NORTHAMPTON - Anticipation is building as Hollywood and megastar Mel Gibson come to town next week.
Cast and crew for the movie "Edge of Darkness" will be filming over the next week at various city locales, including a fitness club, a bar, a home on Elm Street and the Hampshire County Courthouse.
Big electronic flashing signs around the downtown are already warning of traffic delays and limited parking on Main Street from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. Police said delays could extend as late as 4 p.m., though Northampton Chamber of Commerce officials say the filming shouldn't have much impact on travel or business.
Producers will foot the bill for crowd and traffic control at various times during the week - $35 per hour per police officer. They've only had to take out one permit with the city: a $25 certificate from the Department of Public Works allowing them to film outside the courthouse.
Filming will also take place inside the historic building, which the producers are renting from the Hampshire Council of Governments for $10,000.
At least three shoots are planned in other locations, though dates aren't pinned down.
"All I know is I'm supposed to lead a senior-citizen stretch class," said Andrea Zawacki of Easthampton, who is set to appear as an extra in the film. For her, getting into character won't be too hard - she's already the aerobics director at the Northampton Athletic Club and also leads classes at the Northampton Senior Center.
The athletic club, at 306 King St., will be closed for a full day sometime between now and Oct. 11 for filming.
Zawacki said filmmakers stopped by the club recently while scouting out locations, and approached her about filming there.
"I was a little stunned," she said. "It was a little out of the blue."
That was Tully McColgan's reaction when filmmakers asked to use his business, Tully O'Reilly's Pub, for a shoot. Filming at the bar on the corner of Pleasant and Pearl streets is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 11, though it could be pushed up if rain cancels outdoor shooting earlier in the week, McColgan said.
Hopefully, McColgan said, a little face time with Gibson will be part of the deal. "That was one of my demands. My wife of course loves Mel, so she's going to have to meet him," he said. "I don't know if that's going to happen."
McColgan said the scene planned for his bar involves Gibson speaking to a bartender. Producers took down the names and numbers of some staff and regulars, McColgan said, but it's uncertain whether they'll appear in the scene.
Another location rumored to be on the filmmakers' list is the yellow brick and brown clapboard house at 225 Elm St., though homeowner Louise Jeffway said she couldn't confirm that.
Cast, crew and extras will use the First Churches, 129 Main St., as a sort of base of operations during the downtown shoots. Church administrator Joan Frederick said the building will be used for wardrobe, makeup and food services Monday and Tuesday.
Shots outside the courthouse next door will include members of the Northampton Farmers Market, who organizer Rick Tracy said previously would go about their business in the background while Gibson walks by.
Police said there will be no parking on Main Street from the intersection with Center Street to the post office on Bridge Street during filming Tuesday. Police warn that other parking restrictions are possible around the downtown on Monday and next weekend.
Filming Monday and Tuesday won't close the downtown, said Suzanne Beck, executive director of the chamber of commerce. "The plan seems very reasonable to me and not disruptive," she said.
As she described it, the only major traffic delays should come in five-minute spurts Tuesday morning as the crews film a shot that follows a car down Main Street. Depending on how many takes the crew needs, this part of the project should wrap up by 1 p.m.
Beck noted that 180 members of the film crew will be staying for three weeks at the Clarion Hotel and Hotel Northampton. Their timing is great, she said, given the stretch from Labor Day to Columbus Day can be slow for hospitality businesses in the Five College area.
Northampton Police Capt. Kenneth Patenaude said four city officers and four state troopers will act as extras during a protest scene. He said the department agreed to put officers before the lens because the filmmakers promised to depict police in a "professional" manner.
According to production company GK Films, Gibson plays a Boston police detective trying to solve his daughter's murder.
Another Hollywood heavyweight, Robert De Niro, had been cast in August as Gibson's antagonist. De Niro definitely won't be coming to Paradise City, though - Variety reported he quit the film after just a week of shooting because of "creative differences." The part has been recast with British actor Ray Winstone.
"Edge of Darkness" began production in August in Boston. It continued this past week in the parking lot of a former Strategic Air Command bunker near the Notch in Amherst. One prop associated with the film, a flashing red light, led area police to scramble search parties late last month.
The property is owned by Amherst College. Spokeswoman Caroline Hanna said filmmakers made a donation to the college - she wouldn't say how much - which the school plans to donate in turn to the community.
"At the moment we're thinking through how to distribute that in the most impactful way," Hanna said.
Filming is scheduled to take place later this week atop Mount Sugarloaf in Deerfield, where set designers erected a 40-by-60-foot building around the summit observation tower.
Local excitement about the movie began building in July, when filmmakers put out a call for extras to play limber seniors, aged hippies and young punks. About 1,500 people turned out for a casting call Aug. 9 at the Clarion Hotel. Reportedly, 700 local extras will have parts in the film, which is to be released next year.
James F. Lowe can be reached at jlowe@gazettenet.com [1].
Links:
[1] mailto:jlowe@gazettenet.com