Guest Blogger: Tales from The Set

There have been a lot of positive developments in the Detroit/Wayne County area this summer, highlighted by a number of great productions. Real Steal, starring Hugh Jackman, has been one of the bigger shows in town. While official job numbers won’t be in until year’s end, the shoot is here for several months and has hired thousands of extras for scenes shot at Cobo Arena.

Residual effects have been felt by the many area vendors who have been ramping up their resources to supply productions such as Harold & Kumar 3, The Double, SWAT: Firefight, Street Kings 2, Machine Gun Preacher, and Scream 4..

On the heels of those projects is Transformers 3, now prepping for several weeks of major activity, including booking 4,000 room nights, largely at the downtown Marriott Renaissance Center and Courtyard Hotels. In addition, the new ABC police drama, Detroit 1-8-7, debuting in September, is spending $25 million plus in the community, $1 million of which has already gone into a Highland Park warehouse for soundstage shooting. This will be the first primetime network program filmed entirely in the Detroit area, most of which is inside the actual city limits. Once the show airs weekly, it should provide plenty of water cooler moments the following mornings as the many familiar locations are showcased.

The state’s other prime time series, Hung, airing Sunday nights on HBO, has featured many local sites of Southeastern Michigan, including the Detroit Institute of Arts’ wonderful Rivera Court in the season premiere. This same photo recently graced a section front of the New York Times. This follows the April premiere on HBO of You Don’t Know Jack, starring Al Pacino, which filmed a scene on the steps of the Old Wayne County Building at 600 Randolph. That same gorgeous building has had its closeup quite often recently, including in the film Conviction (formerly Betty Ann Waters), starring Hilary Swank and directed by Tony Goldwyn. Conviction is one of five – count ’em, FIVE! – movies shot in Michigan that are premiering at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival in September.

The other films are Trust, starring Clive Owen and Catherine Keener, directed by David Schwimmer; Stone starring Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton; What’s Wrong with Virginia starring Ed Harris and Jennifer Connelly; Vanishing on 7^th Street, starring Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo. The latter film, a post-apocalyptic thriller, features some spectacular footage of a totally closed I-75 freeway at the break of dawn, plus some great exterior sets constructed inside the large acreage of the Russell Industrial Center on Clay Ave.

While major studios and independent production companies have spent millions creating exciting stories and imagery of the area to be seen around the world, our local indigenous filmmaking community is kicking into high gear with the first ever Creative Film Alliance. The brainchild of our own Emery King, MFO Advisory Council Chairman, the CFA is a groundbreaking joint venture among Wayne State University, University of Michigan and Michigan State University, in which 21 students put in an intense period of study, followed by actual filming and post-production of a short film, titled APPLEVILLE, written by a U-M graduate. Principal photography was completed on August 20, and took place at the U-M’s North Campus Research Center in Ann Arbor.

You can catch a great glimpse of the on-set action in this recently aired story on WDIV TV Local 4.

With so much activity this summer, and several more projects coming this fall, the area’s movie momentum should only continue, propelled especially by the big premieres being held in Toronto, before a worldwide press corps.

Kind regards from the MFO.

Carrie Jones is the Michigan Film Commissioner. Ken Droz, Michigan Film Office Communications Consultant, also contributed to this piece.