Tim Ryan’s Reel Hawaii

Several crew sources tell Reel Hawaii that WB’sThe Informant will film on Oahu for five days in June.

  Matt Damon filming The Informant in Illinois

The number of film days considered have varied from two weeks to three days. What Reel Hawaii knows for sure is that the production scouted Oahu twice. The production is now filming in Illinois (See above photo.) The film no longer will be released by Warner Independent Pictures since the studio has announced plans to close the specialty release division. The Informant had been Warner Independent’s most notable upcoming project. The film is being directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars Matt Damon. The film site, however, doesn’t list Hawaii as a location only Illinois and California… 

 

          The Dog is back!

Duane Dog” Chapman, wife Beth (above) and the entire posse have a new season of Bounty Hunter shows that will air this summer. There’s even a new location: Maui. The Chapman’s have set up a bail bonds business in Kahului. The first media event to announce the new season is being held today at the Kahala Resort. Chapman and Beth Chapman, Niger Innis from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and A&E Television Network executives, including Scott Lonker, vice president, nonfiction and alternative programming, are attending. The event was kept quiet to prevent overzealous fans and paparazzi from attending…

All The Reef crew that Reel Hawaii talked to during this week’s filming in Waikiki - the Hawaii Yacht Club and Pipeline Cafe in Kakaako - have nothing but nice things to say about the production except the lower rate their receiving. “It’s work with good people,” a crew member said.

David Brookwell and Sean McNamara of Brookwell-McNamara Entertainment filmed three seasons of Beyond the Break (2005-07) here and are using most of the same crew, including John Reynolds for the sound department…

(L) Angie Laprete,The Reef’s production coordinator, and Jim Triplett, locations manager.

Hudson Hickman, The Reef’s executive producer, also exec produced The Initiation of Sarah, Mississippi Rising, several MacGyver episodes and was an associate producer on The Love Boat series. Another Reef EP is Sara Berrisford, who worked onSarah with Hickman. Hickman and Berrisford worked with Reef EP Craig Roessler on the just completed The Cutting Edge 3: Chasing the Dream. Producer David Buelow, part of the Brookwell-McNamara Entertainment team, most recently produced Legally Blonde starring Millie and Rebecca Rosso for MGM/Fox and was co-executive producer on Beyond the Break for The N…  

Sara Berrisford, executive  producer; Craig Roessler, executive  producer; David Buelow, producer; Hudson Hickman, executive producer, and David Brookwell, producer. 

 

Blaise Noto, Maui’s uber publicist, in June will teach a course at the Beijing Film Academy at their invitation in motion picture marketing and publicity. Jeff Von Schmauder, vice president of Blaise Noto & Associate, also will be teaching the technology part of it. A few hundred students as well as film distributors in China are taking the course. The duo also will be meeting in Shanghai, Hong King and Beijing with American and Chinese companies to do business in the entertainment industry there. In the offing for Noto is possible work on the film Edge of Darkness in which Mel Gibson stars in his first starring role in nine years. Noto was a publicist on Gibson’s Passion of the Christ….

Congrats to Hawaii’s Loretta Ables Sayre who’s nominated for a Tony Award nomination for her role as Bloody Mary in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Sayre is a contender for best performance by a featured actress in a musical…

Sad But True: Few if any of the Hawaii crew - Big Island and Oahu - from the Indian Jones sequel have been invited to the special screening May 20 at Ward 16 theaters. Even some film commissioners are scrambling to get invited…

Stephen Warbeck is composing the original music for the Princess Kaiulani film. Sources from the UK where the drama just wrapped two weeks of filming say the footage is “breathtaking”… 

Angie Laprete, production supervisor on The Reef, organized the Lost wrap party in the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall held last Saturday. It’s the same location where The Police after party was held and also organized by Laprete…

Pau

 

 

 

May 12 Update: The Reef under Reef Productions Inc. kicked off filming today at the Hawaii Yacht Club where the MGM-Brookwell/McNamara Entertainment straight to DVD will shoot six days during four-weeks ending June 6. A traditional Hawaiian blessing was conducted by Blaine Kamalani Kia who did the same for the The Last Princess. Part of the HYC’s first floor has been turned into the bedroom/sailboard shop of character Mace (Michael Graziadei) by set decorator Camille Hendrickson. The character Sebastian’s (Chris Carmack) dive boat Dani Girl in real life is the Maggie Jo. Robert R. Altman, a camera operator on Lost, is A camera operator on The Reef. Don King is B camera operator. The story ostensively surrounds the long ago sinking of the Spanish galleon San Cristobal in the 1600s during a hurricane off Oahu in a treacherous area called North Reef. (The North Reef site actually is off Makaha Beach on Oahu’s west side.) The ship in the script was carrying two-million Spanish doubloons when it sank. Can you say “buried treasure” or…? The film features lots of underwater work, including night dives and Jet Ski driving, gun shooting, six murders, threats of torture and terrorism, and very pretty people showing lots of skin, and “monkey sex”…

 

                                         

Lights, Camera, Action

 

              Kumu Hula Blaine Kamalani Kia conducts a Hawaiian blessing on The Reef set. 

 

 

              

Sara Berrisford, executive  producer; Craig Roessler, executive  producer; David Buelow, producer; Hudson Hickman, executive producer, and David Brookwell, producer. 

Production coordinator Angie Laprete and B-camera operator Don King discuss the day’s filming. Crew member Jimmy Thurston (below) helps move a very large reflector.

   

A-camera operator Robert R. Altman sets up for scene one.

(Below) A main character’s fictional bedroom set up in the usual main dining room of the Hawaii Yacht Club.     

 

 

Second unit director Brian Keaulana and production supervisor Angie Laprete (right) just before scene one of The Reef. 

