Lights, camera, plastics

The next workplace TV comedy may feature plastics, and if it does, expect to see California injection molder Precision Molded Plastics Inc. in a cameo appearance.

A production crew was at the Upland, Calif., custom molder shooting footage to use in a pilot about the human resources department in a New Jersey plastics plant for the pilot episode of a show for Fox television on April 1.

There were no stars there for the half-day of shooting — the show is still officially untitled, although names such as “Plastic People” and “HR” have been mentioned. It would star Patton Oswalt as the “new eccentric CEO” of a New Jersey plastics plant and Judy Greer as the human resources leader.

But Jeff Schaffer, who is both executive producer and director for the pilot, was there at Precision, taking advantage of the opportunity to learn more about plastics and the setting for the potential show.

“Plastics is something that everyone uses every day and never thinks about,” Schaffer said in a phone interview during a break while filming in Los Angeles. “I used to look at all these little things and knobs and parts of a lawn mower and parts of a water bottle and think: ‘Someone makes these.' It made me very curious.

“It was very interesting going to Precision because I felt this is a company that makes all these things that I've been wondering about.”

Precision, founded in 1979 by Ted VanVoorhis, began as an electronics specialist. Ted's son David VanVoorhis is now president and CEO, and the company works across a range of end markets, from medical and defense to consumer products.

Ash Brown, who oversees business development for Precision, helped coordinate the visit once location scouts for the TV production contacted the company.

“The first thing when you hear someone wrote a treatment for a show based on injection molding plastic company, you think ‘what, really?' Then you think about it being the third largest industry in the country, and if people actually get to see some real stuff and actual machines and get educated about it, it should be interesting all around,” Brown said.

Laura Steinel wrote the pilot and is a co-executive producer for the show. Schaffer said that as a New Jersey native, she wanted to set a show in a real blue-collar location. Plastics seemed to be perfect because it's used in so many ways.

While the show is not going to be filmed in an actual plastics plant, Schaffer said they have a set in a warehouse-type location with some non-functioning machines, conveyors and other equipment. Footage from Precision will be used for transitions between scenes and an opening title sequence.

Beyond the filming, though, he said it was important for him to get a better sense of what the industry was like.

“Think about it, if you're making a film called ‘Lassie,' at a certain point you'd want to see a dog and see how one acts,” he said.

Schaffer, who was more familiar with steel mills and auto plants, said Precision was a great introduction to what today's plastics plants are like, with good lighting, clean production and recycling scrap from production.

“This plant was clean,” he said. “You could've eaten off the floors with the plastic utensils they were making.”

The show isn't expected to dwell too much on the actual plastics production, but rather the variety of people who work there, Schaffer said, from people who are “super proud” to be there to others who see it just as a job.

There's no guarantee the show will end up on television.

Currently, the cast and crew are filming into mid-April, then will edit their footage and present it to network officials at Fox TV by the beginning of May. Schaffer said they expect to hear shortly after that if it's being picked up to air.

And if it is, there may be more opportunities for the general public to see more plastics.

“They've already asked us if they can rent gaylords of materials for a scene,” Brown said. “[VanVoorhis] said, ‘Well, we've never been asked for that before, but why not?'”