News - Local/State

Wednesday, Sep. 17, 2008

T-Mobile films TV commercial in Rock Hill

Another film crew came to Rock Hill on Tuesday, not to shoot a movie but a TV commercial for the cell phone provider T-Mobile, which just launched service in the Carolinas.

The ad shows bystanders watching curiously as three big trucks carry a new product into town.

The crew filmed scenes in various locations around Rock Hill but spent more than an hour shooting in downtown at the corner of Main Street and Oakland Avenue.

Producers chose Rock Hill because it offered a classic Main Street setting as well as nearby country roads.

"You get a good mix between the city and some rural country settings in a matter of 2 miles," location manager Jason King said. "That's attractive for a company that comes to town. You have a lot of locations to choose from."

T-Mobile, the nation's fourth-largest wireless carrier, is replacing the SunCom brand across the Carolinas and elsewhere in the Southeast. The company bought SunCom in February. SunCom subscribers will be able to keep their contracts and phones.

Rock Hill has become a popular place for film crews in recent years. In the summer of 2005, actors Jason Patric and Sam Shepard visited town to film scenes for a drama called "Walker Payne," which was just released on DVD.

A year later, some lower-profile actors filmed at Winthrop University for a teen horror flick called "Asylum."

Most recently, Danny Glover, Julia Stiles and Angela Bassett worked on scenes for "Gospel Hill," a civil rights era drama not yet released.

The T-Mobile shoot was expected to wrap up late Tuesday, though it was unclear when the spot would air.