Press Clips

Garden Party:
A Hollywood producer who has worked with Woody Allen and James Ivory transfers local writer's story to celluloid - The Daily News, Oct. 21, 1999

By Tom Paulu

THE DAILY NEWS

Elegant youths wearing military cadets’ uniforms escorted fresh-faced young ladies in lace-bedecked gowns through the steps of a stately quadrille. The couples repeated the dance.

Then they yawned. And did it again.

"It’s messy!" shouted choreographer Lucy Shriver.

"It has to be 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 for the guys. You guys have to stand up ever so stiffly and straight."

Welcome to a little slice of Hollywood film making, right here in Southwest Washington. For the past month, a cast of 15 and crew of 12 has been filming "The Immigrant Garden," written by Caroline Wood of Longview.

The film’s director and guiding force, C. Tad Devlin of Chehalis, hopes the film will find an audience on cable TV or in home video.

Wood wrote the play version of "The Immigrant Garden" in 1990 for a local gathering of the Jane Austen Society. In 1994, the play, Wood’s first, won third prize in a New York writing contest, and was produced off Broadway.

Enter Devlin, who was executive producer of the Walt Disney movies "George of the Jungle" and "D3 — The Mighty Ducks".

For the past 12 years, he has lived in Chehalis. "It’s a lot like my home town" in Ohio, he said — and he likes Northwest locations for film.

A few years ago, Wood took a class in screenwriting and video production from Devlin. "This whole thing started as a class project," Devlin said. But it evolved into "a full-length, grass-roots feature film. It took on its own life."

The original play had only two characters, both women and gardeners, who exchange letters. The older woman, Mrs. Beauchamps, lives in England and sends seeds to her younger American pen pal, Cecily Barnes. Hence the Immigrant Garden.

"She also passes down the wisdom from her life," Wood said.

For the screenplay, Devlin and Wood fleshed out the story with characters in Cecily’s life. Wood, who is consulting on the filming, "didn’t get defensive or crazy like of a lot of people" asked to modify their work, Devlin said.

The director may be a professional, but he couldn’t afford that for his crew, so he assembled students, and word spread through the theater grapevine. "It’s my first movie," said Gregg Campbell of Kelso, the cinematographer for "This Immigrant Garden." "He’s actually brought Hollywood here to us," said Campbell, who has done training videos at Weyerhaeuser, where he works on a paper machine.

He called up old friend Tony Engebretson, who had recently moved back to town and didn’t have a job. An instant key grip was found. "Almost all the stuff is homemade," Engebretson said. "It’s low-budget." Among his duties is snapping the clapboard at the beginning of each take.

As for the crew, "we learn as we go," Engebretson said, for as many as 16 hours a day, six days a week. "I don’t ever watch the clock," he said. Justin Carroll, a graduate of the Mainstage theater program at R.A. Long High School, held a microphone boom. ‘A grip is basically someone who does grunt work," he explained. "But it’s a lot of fun. It’s a good learning experience."

Then there’s the pay: nothing unless the movie makes money. "If not, it’s free school," Carroll said. "People have to pay a lot of money to get this kind of experience."

Many of the scenes were filled in the Borst House in Centralia, but the ballroom scene needed a bigger space. So last week, the company rolled into Longview. Police officers blocked public access to the Rutherglen Mansion on Mount Solo.

Caterers dished out spaghetti. Dozens of extras in gowns and tuxedos milled about, waiting for their turn. In the midst of it all was Devlin, chomping on a cigar in true directorial style.

Along with the quadrille dance was a scene in which Cecily meets up with a young gentleman named Rigor, who makes a complete fool of himself on the dance floor. He trips and kicks the woman he’s supposedly wooing. And kicks her again as the scene is reshot.

"Step on her toes, Rigor!" shouts Devlin.

Angela Johnson of Onalaska plays Cecily, and Lower Columbia College drama student Peter Lewis is Rigor. Cecily’s father is played by Curt Harris, a veteran of many LCC plays — but no movies.

"It’s way different," Harris said during a break. "It’s very disjointed. We filmed one of the last scenes in the movie the first week. "You have to be really familiar with the script to know where you are."

After the Longview scene, the crew moved to Oakville, the little town in western Lewis County where the story is set, and Littlerock, a small town near Olympia. Filming is scheduled to end this week.

Devlin is working with a Hollywood casting agent to find a British woman to play Mrs. Beauchamp, though her scenes will be shot on this side of the Atlantic. This project wouldn’t have been feasible a year ago, Devlin said, but changing technology holds down the cost and restructuring of the movie industry has created more markets.

"The Immigrant Garden" is being shot on mini digital video tape, which is comparable in quality to film but much cheaper. "It would cost $500,000 for film alone if we used film," he said.

Devlin pegs the total production cost at $600,000. though so far, he’s had to spend about $300,000 up front. The remainder is labor costs to be paid if and when the film sells. That’s not as far-fetched as it may seem. Devlin said that with hundreds of cable TV channels, there’s a much bigger market for movies. The movie will also be entered in the Sundance Film Festival, Wood said, and may see limited showings in theaters.

Wood is already thinking about a novel version of the play she penned for friends. "At this point, what lies ahead is really the wide open unknown."