Making a Scene

Marlyn McWhorter, of Morris, was walking downtown to pick up some vitamin supplements early Sunday afternoon when she noticed some unusual activity on Liberty Street.

When she asked what was going on, she was told a movie was being filmed and they were looking for extras. Before she knew it, she was running, screaming alongside 35 other extras, toward a limousine full of actors playing movie stars, while cameras whirred.

“I heard they were going to film a movie,” McWhorter said, “but I figured they’d be done with it by this time. I couldn’t believe it when he told me I would be an extra.”

This is the first time McWhorter had ever been involved in something like this.

The block of Liberty Street between Washington and Main was blocked off during the morning and afternoon hours Sunday for a graduate student in Columbia College-Chicago’s film and video production school to film his masters’ thesis — a movie he wrote called, “Emmett’s Last Stand.”

The student, Bryan Patterson, will spend a total of around a year organizing, soliciting funding, writing, directing, editing and finishing his 15 to 20-minute short film. All the graduate students have to make a movie for their thesis, he said, and several other shorter films before that one.

He wasn’t alone this weekend, though. About 30 other graduate students were with him and served as producers, cameramen, hair and makeup artists, and several other positions. Four hired actors were brought along, too, and the team signed on about 35 extras, most from Morris and the surrounding area.

Pam Staublin, of Morris, was there with her son, Drew Nugent, of Ottawa, Ill. Staublin was one of three or four up for the part of television newscaster in the movie. When another actress got the part, she and Nugent decided to be one of the extras.

Staublin, an actress herself in the Morris Theatre Guild, said she enjoyed seeing the students work, knowing she was watching the beginning of careers in the industry.

“I thought it was wonderful,” Staublin said of being in the shoot. “It was really interesting. Drew went for me. He knew I really wanted to go. We had a good time, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

Ginger Yunker, of Morris, and her daughter, Kelsey Kowalski, a Morris Community High School student, were also extras in the movie. Yunker said she came at first just to bring her daughter, but then signed up to be an extra, herself. They are regulars at Weits Café, too, she said, so they fit in with the theme of the movie perfectly.

There were three scenes shot in Morris Sunday – one inside Weits Café, and two outside the restaurant on Liberty Street. The first one was inside and involved the main actor, John LaFlamboy, who played Emmett, sitting in the café eating until he sees a limousine arrive outside. Two movie stars, played by Chicago actors Kristina Johnson and Jim Farruggio, stepped out of the limo.

The extras inside the café were instructed to act as though they recognized the stars. They ran outside, screaming and rushing the limo to get cell phone photos and autographs.

The grad students had to go before the city council to get permission to close the block of Liberty Street. They originally requested a Saturday closure, which was denied because of Cruise Night.

Patterson chose Morris because of its nice old-fashioned looking downtown. Weits Café he found on the Internet. He then drove down one Sunday to scout it out. Although the restaurant wasn’t open, he and his friends peered in the window and knew right away it would be perfect for the scene.

“Weits was very classic and very aesthetically pleasing,” Patterson said. “It was visually just what I was looking for. The colors were very nice.”

Patterson said Weits had been very good to the crew, allowing them to shoot for a whole day in the café. He hired them to do the catering for the crew, the actors and the extras, too. Compliments on the food from the Chicago actors and students could be could be heard all around, especially for the several variety of pies.

The crew shot for six days total, dividing their time between Morris, The Sands Motel in Ottawa, at St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Streator and in Toluca.

The student crew seemed to be having fun doing the shoot, and their enthusiasm carried over to the extras, some of whom were a bit perplexed as to why it took two hours of preparation for each of the 30-second scenes. The street scene also took three or four rehearsals and four takes before the director called it a wrap.

There was quite a bit to watch while the extras bade their time, though. One was the actor who played Emmett, John LaFlamboy, who rehearsed a scene on the sidelines where he had to push a teenager away from his motorcycle and jump on it and take off.

It was a little nerve-wracking to watch after hearing LaFlamboy tell about the last time he was on a bike.
"The last time I rode a motorcycle, I broke my chin and my cheek and knocked out some teeth," the actor said. "I kind of have a phobia about riding motorcycles now."

He did fine, though, after the project’s stunt man, Aaron Crippen, had shown him the ropes the day before. Crippen also helped the actors pull off a rappelling scene the week before. It went well, also, even though the actress was wearing stiletto heels at the time.

Crippen didn’t charge the students for his work on the film, even though he has a long list of Hollywood credits. Most recently, he worked on the set of “Batman,” “Dark Night,” and is currently working on a Chicago movie of a Ron Howard film, “What you didn’t Know.”

Columbia film graduate student Zach Mehrbach said the film will be a short film, lasting 15 to 20 minutes, and will play at such venues as film festivals.