"Cameras up, everybody," yelled the director to the four actors standing or sitting around the blackjack table at the Carson Valley Inn on Thursday.

One Sony High Definition Cinealta camera marked "A" held still on two actors sitting at the table while the "B" camera followed the movements of a man with a dark afro and beard wearing a shiny rust-colored shirt and a large gold medallion.

"We use two of them and they're synchronized," said Andon Dansie, script supervisor and production assistant for Atlas Media of Hollywood.

"The A camera is the main shot and the B camera is side views and background."

The hairy thespian in the scene is David Brown playing Ken Uston in "Card Count King," one of four episodes of "Breaking Vegas," a History Channel documentary series being shot at the Inn Wednesday through Saturday this week.

His '70s outfit was chosen by Michael Holdaway, costume designer.

Director Ted Schillinger listened to what was being recorded on headphones as he watched the the taping of the two scenes on monitors. A grip crawls underneath one of the cameras as Schillinger calls out directions to the actors and they obey.

The line director Emily Berry tells Schillinger they are running a half an hour late.

Hollywood has come to Minden.

"We are pleasantly pleased at how easy all of the production people have been to deal with," said the Inn's director of sales and marketing Bill Henderson. "They are sensitive to the Inn and all of our customers."

Henderson said the television crews have generated lots of questions from people asking what is going on.

More than 40 scenes from four different episodes being taped at the Carson Valley Inn include: "Beat the Wheel," about two physics geeks in 1975 who built a computer system to predict the outcome of a roulette wheel; "Card Count King," a graduate of Harvard and Yale and senior vice president of the Pacific Stock Exchange, Ken Uston, gives up his position to become a gambling legend; "Blackjack Man," about a leader of the largest blackjack team in history; and "Slot Scoundrel," a slot machine cheat uses and sells tools that could crack slot machines and nearly destroys the gaming industry in the process.

Fifteen local extras are being used in scenes each day, said Henderson.

The episodes taped at the Inn will be shown on The History Channel sometime in April or May, according to information from Atlas Media.

"We're looking forward to when these shows air," said Henderson.



-- Jo Rafferty can be reached at jrafferty@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 213.