James recently posted on Brendan Kirsch’s blog his experience with basketball and how he got onto the sport.

“I’ve played basketball almost my entire life. At the age of 6 I was picking up a leather ball that was as big as my torso and heaving it at a circular rim 10 feet above the ground only to watch it reach its apex, then plummet back down towards my face without hitting either the rim or the backboard.”

Read James’ blog

Visit Brendan Kirsch’s blog

It seem’s that One Tree Hill’s very own Mia ‘Kate Voegele’ couldn’t get enough of the show, and released a video called ‘Only Fooling Myself’ starring One Tree Hill’s very own: James Lafferty.

Check out James’ special appearance in the video below:

Who?
The “Old” Tree Hill Ravens vs. The “New” Tree Hill Ravens

When?
Saturday April 26th, 2008
Will Call Opens at 8:00AM
Doors Open At 10:00AM
Tip Off At 11:00AM

Where?
Cape Fear Community College/Schwartz Center
610 N. Front Street
Wilmington, NC

Tickets
Available for purchase beginning Saturday March 29th, 2008 9AM EST. All tickets will be available for purchase at the Wilmington Family YMCA

Cost
$25.00 per ticket (service charge will apply). Please bring your receipt and identification to WILL CALL to pick up tickets.

More information >>>

It was supposed to signal the beginning of the end. One hundred was that “magic number” industry folk said One Tree Hill needed to it so it could be syndicated successfully. That’s where the real money is for the studios who produce TV shows, after all.

So when the show seemed in danger of renewal one year, those close to the show said, “Well, it will be picked up again. They’re so close that 100-episode mark.” But such comments also implied that once the show hit that milestone, it would clearly be on its way out.

How ironic then that this year, just weeks before that landmark episode airs tonight on The CW, One Tree Hill was picked up for yet another season. And it was the earliest renewal notice the show ever received.

Still, back in December, during the 100th episode celebration at Wilmington’s Cameron Art Museum, cast and crew weren’t sure what the future held.

“Every year … you don’t really say your good-byes. Everyone’s optimistic, but you spend a little more time with everybody because you’re not sure,” series creator Mark Schwahn said. “I think that 100th party simply validated that a lot of people have fed their families and fed their spirits creatively and feel like they’re a part of something special. So there’s nothing but pride and a little bit of job security on set today. And I think that’s wonderful.”

Certainly, too, it’s wonderful news for the show’s loyal fans, who continually get credit from the stars for the show’s longevity.

“We were sort of the little engine that could,” said Sophia Bush, who plays cheerleader-turned-fashion designer Brooke Davis. “We fought for our place, and our fans brought us here.”

“We have the most dedicated fans,” said Chad Michael Murray, who plays basketballer-turned-author Lucas Scott. “They’ve rooted for us and cheered for us and loved us.”

Speaking of love, there’s been plenty of it on and off the screen for the show’s cast. Bush and Murray married in 2005, then filed for divorce less than a year later.

Bethany Joy Galeotti, who plays tutor-turned-teacher Haley, was Bethany Joy Lenz when the show began. She married singer Michael Galeotti in 2005.

The show has earned a worldwide following and early seasons rerun on cable channel SoapNet.

On-screen, the characters graduated high school, got married and had children of their own. There’s been booze, pills, shootings and scandal. And if tonight’s 100th episode, featuring a wedding, a surprise return and an emotional reunion is any indication, there’s no end in sight.

One hundred, it seems, is just a number.

Source:

The CW announced Monday that One Tree Hill would be back for a sixth season, drawing comparisons from locals to another long-running made-in-Wilmington teen drama, Dawson’s Creek. It’s a comparison those involved with the show relish.

“It’s sort of unimaginable,” said Mark Schwahn, One Tree Hill’s creator.

Also picked up by The CW were dramas Gossip Girl, Smallville and Supernatural, the comedy Everybody Hates Chris and reality competition America’s Next Top Model.

The CW is the latest network to announce early pick-ups for next fall, a move likely influenced by the shortened pilot season brought about by the recent writers strike. The network did not, however, announce how many episodes it would commit to producing. CW publicist Jeff Tobler said specifics would not be known until the May 15 “upfront” presentation, when The CW will present its fall schedule to advertisers.

Schwahn is crossing his fingers for 22 more episodes.

“I don’t know if we’ll get 22 episodes next year, I think we will… I think that pulls us even with Dawson’s Creek. Dawson’s Creek is a huge, big, wonderful show that when you come to Wilmington to make a pilot, you have this spectre of this show looming over you and it seems unattainable to go as long as they would,” he said.

Locals crew members expressed a relief in knowing that after wrapping the recently ordered six episodes to be filmed for season five, they’ll go on a short hiatus and get right back to work.

Michael J. Hall, a construction coordinator on the show who also worked on Dawson’s Creek, was “a bit surprised” to learn the show had been renewed. He first learned about the sixth season approval when called by the Star-News for comment. He was in New Orleans working on a feature film.

“Yee ha!” he said. “I came here to do a show during the strike and I was unaware that after the strike was resolved, they’d come back and shoot a few more episodes for season five. So I’ll definitely be home for season six.”

Being able to work at home means a lot to him, and knowing that the jobs are going to keep on coming is an even bigger relief.

“On Dawson’s, we kind of knew that we’d have a fifth and sixth season at the end of the fourth, which is very rare in this industry that you’d have time off knowing you were going to have a job, “ he said.

A sixth season for the show, which employs between 125 and 150 locals, is good news for the local economy, said Johnny Griffin, director of the Wilmington Regional Film Commission. In the past, One Tree Hill has spent roughly a million dollars and episode, he said, “If they order 12 or 13 or 22, that’s how much more we’re going to get in the local economy.”

Also, he said, EUE/Screen Gems Studios did not have anything on its calendar going into the summer or fall because of a possible actors’ strike this summer.

“We’re waiting to see what’s going to happen there. But it’s good to know that at least when that all gets resolved that we at least have one project that has already committed and will be here,” he said. “Keeping our name out there in the television world is important for us as well, for other companies to see the success, that it’s still working, that it’s not just a trend from the past with Dawson’s Creek or something.”

In a statement released Monday, actor Lee Norris, who plays Marvin “Mouth” McFadden on the show, attributes the new season pick-up to the show’s rabid following: “The thought of doing a sixth season in Wilmington is incredibly exciting and a testament to the hard work of our production team, along with the passion of our extremely loyal fans.”

In the CW announcement, the network alluded to One Tree Hill’s appeal to women viewers ages 18-34 as a reason for the show’s renewal. Schwahn says he thinks all that success can be attributed to one thing – jumping ahead four years in the story line. This season, the show skipped the characters’ college lives and picked up four years after their high school graduation.

“I believe that’s the single factor responsible for this sixth season pick up,” he said. “It proved to be invigorating to the cast, to the crew, to the writers and to the audience. The numbers are up this year, which is very rare for a show that is having a fifth season . . . You know, the kids have graduated high school and usually you start to see a creative decline in shows of that ilk… Shows have survived it for a couple of years but no show has been creatively better than it was before. And this show is.

“I actually had said today, even, not anticipating an early pickup, I said, ‘I feel more confident about a season six than I have any other season. And it turned out to be true.”

The One Tree Hill pick-up is just the most recent good news for Wilmington’s film professionals. HBO confirmed Thursday that an adaptation of the BBC series Little Britain will begin filming here this month.

Source: StarNewsOnline.com