The fictional boat Dani Girl which in reality is the prized Maggie Jo docked at Hawaii Yacht Club.

 

 

May 11 Update: Paramount has released more set photos from the R-rated Tropic Thunder, the biggest spending production ever on Kauai in the neighborhood of $65 million. Ninety-percent of the film was shot on the Garden Isle. The film, which opens Aug. 15, stars Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte, and Matthew McConaughey with cameos by Toby McGuire and Tom Cruise. Local hires: Archie Ahuna was a special effects coordinator; John Reed, transportation captain; Mele K.T. Locey, assistant accountant, payroll…See pics below…   

 

                             

 

 

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May 10 Update: MGM’s The Reef by MGM and Brookwell McNamara Entertainment is casting for 50 extras, males and females of any ethnicity, 18-30 years old for a nightclub scene filming Wednesday at Pipeline Cafe in Kakaako. Salary is $80 for a 10-hour day with additional money for overtime. Hours likely will be 8 a.m. - 10 p.m. If interested send photo and phone number to hawaiiextras@gmail.com … Welcome Back to Hawaii’s SAG soldiers! Paul Edney just returned after 15 months in Iraq. He was working at Camp Speicher near Tikrit, birthplace of Saddam Hussein, along with fellow Hawaii SAG actor Tony Natoli who comes home later this year. Here’s a pic of Edney bloody face and all from the Lost pilot. Lost’s wrap party is tonight.

 

 

 

 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Sunday, May 18 makes its debut at theCannes Film Festival with two press screenings. Two days later there will be a private screening in Honolulu at Ward 16 for some members of Hawaii’s production community. The film opens in theaters nationwide May 22… 

 

May 9 Update: A Discovery Channel production crew was on Maui for four days filming an episode on volcanoes for a series called Ten ways to Save the Planet. Discovery Communications, the cable channel operator, reportedly plans to start a 24-hour channel focused on eco-friendly living, as part of a push into the rising environmental movement. The series is scheduled to be shown in the second half of 2009…Maui filmmaker Kenneth K. Martinez Burgmaier and his production company Jazz Alley TV/Maui Reflections Films will direct and produce two in-flight minute 60 commercials for Bev Gannon’s Restaurants, Hali’imaile General Store and Joe’s in Wailea for Hawaiian Airlines. Watch them at www.jazzalleytv.com

As Previously Reported: THE REEF breaks on Oahu on Monday when filming begins through early June. The five-member ensemble cast - three men, two women - arrived Sunday after receiving their SCUBA certifications in California. That was a requirement since there’s so much underwater work in The Reef reportedly loosely based on Into the Blue 2. Actors include Supergirl series regular Laura Vandervoort, 23, who also appeared in Smallville.

 

Former O.C. bad boy Chris Carmack, 27, who appeared in a recent Desperate Housewives, co stars in The Reef. Carmack stars in the film H20 Extreme to be released this summer.                                     

 

The Reef will film all around Oahu with numerous dive scenes shot primarily on the West side. The cast is doing underwater and stunt training this week. Other cast are Marsha Thomason (below), David Anders, and Michael Graziadei. Thomason appeared in 10 episodes of Lost this season. Brock Little is stunt coordinator.

                      

  No Rest for the Weary Department: Hawaiian Isle Productions’ Jim Triplett, Lost’s location manager, gets two days off from the castaway series before joining The Reef May 12…  Jim Triplett/Hawaiian Isles Productions Production Update: Hawaii this year has not seen any major projects except the state’s cash cow series Lost which wraps its strike-shortened season four on Friday. Production sources say the series costs as much as $3 million an episode or more than $40 million this year. The show begins filming season five in August… Though it’s still some 35 days away, the Maui Film Festival - June 11-15 at Wailea Maui - seems set to have its most stellar celeb honorees ever including an Academy Award winner. Final details are being worked out so no names can be mentioned. Stay tuned… Looking Way Ahead: Pre production for the Wheel of Fortune game show still set to begin late summer with 10 days of filming at the Hilton Waikoloa in mid September. Wheel hasn’t filmed on the Big Island since 1998. Renee Confair is production coordinator; Nancy Erger, locations… On the music front, country band Sugarland last week was on Oahu for a concert and two days of filming music videos at the Hawaii Theatre and six North Shore locations, including Waimea Valley Park, Chun’s Market in Haleiwa, and Waialua Missions. The 30-member crew were mostly local hires. Production company is Tackle Box Films of Nashville, TN; director is Shawn Silva. The video, which featured two songs - Keep You and All I want To Do - will be released in September. Stephanie Spangler did locations…          

      Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles & Kristian Bush

INDIE BEAT: Hawaii filmmaker Tom Boyle and his Eye Spy Productions is holding an open casting call on Saturday for the feature film Truth or Dare. The audition is at on Saturday May 10, 11:45 a.m. - 3:45 p.m. at 760 Halekauwila St., Suite 210. The story: It’s Halloween 1997 and six high school seniors get caught up in a game of Truth or Dare - daring each other to make out in cemeteries and haunted areas of Oahu. Check out the available roles at www.myspace.com/truthordarehorror  EDITOR’S REQUEST: We’ve received dozens of Emails asking why some people are mentioned working on productions here and in Hawaii Film & Video Magazine stories while there’s no mention of other crew. The answer is simple. I either see crew when visiting a production or people Email us to say what they’re doing. If you’ve read down this far you have some interest in knowing what’s going on in Hawaii’s production industry. We try to visit every set, but it’s impossible to know what everyone is working on. Please take time to Email us so we can let your production community what you’re doing. Strictest confidentiality applies…

Finally…mahalo nui loa to Hawaii’s production community for your trust, openness and aloha. We exist because of you/tr