Gazette Hollywood and OC Films Feb 10

A MINI TIMELINE OF ORANGE COUNTY FILMS

Dozens of Hollywood box office movies have included scenes filmed in Orange County—films like Ocean’s 11, Iron Man, Eagle Eye, Pearl Harbor, The Perfect Storm, Transformers, Dodgeball, The Fast and the Furious, Catch Me If You Can, and plenty more. If you’re like me, you’re wondering where all this filming goes on, and why we don’t notice film crews all the time. It turns out that a lot of filming happens in areas where the public (us) doesn’t have easy access—places like the El Toro Marine Base, where parts of Eagle Eye were filmed, and the Tustin Blimp Hangar and Base, where scenes from Star Trek and Pearl Harbor were filmed. But filming also happens in more surprisingly accessible areas, too—places like the Old County Courthouse in Santa Ana, where scenes from Catch Me If You Can and Legally Blonde were filmed, and downtown Orange, where parts of That Thing You Do and Big Momma’s House were shot. While some locals notice filming, crews tend to be quick, quiet, and come bearing security guards (there goes my dream of accidentally appearing over Brad Pitt’s shoulder in the next Ocean’s film).

Orange County has been a hot spot for on-location filming for years—for about one hundred years, to be precise. Director-Producer Jack Gallagher gave me the lowdown on early filming in OC; “In March of 1910, the Biograph Company cast and crew arrived at the San Juan Capistrano Depot to begin filming The Two Brothers. The film was directed by Kentucky director D.W. Griffith, who travelled with his crew from New York in three boxcars to shoot the 18th century Spanish romance film.” The Two Brothers used the San Juan Capistrano Mission as its set, and borrowed vestments from the priest for one religious scene. The company arrived on March 25th to a rainstorm—hardly the warm hospitality they hoped for. When the clouds broke, a riot also broke out. A crowd of Spanish-Americans in San Juan Capistrano were angered by the first scene of a religious procession, and resented the depiction as a mockery. “The crowd chased an actor a few blocks,” Jack told me, “until he hid in his hotel. The group agreed to calm down when the cowboy actors arranged to put on an exhibition.” Less than two months later, on May 10th, the seventeen-minute, one-reel film, The Two Brothers, premiered in as the first Orange County film.

For the next twenty years, filmmakers flocked to Orange County. Hundreds of silent westerns were filmed in the hills of Laguna Beach. Filmmakers and actors alike loved the sunny skies and sandy beaches of Orange County. In the 1917 silent film Cleopatra, actress Theda Bara rode her barge down the Santa Ana River, which represented the Nile. Filmmaker Buster Keaton filmed numerous comedies in the Newport Harbor area. Also, the parting of the Red Sea in the 1923 film The Ten Commandments occurred near Seal Beach. Aside from the weather and beautiful scenery, Orange County was fairly convenient for Hollywood filmmakers; Balboa Pavilion was the southernmost stop of the Pacific Electric system. The famous red trolley was an economical way for producers and directors to get their crews from point A to B—and a swift means for a new society of movie stars to vacation in sun-drenched Orange County.

OC filming hit a downward spiral with the introduction of sound to film. In 1927, Warner Brothers released The Jazz Singer, the first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, which marked the end of silent films. Studios began to make the transition from silent to sound productions—a process that took about four years. Also, artificial lighting of interior sets improved greatly. With better lit sound studios in Hollywood, there was little need to spend time or money filming on location in Orange County. While it remained a playground for Hollywood stars like John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, and Lauren Bacall, Orange County’s popularity as a film location dwindled rapidly. It wasn’t until 1948, when producers could justify location-shooting expenses, that Orange County could lure filmmakers back. In 1948, Joan of Arc was filmed in Newport Beach, rekindling the long-dormant love affair between OC and Hollywood movie makers. Since then, hundreds of films, television shows, and commercials have showed off Orange County on screen.

When it all began back in 1910, the main draws of Orange County were the weather and the beaches. Fast forward one hundred years later: Orange County is a bustling “suburbia-tropolis,” and remains a hot spot for film locations, no longer simply for its beaches. In recent years, filmmakers have used all sorts of unexpected Orange County locales for filming; scenes from The Informant! were shot at the Irvine Marriott, parts of Speed Racer were filmed at a home in Orange, Semi-Pro and Ocean’s 13 used the Anaheim Convention Center, and Elizabethtown was filmed at Soka University in Aliso Viejo. Also, this may surprise you: the Nikken Corporation in Irvine has a large corporate office building and frequently rents out space to film crews that are looking for corporate settings. A whole bushel of films have taken Nikken up on the offer: The Informant!, All About Steve, Transformers, Iron Man, Astronaut Farmer, You, Me & Dupree, Miss Congeniality 2, Elizabethtown, Thank You For Smoking, and Dodgeball, to name just a few.

Filmmakers also like UC Irvine; the campus has been used for a number of films since its 1965 founding. UCI was used for the protest and demonstration scenes in the 1972 film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, for library scenes in Poltergeist (1982), and UCI’s Gillespie building was used for the scenes in the 2001 film Ocean’s Eleven when Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his team steal a “pinch” (to create an electromagnetic pulse). Clooney and his gang even enjoyed a late night snack at the Anteatery (eating locale of the students, or Anteaters) during the shooting.

Another favorite shoot spot is John Wayne Airport. Movies with scenes filmed at JWA (or SNA, for you frequent flyers) include Jerry Maguire (1996), Clear and Present Danger (1994), The Out of Towners (1999), Rat Race (2001), The Insider (1999), and Elizabethtown (2005), among others. Just think, on one of your trips to visit your mother in Virginia, or on your spouse’s business trip to Chicago, there could have been shoulder-brushing with the likes of Renee Zellweger, Harrison Ford, Steve Martin, or Orlando Bloom. Next time I fly somewhere, I’ll use all that hang time before my flight to take a movie-scene tour of the airport.

“Orange County is the 3rd most-filmed county in California—behind Los Angeles and San Francisco Counties,” Janice Arrington told me, “Being 3rd in California makes Orange County a world player for filming.” It’s exciting to have all these stars in our midst, but it might also be a bit daunting to some. There’s the traffic, blocked off streets for filming, an onslaught of new tourists (hoping to see Seth Cohen skateboarding down Newport pier, perhaps?). But to assuage your concerns, Janice let me in on a startling statistic: in 2008, vendor dollars alone (money spent in OC by film crews on food, supplies, hotels, transport, etc.) added up to over $102 million. How’s that for economic stimulus? Aside from money, there is a certain amount of bragging rights in seeing your home turf on the big (or small) screen.

The relationship between Hollywood and Orange County that began 100 years ago can only be described in the famous words of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca - it was “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Like the greatest of onscreen duos - Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Thelma and Louise, or Batman and Robin - the friendship between Hollywood and Orange County is one that will flourish and grow for years to come.

Over 60 movies have been filmed in Orange County in just the last ten years, and hundreds of commercials are filmed here each year. I met with OC Film Commissioner Janice Arrington and OC Producer-Director Jack Gallagher for a glimpse into a smorgasbord of OC film happenings from the past and present.

{ BY BLYTHE HILL }

{ ILLUSTRATION BY AMY HOOD }

= The Anteatery, where George Clooney and crew grabbed a bite to eat during a break from shooting Ocean’s 11.

= Langson Library, used in films Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972), and Poltergeist (1982).

= Gillespie Neuroscience Research Facility, where Danny (George Clooney)’s men steal a “pinch” to create an electromagnetic pulse in the film Ocean’s 11 (2001).