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www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday, April 7, 2010 · 26 Artscene ERIC RIEHL / SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER A LOOK BEHIND THE SCENES: Creators of the television series Flashpoint Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern with one of the series' stars Hugh Dillon on the set of the show in Mississauga recently. The husband-and-wife team are from Oakville and this was the first set the series has filmed in Mississauga. The episode, Just a Man, will air Saturday, April 10 at 8 p.m. on CTV. Couple's teamwork sparks Flashpoint By Dominik Kurek OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF F or some, working with one's spouse can be a difficult task, but for at least one Oakville couple the relationship has proven to be a success as they created a hit television show together. Oakville's Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern, married for 11 years, have created the CTV show Flashpoint that is currently being filmed for its third season. The show also airs in the U.S. and around the world. "It saves a lot of time," Morgenstern said of working with her husband, "because you can get to the point a lot faster when you know someone and trust someone as closely as, ideally, people do when they are married." Ellis added, "It takes a lot of time and when we're under the gun and facing the deadline we can get in each other's throats and get a script through as efficiently as possible. But we've managed to find a way at the end of the day to put the work aside." However, Morgenstern said that their job isn't a 9 to 5 type and sometimes work does spill into the home. "We have a daughter as well and we try not to be work people when we're around her and that's really important," her husband added. "When we're at home, one of us tries to be a normal person at a time." The couple sat down and chatted with the Beaver and took the newspaper staff on a tour of one of the show's sets in Mississauga last week. The popular series stars Enrico Colantoni, Hugh Dillon, Amy Jo Johnson, David Paetkau and others. The upcoming episode features a scene involving a police takedown inside a bank. The Oakville couple, who has lived in town for some five years, said inspiration to create the show came from a hostage situation at Toronto's Union Station in the summer of 2004. A police sniper shot a gunman in the head who held a woman hostage. "We wanted to know what it was like for that officer," said Ellis. "We dug deeper and we talked to that officer and other cops and they were kind enough to share their experiences with us. We learned that as much as a cop is trained to shoot his gun, he's never trained to kill someone and he's never prepared for that experience." That incident was the inspiration for the concept of the show, which initially aired as a two-hour long TV movie on CTV. The film led to a pro- duction of a show pilot, which then turned to the production of the series, which debuted in the summer of 2008. It is about an elite tactical police unit called the Strategic Response Unit. Though the show is set in Toronto, the police squad is never referenced as the Toronto Police Service. "We work with officers who have been involved in tactical policing in the GTA," Ellis said. "We're inspired by the Toronto SWAT team, but we've created our own version so it's important for the Toronto Police Service to keep their distance from the show." Because the show airs abroad, the two creators try to make the show as universal as possible to viewers. "We're not trying to hide where it is, but we rarely say Toronto out loud and we rarely say Canada," Morgenstern said. "We keep it as accessible as possible without betraying the city we're in." Now shooting for its third season, the show still manages to stay fresh and to do so the show gets its inspiration from real-life events. "We try to keep re-connecting with the true stories because sometimes they take you to places your imagination wouldn't," Morgenstern said. "There's one we're working on that is about a family living off the radar. The child is in witness protection. The child witnessed a horrific crime and is the last remaining witness to this. This was an event that was inspired in Britain. Sometimes things catch you off guard on the news." But the creators also stress that See Two page 28