Next to Miami City Hall sits a home apparently plucked from Spring Garden, a Miami River artist's loft and the elements of about half a dozen South Beach-esque clubs.

Up close, the apparent stone walls of the house feel more like Styrofoam. The clubs are little more than scattered, movable walls and easily reupholstered furniture. Half of the loft, threadbare at first glance, is crowded with cameras, power cords and at least 20 crew members as the spy intrigue TV series Burn Notice is being filmed in the Coconut Grove Convention Center.

The USA Network show stars Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen, a displaced covert operative who trots among Miami mansions and bikinied beach-goers as he picks up odd jobs and tries to figure out why he was ''burned'' -- spy lingo for being fired.

Although his surroundings on the show are often chic, the interior of the convention center last week was anything but. Old dressers, vintage cars and potted plants sat scattered to the side of several crowded production trailers, making the main room of the center look more like a flea market than a spy's stomping grounds.

LONG DAYS

Each episode of Burn Notice -- filmed almost exclusively in Miami-Dade County, says its executive producer Jeff Freilich -- takes seven days to film, days that can be 12 hours long, says Allison Millician, spokeswoman for the show.

This weekday morning is the seventh day of shooting for seventh episode of the second season. Production began on April 27, after the crew of the film Marley and Me, starring Jennifer Aniston, finished using the convention center for filming, Freilich says. He adds that producers would have liked to have started filming in February, so as to avoid dipping into stormy summer weather and to capitalize on winter darkness time to show Miami nightlife, but the writers' strike delayed them.

CHANGE IN PLANS

Freilich says the show was originally scripted to be filmed in Newark, N.J., but switched to Miami to increase the irony of Westen's frustration. He says in the first episode: ``Most people would be thrilled to be dumped in Miami. Sadly, I'm not most people.''

Though being shot during hurricane season is intimidating to a big production, Freilich says Miami's storms ''are a character in Burn Notice.'' The set even has its own weather office to keep on top of the day's conditions. ''It's like a military maneuver,'' Millician says.

The approximately 125 crew members working certainly seem to be carrying out an elaborate military mission, meticulous and focused as they prepare to film a seconds-long scene.

Scene 35 will have a voice-over -- a narrator will carry the scene -- so actors Chris Ellis and Bruce Campbell are mum as they fill glass vials with energy drinks. The palm tree outside the set's window flutters, blown by an unseen fan. But the loft itself is airless -- a nearby air conditioning unit is silenced during filming, and allowed to resume its noisy function to cool down the set immediately after cameras are switched off.

''Don't linger! You're lingering too long on the pouring.'' The director's command to the actors breaks the silence on the set. ''Cut!'' The air conditioning comes back on.

Outside the studio, Sharon Gless -- who plays Westen's mother, Madeline -- has yet to start filming for the day but she's already in character. In her trailer, she smiles coyly as she talks about the previous day's filming on the water. ''That was exciting for me,'' she says, because ''I got to see Virgil,'' her on-screen love interest.

TRUE SPIES

Freilich says that if Donovan wanted to take his character off screen, he would be able to -- he has the skills to be a professional spy, not just to act like one. Donovan laughs at the idea, but says the CIA has yet to call him with a job offer.

'They said, `Don't call. We'll call you.' It was a lot like when I broke into the acting world,'' Donovan says.

Donovan's section of the wardrobe trailer, filled with suits and button-downs appropriate for an off-duty spy, is overflowing, says Sue Salzano, the key costumer for the show. Wardrobe stocks two or three sets of each outfit worn by the characters during any point of filming, in case of a stain or, in the Miami heat, sweat. To her side in the cramped trailer, as assistant steams two pairs of striped boxers, the rim of which she says may show in the episode.

KEEPING TRACK

Salzano consults a binder -- ''our bible,'' she calls it -- that has tabs for each character and lists every article of clothing worn in a given episode.

''If the government ran this way, we'd have a lot less waste,'' she says.

Though the show's shopper can easily spend thousands of dollars, the wardrobe department returns expensive items that go unused. Next to the door of the trailer is the rack of unworn clothing to be returned to Miami shops. Salzano looks at the tag of an unworn blue Hugo Boss button-down. ''It's $115. It's going to be returned,'' she says.

While Salzano carefully tags and tracks each article of clothing, Danny Davila, an art department coordinator, meticulously designs the temporary sets made for the show -- and looks forward to blowing them up.

''It's great. We work 16 hours a day and once a week get to see something explode,'' says Miami-native Davila, who doubled as a DJ in one configuration of the chameleon club on the show. Building sets rather than filming on someone else's property allows for some flexibility, he says. ``Practically, you can't blow up a location.''

Filming on location -- or locations closely modeled after Miami sites -- gives Burn Notice its distinctly South Florida flavor.

''When you watch this show, you know there's no way we're faking it,'' says actor Campbell.

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