Monday, March 14, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SHOOTING STARS: `Quake,' `Retirement' wind down; `Lucky You' seeks extras

It's the beginning of the end for two projects that have called Las Vegas home for the past few weeks.

The big-screen feature "Retirement" and the small-screen docudrama "Quake" both are scheduled to wrap this week.

Before they do, however, they've still got plenty of work to do.

"Retirement," the grumpy-old-men-on-a-road-trip romp featuring Peter Falk, George Segal, Rip Torn and Bill Cobbs (who replaced the late Ossie Davis), does the town -- and the country -- during its final week.

Today and Tuesday, the production is expected to shoot at the Krave nightclub, in the Aladdin-adjacent Desert Passage mall.

Wednesday and Thursday, the group heads to the Rio, where scenes include a cameo appearance by Rio regulars, the Scintas.

"We'll be talking but not singing," reports Joey Scinta, who notes that this walk-on follows a Scintas appearance on "The Entertainer," Wayne Newton's E! Entertainment Network's reality series.

"We don't know how they picked us," Scinta says of "Retirement." But maybe it has something to do with the fact that "Retirement" writers Jon Warner and Michael Pietrzak, who's producing with director Charles Picerni, hail from Buffalo, N.Y., "which is where we're from," Scinta points out.

The movie spot is "pretty awesome," Scinta says, adding that "the biggest thing for this is to really get national exposure, to help get our name up there."

To that end, the performers also have been discussing a possible sitcom-style show, "reality with some nonreality," for Sony Pictures Television.

"Retirement" bids farewell to Southern Nevada -- and to principal photography -- with a two-day trek to the Valley of Fire Friday and Saturday.

Before then, however, "Retirement" still needs union and nonunion extras -- physically fit, hip, attractive model types -- for scenes shooting today through Thursday. For more information, telephone Wild Streak Talent at 252-8382.

Speaking of extras, the upcoming poker drama "Lucky You" -- which begins more than a month of location work next week -- has one more open call scheduled today and Tuesday for extras 18 and older.

The call will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 4255 Industrial Road, Suite D (behind Tommy Rocker's).

Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, Robert Duvall and Debra Messing headline the feature, to be directed by Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential") from a script by Hanson and Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump").

Shifting to the small screen, at ValCom Studios this week, the BBC continues to re-create the 1989 San Francisco earthquake -- or, more precisely, its aftermath -- for the docudrama "Quake," part of an upcoming BBC/Discovery Channel series on contemporary disasters.

ValCom's cavernous, concrete-floored soundstage provides a suitably stark setting for the show, which focuses on rescue efforts following the quake.

Stacks of artfully shaped and painted Styrofoam, crafted by Las Vegas Ron Orr, stand in for pancaked freeway ramps.

One of eight '80s cars used in the production, its chassis battered to simulate earthquake damage, is parked under a pile of Styrofoam rubble.

Costumed firefighters -- and disheveled crash victims, covered in make-believe blood -- rehearse a rescue scene under the watchful eyes of firefighting consultant Randy Marsh, director Dan Reed and first assistant director Barry Wasserman.

One of the primary quake victims is played by casting agent Barbara Lauren.

"When we were doing all the auditions, she was reading the woman's part" as actors read for the men's roles, "and we kept thinking, `She'd actually make a really good Dorothy,' " recalls BBC producer Johann Insanally.

Insanally, Reed, Wasserman and a few other key production personnel are from out of town; the majority of the crew members, and virtually all of the cast (except for a few crew members pressed into service as rescuers or crash victims) are local, assembled by Las Vegas-based Big Picture Studios.

The Las Vegas setting gives the shoot an "invigorating and stimulating" atmosphere, notes director Reed. "There is an energy to this town you can feel. It's a place of possibilities."

The BBC decided to film "Quake" in Las Vegas after a successful shoot on a documentary about the construction of Hoover Dam, Insanally notes.

"I think people are waking up to the possibilities" of shooting in Las Vegas, he comments. "We found some really great people. I'd come back in a flash."

Also from overseas, the French television travel channel Voyage is expected to launch a weeklong visit Wednesday, with journalist Thierry Caillibot and cameraman Bastien Barbanel reporting on Las Vegas' past and present. The show will air in April and May, according to Voyage's Anne-Marie Pécheur.

Two local features also continue production this week.

"Siren," now in its second week of filming, focuses on Storm, a 36-year-old wife and mother (played by writer and executive producer Michele Fiore-Kaime) trying to revive teenage dreams of rock stardom. Gary Graham (TV's "Alien Nation") plays the central character's husband; Erin Gray (TV's "Silver Spoons") plays her agent.

After shooting last week at the Bootlegger and the Hofbrauhaus, this week's production will focus on two residential areas and Sunset Park, according to Fiore-Kaime.

She's been working on the project since 2001, rewrote the script with screenwriter Robert Gosnell ("Firewalker") and went through two directors before settling on Las Vegas-based Pat Kerby to helm the project.

"The Las Vegas community is coming together to help with this film and I'm so grateful," Fiore-Kaime comments. "It's not like New York or L.A."

And cult auteur Ted Mikels' change-of-pace family feature, "Heart of a Boy" -- about the desperate efforts to obtain a heart transplant for an impoverished family's toddler -- plans interiors and exteriors at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Henderson. The exterior shots feature a make-believe bake sale fund-raiser.

Scenic mountain and stream vistas near Blue Diamond, plus interior scenes in a private townhouse residence, round out the week's schedule, Mikels reports.