By Julie Shapiro
“And…Action!” yelled a man with a yellow rain slicker and a megaphone.
On cue, a jogger took off along the Battery Park esplanade, passing other extras who cast fishing lines or gazed at the Statue of Liberty.
Larry David and Rachel Evan Wood emerged from a bend in the path, bicycling toward the camera. David wore a helmet; Wood’s blond hair was pushed back with a headband and streamed behind her.
Off to the side, Woody Allen slipped on a pair of headphones and concentrated on the unfolding scene.
David and Wood stopped their bikes by a bench and sat down to chat. Crew members crowded in with cameras and large white reflective panels. Wood crossed her legs. David smiled.
“Cut!”
That concluded one take of one scene for Allen’s next movie, untitled as of yet and filmed almost exclusively in Lower Manhattan. Tuesday morning was overcast and drizzly, but that didn’t stop the stars, 60 extras and dozens of production staff from setting up camp in Battery Park to shoot the scene between David and Wood.
The neighborhoods below Canal St. see movie, TV or commercial shoots nearly every day, and more are coming. A new measure in the state budget bumps the tax incentive for film production up from 15 percent to 35 percent. That means that for every $3 the film companies spend in New York, they get $1 back, said Dean McCann, director of the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting.
“It’s going to get a lot more busy,” McCann said. “It hasn’t hit yet.”
The film marks Allen’s return to New York, after he spent several years making movies in London and Spain.
Downtown residents are not always happy to see the trailers and cameras. Particularly in the Seaport, people see the film shoots as an intrusion that compounds the problems they are already facing because of construction.
“They just go ahead with these film shoots no matter what,” said Paul Hovitz, Community Board 1 member and Seaport resident. “We’re inundated with all these traffic problems, pollution and noise.”
Film production brings the city $5 billion a year, and the new tax incentives are already stealing business from California. “Ugly Betty,” a sitcom on ABC, decided to uproot from Los Angeles and move to New York City. The show will employ a 300-person crew of cameramen, stylists, designers and assistants, McCann said. The production team will bring a windfall to the city, with workers patronizing local restaurants, pharmacies, dry cleaners, clothing shops, hotels and art stores.
“That’s wonderful news,” said McCann, from the city Film Office, “but it’s only wonderful until there’s a film shoot on your block.”
Christie Mullen, location manager for the Woody Allen movie, fields complaints from residents wherever the film shoots touch down. Residents are most concerned about parking, and small business owners worry about the shoots blocking off their customers. Most of the time, a conversation resolves the issue, Mullen said. When a film shoot recently diverted a hot dog vendor, the production company paid him more than he usually made in a day, and he watched the shoot.
“It’s 50-50,” Mullen said of the neighborhood response to film shoots, while standing on the set of the Allen film. “People love it and people hate it.”
The most recent affront to Hovitz and other Seaport residents was the filming of the remake of “The Taking of Pelham 123” earlier this spring. The production crew laid metal plates at Pearl and Frankfort Sts. on a Friday night but did not secure them, so all night the cars driving over the plates made a loud thumping sound, Hovitz said.
During the filming the next day, the crew blocked off such a large swatch of Seaport streets that the entire neighborhood was caught in a gridlock for hours. Fire trucks couldn’t leave fire stations, ambulances couldn’t get to Downtown Hospital and residents were frozen wherever they had parked, Hovitz said.
At the C.B. 1 Quality of Life Committee meeting last Thursday, McCann said the traffic jam was caused by “an overzealous traffic agent who was treating the film shoot like the Con Ed steam explosion in midtown, not letting anyone through.” Once the Film Office found out about the problems, they shut down filming for three hours and allowed the traffic to clear, he said. Hovitz, though, said it took the city hours to respond.
Production companies do not get fined when they fail to follow the rules, but there are consequences, McCann said. “Pelham 123” is still filming in New York, and the Film Office denied seven of their requests involving filming on the Brooklyn Bridge.
“They were heavily penalized for their arrogance on the first day of shooting,” McCann said.
The Brooklyn Bridge may be a particularly sensitive area because the “I Am Legend” shoot of the evacuation scene there triggered many complaints from Seaport residents.
Because of the heavy construction in the Seaport, the city has imposed a filming moratorium from Robert F. Wagner St. to Fulton St. between Gold and South Sts.
Also, because of World Trade Center construction, the area from Vesey St. down to Battery Place, from West St. to Broadway, is also off limits. “This area can’t support any more [filming], period,” McCann said.
Finally, film shoots are not allowed from Chambers St. to Canal St. between Hudson and West Sts.
However, the moratorium does not mean a complete freeze on shooting, because some projects are grandfathered in. Woody Allen is returning to Downtown Hospital, within the frozen zone, next week to re-shoot interior scenes. He had already shot there before the moratorium started, so he’s allowed to come back.
Community Board 1 passed a resolution last month calling for a complete moratorium of film shoots in the Seaport, with no exceptions, but McCann said the resolution violates the First Amendment. Board members disagreed.
To keep the shoots from interfering with construction, the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center weighs in on all film permits below Canal St., said Josh Rosenbloom, the agency’s director of city operations. When companies apply for a permit to close or block a street, the L.M.C.C.C. checks for potential conflicts with current construction projects and street closures.
C.B. 1 sees a small fraction of the film shoots that regularly descend on neighboring C.B. 2 and C.B. 3, McCann said. A section of the West Village has had a film shoot every single day for more than a month, he added.
Hovitz countered that C.B. 1 also has more construction than other neighborhoods.
Throughout the Quality of Life meeting, McCann repeated one refrain: that he gets yelled at more from production companies when he turns down locations than from the community when he approves them. C.B. 1 members appeared determined to lodge their complaints and balance the scales.
“Money is not the most important thing,” board member Barry Skolnick told McCann. He wanted McCann to do more outreach to the community before large shoots. The Film Office already sends a memo to the community board before each shoot, McCann said.
Besides depriving residents of parking spaces, the large movie trailers also idle for hours, said John Foss, a C.B. 1 member. McCann said the production teams should be using generators to supply the trailers with power rather than idling. He encouraged community members to call the police if they see trailers idling.
Film vehicles are getting more parking tickets since Mayor Mike Bloomberg cut down on the number of free parking placards citywide, said Helen Robin, co-producer of the Woody Allen movie. Trailers and equipment trucks still get permits, but scouting, crew and private vehicles have to fend for themselves. That means the production companies spend more money parking in garages and paying tickets.
The Allen shoot provided few disruptions to the neighborhood Tuesday morning. The production company paid the Battery Conservancy and the Battery Gardens restaurant more than $1,000 apiece for use of their space, crew members said. Production assistants kept park-goers from walking through the scene, though tourists on a ferry bound for the Statue of Liberty caught a glimpse of Allen and began shrieking and waving.
“We don’t want to burn any bridges,” Robin said. “We live here, and we’re going to work here. We’re not trying to upset [the residents].”
A group of young school children started heading for the shoot, but location scout John Spady diverted them.
“Are you making a movie?” a small boy with brown hair asked him.
Spady told them he was, with Woody Allen.
The boy gave him a blank stare, then shrugged and turned away.
“Ask your parents,” Spady called after him.
Julie@DowntownExpress.com
