviewing prospective subjects and looking for interesting stories and people who will not be self conscious in front of the camera.

Short shoots will help acclimate them and others. Publicity hounds need not apply. Muggers looking for 15 seconds of fame will more likely end up on the cutting room floor.

"That is part of acclimating," Kline said.

A Web site, www.northpolemystery.com, will show clips, and from time to time focus groups will be shown segments on Icon's big screen TVs.

"We want to try to get across that Icon is the premiere North Idaho nightclub," Jiles said. "There are not many people like Jerry, with his interesting background, and a very savvy businessman. Once you get to know the background it's a no-brainer."