Film Crew

Using gallons of paint, elbow grease and imagination, Universal Studios has transformed the city of Santa Paula, Calif., into 1950s Mayfield, the fictional hometown of Beaver Cleaver.Film crews, in town to make a movie based on the popular TV series "Leave It To Beaver," have placed flowers along downtown Main Street and painted eight buildings, including the historic clock tower which overlooks the city of 30,000.The residents think it's swell."They really dressed up our downtown. It's such a positive effect they have on our local economy," said Bill Nash, film liaison for the Santa Paula Chamber of Commerce.

Westminster provided a "convenient, cooperative and great Main Street setting" for filming health and beauty aid television commercials yesterday, at times turning lunch-hour traffic into a professionally directed bottleneck.Giant Food Stores Inc. of Carlisle, Pa., chose Carroll County as the location for four commercials promoting the food-store chain's "low-priced health and beauty line," said Richard A. Pasewark, director of advertising.Giant of Carlisle is not affiliated with Giant of Landover, the Maryland food-store chain.

The Baltimore Film Forum, ever a font for amusing cinematic diversions, has come up with a nifty film series for this month. Called "Festival Redux," it's a look at four films that were big on the film festival circuit this year, but for some reason or other unavailable for the Forum's own April festival.That's the reasoning behind the series, but forget that; the result is four first-run art films of great potential, which won't be released commercially for some months yet.The first, which screens at 8 tonight at the Baltimore Museum of Art, is "Through the Olive Trees," which happens to be the first Iranian entry into the Academy Awards since the Islamic revolution.

Scene 1; Take 1: A radiant young actress bounds up the church steps. Strains of organ music fill the air. Suddenly, in the midst of "Here Comes the Bride," a bystander blows a foghorn. . . . Cut!The director tries the shot again. Once more, the foghorn blares. The disruption continues until a $200 payment is arranged for the horn's "rental." Finally, silence descends on the location. But by then the light has changed. The bride has lost her glow. And overtime costs have accrued.Scenes such as this are growing more common in California, film industry representatives say, as an increasing number of opportunists prey on on-location film crews with a harass-for-cash extortion scheme.

In what New York City officials are calling a first, the city police department and Mayor's Film Office have paved the way for Columbia Pictures' big-budget "Money Train" to shoot in Times Square on New Year's Eve.Approximately 300 extras will be joining the 300,000-plus throng of revelers and multitude of news and broadcast crews expected tomorrow night at one of the world's most celebrated NewYear's Eve gatherings.The shoot won't involve the film's stars, Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson, but will capture footage for a key chase sequence at the end of the film when Mr. Snipes, a good-guy decoy cop, chases his adversaries on a motorcycle.

A FEW weeks ago a group of film-makers and producers came to Baltimore to make a movie, but the visit went unheralded and almost unnoticed.They weren't from Hollywood. They were from blue-collar Pittsburgh. And their subjects weren't privileged folk in Roland Park, but black steelworkers and their families in East Baltimore and Turner Station in Baltimore County."Struggles in Steel: A Visual History of African-American Steel Workers" is a documentary that will be aired on PBS in early 1994.

MARBURY -- For four days last week, during the Bassmaster BP Top 100 Pro-Am fishing tournament, perhaps $4 million worth of boats and gear and 200 fishermen roared up and down the Potomac River, with each angler harboring great expectations.Somewhere within that madding crowd each day, Bob Cobb and the two film crews of the "Bassmasters" television series worked to document the best of the action and keep up with the tournament leaders."This is journalism, really," Cobb said Friday afternoon after the Day 3 weigh-in.

Only in the film industry do four days equal 15 minutes.Filming on a 15-minute Internal Revenue Service video, designed to help small-business owners understand their tax obligations, wound up in downtown Westminster yesterday.Cast and crew from Action Productions Inc. of New York, Cooper Productions of Columbia and Steve Yeager Films of Baltimore began work on the project Monday."It's sort of like watching grass grow," the sound technician commented as the cast and crew taped a three-minute scene for the fourth time at the law offices of Lennon and Miller on Main Street.

WESTMINSTER -- It's 5:15 p.m., and the film crew from Vince Clews and Associates is finishing production for the day.Just as the group gathers to watch the results of their latest shot, the Maryland Midland Railroad makes its daily run through the center of town with a roar that drowns out normal Main Street sounds."

All the Peabody Conservatory library had to do was look its elegant self yesterday while a film crew set up lights, cameras and microphones to shoot a romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.The landmark on tree-lined Mount Vernon Street was the centerpiece for two scenes with Ms. Ryan, who plays a reporter at The Sun destined to meet Mr. Hanks, an architect in Seattle, at the end of the movie.The crew will be filming "Sleepless in Seattle" in Baltimore through Thursday. Mr. Hanks is not in town.