Churches Take Their Shot at Hollywood Spotlight

It was the stuff of Hollywood legend -- a happenstance discovery leading to a film career.

True, this career doesn’t equal that of movie goddess Lana Turner -- famously discovered while still in high school -- but that’s fine with the Church of the Epiphany. In its own way, the church has made it in the movies.

A location scout was driving through Lincoln Heights three years ago when he spotted the English Gothic Revival structure. Soon the Rev. Will Wauters received a phone message: Would he be interested in letting his church appear in a movie?

Wauters was intrigued. “There is a certain thrill to it all,” he said.

At the scout’s urging, he signed up with a company called Media Locations. Like any good actor, the church is versatile and can assume various roles.

The main church, built in 1914, may be English Gothic Revival, but the 118-year-old parish hall -- which once served as the original church -- is an example of the Romanesque Revival style.

The Church of the Epiphany has since appeared in a handful of productions, including a music video for Grammy-winning artist John Legend and HBO’s recent “Walkout,” in which Wauters had a small role as a priest.

Across the Los Angeles area, churches have signed up as possible filming sites for movies, TV shows, music videos and commercials. Some have had great success over many decades. Others have had a few gigs here and there.

And there are those, like Trinity United Methodist Church in Pomona, still waiting in the wings. It listed itself with Legend Locations, one of many location scouting companies in Los Angeles, a few months ago. No one has responded yet. But Scot Munro, a member of the church’s Board of Trustees, isn’t discouraged.

“Since it’s something that hasn’t happened yet and other churches have been successful with it, we, of course, are hopeful,” said Munro, who first had the idea of having the church featured in productions.

Hollywood United Methodist Church is a veteran. Its filmography includes: “Back to the Future,” “Sister Act,” “That Thing You Do!” and, most recently, “Jarhead.”

Kanye West’s video for his song “Jesus Walks” was filmed at McCarty Memorial Church on West Adams Boulevard in Los Angeles.

And in the upcoming “Spider-Man 3” movie, you might recognize St. Brendan Catholic Church on South Van Ness Avenue, also in L.A.

The reasons churches want to be in these productions vary, although the main one is income.

For big congregations, like All Saints Church in Pasadena and St. Sophia Cathedral in Los Angeles, money from filming is a nice extra but not necessary to balance the budget.

The revenue is often used for capital improvement projects. This year, All Saints, whose annual expenses total about $5 million, expects to take in $5,000 from filming. Normally, it receives $25,000 to $50,000 a year from that source, but this year, because of noisy construction at nearby City Hall, it hasn’t been able to sign on to many projects.

But for small churches the money matters.

Wauters said the Church of the Epiphany receives about $5,000 for a full day of shooting. That’s a significant sum for a church that gets about $8,000 a year from pledges and offerings from parishioners and $4,000 from fundraising efforts. Its annual expenses, largely underwritten by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, total about $93,000.

At Trinity United the congregation has decreased over the years -- which means less money from donations. Between the 1950s and ‘70s, the church had as many as 2,000 members. Now, there are about 200.

“We still want to maintain our facilities but have less people to be able to do this. We were looking around for different sources of income,” said Munro, the trustee. “This is a source of income.”

Whether big or small, churches don’t include income from filming in their annual budgets -- because they can’t. As with many actors, they don’t know when roles will come up.

For some, filming provides not just income but also a chance to give back to the community.

“We’re trying to be helpful to the Hollywood industry,” said Mark Stephenson, business administrator at Hollywood United.

Father Robert J. Gaestel of the Church of the Angels in Pasadena takes it to another level.

“I personally believe that Christianity is supposed to support the arts,” he said, adding that his church has been in the movies for nearly 60 years.

The church has appeared in a number of TV commercials and shows too, including “The West Wing,” in which it was supposed to be in New England.

Like any actor, the church can be cast to play a number of roles.

It’s small -- about 125 people can fit in the main sanctuary -- but with lighting and camera work can be made to look much bigger. And because of its size, producers don’t need to hire as many extras to fill the space.

Those adjustments can sometimes make it hard to recognize a church on the big and small screens. But Elizabeth Tatum said she knew right away that a church in a TV commercial she saw was All Saints.

“I was watching TV and -- oh! -- there it was. I felt proud. ‘That’s my church,’ I thought,” said Tatum, who attends All Saints and works as a congregational administrator at Throop Memorial Church, another Pasadena institution that has also appeared in commercials and TV shows.

But Gaestel said some Church of the Angels members worry about the frequent Hollywood appearances. “They get concerned about the wear and tear on the building,” he said. “They get anxious that something might get broken and cannot be repaired. There are mixed emotions about it.”

Some churches have been known to turn down offers because they disapprove of the message or material of the production.

“We’re very particular about script material,” said Hollywood United’s Stephenson, who reads the scripts before agreeing to any filming. “We’re not going to just let anything be filmed here. It depends on the type of content.

“We’re pretty, I would say, picky,” he added.

Christina Honchell, parish administrator at All Saints, said her church has rejected projects that involved violence or guns. Also, she said, filming isn’t allowed when there are church events planned.

“We only do it when we can fit it into our lives. We don’t, for example, move choir rehearsals to accommodate filming,” she said.

And there is another condition, one adopted by many churches: no filming on Sundays.