EVERYONE ‘SAYS YES’ TO MOTHER

Surely few mothers have done for their progeny what Rosemary Layng has in financing and producing a movie for her actress daughter, Lissa.

Layng, a former San Diegan now living in Lake Elsinore, was probably as qualified, or unqualified, depending on your point of view, to produce a movie as anyone before she made “Say Yes,” which opened Friday at Southland theaters.

Before taking on the small, old-fashioned film, Layng had been a housewife, a substitute teacher, a probation officer, a real estate speculator and a health spa owner. As a gregarious, Horatio Alger type, Layng had learned how to get things done, an essential element since she had no film-making experience.

The story of how Layng became executive producer, then producer, of “Say Yes” is as unlikely and as old-fashioned as the film’s theme.

The fact that the movie, with its hoary plot--people fighting to beat a rapidly approaching deadline to achieve wealth--got made at all speaks for the persistence and creativity of the novice producer.

“I know the value of a dollar,” said Layng. She is especially proud in her first effort to have brought the movie in on time and well under the original $6-million budget.

Layng got the script, with the leading role written for her daughter, after the author-director had been unable to get a studio to produce it.

It wasn’t the first time she had invested in her daughter’s career. Several years ago, Layng financed and produced two original plays, “Troubadour” and “Stage Exit,” at the Callboard Theatre in Los Angeles.

Starting out as the film’s executive producer, the person who provides the financing, Layng quickly became involved in almost every aspect of the production. Her first order of business was to refigure the original budget. “My way is to look at how much money I can raise, then work back from that,” she said.

Using the philosophy that “what’s in front of the camera, you spend money for; what’s behind the camera you try to save on,” Layng sliced away at the budget.

Despite her philosophy, the cast contains no recognized talents except for Jonathan Winters, who, ironically, wasn’t added until the original script had been shot.

Besides her daughter, who plays a simple farm girl who falls in love with a wealthy playboy, the major roles were filled by Art Hindle, an actor best-known for his appearances in “Porky’s” I, II and III, and Logan Ramsey, seen in “Walking Tall” I, II and III.

Instead of paying for union extras, Layng cut a deal with Poway High School’s band boosters. (She once worked there as a substitute teacher, and her sister was chairman of the boosters.) By contributing $25,000 to the band boosters program, she received all the extras, including a marching band, that she could use.

“She’s a very persuasive sister,” said Ann Nelson, whose late husband was the major investor on the project. Asked why they poured more than $100,000 into her sister’s film, Nelson said: “I don’t think she has ever done anything that hasn’t been a success.”

That included, as a single parent, taking over loans on apartment buildings in Southeast San Diego that were in default; turning the projects around and making them pay for themselves.

Layng raised money for “Say Yes” by “double collateralizing” the funds raised by her others when banks refused to loan her money without a track record of making films. She put up her own 4th Avenue and Ash Street property as collateral for investors, who used their property as collateral for the loans they took out for the film.

Lack of experience did not keep Layng from taking charge on the set. The first week of production she fired the original producer and divided the job between herself and the director.

“She was spending money like her father had left it to her,” Layng said of the previous producer. As co-producer, Layng had to make sure filming stayed on schedule and on budget. That meant ensuring that cast, crew, costumes, props, film and cameras were all in the right place every day of shooting; that the cast and crew were fed and paid, and little niggling things like permits to shoot in Times Square, were requested and received.

At one point, the script required hundreds--then thousands--of eggs for a scene that turned into an egg fight. Another time, while investors were visiting the set in New York City, a crisis arose when the dress provided for Lissa turned out to be “totally inappropriate,” as did a second dress. With time running out for the Times Square shot, Layng sent the investors to buy costume props, while she ran to Macy’s to find a dress. It all came together--barely--in a pouring rain, and the shot was completed.

Finding a distributor that offered a favorable financial arrangement was a problem. But Layng hooked up with a new firm that allowed more cost cutting by releasing a limited number of prints.

“This isn’t a blockbuster,” Layng said. “It’s a supplemental movie.”

She would have preferred to release the film in February, a slow time of the year, rather than compete with the big-budget summer fare. “I still have a few weeks before that,” she said.

Regardless of how “Say Yes” does theatrically, Layng has sold the cassette rights to RCA/Columbia Home Video.

Layng is looking to the future, talking over film, television and video projects with two major studios, including a TV series she has written that is based on her work in San Diego as a juvenile probation officer.

The best part of “Say Yes,” she said, was the hands-on, location filming, done in San Diego, Los Angeles and New York.

“Most of these people who run studios look at making a movie as just business,” she said. “I know they don’t ever get to do what I did. That is so sad.”