PIRU : Real Professionals Sought for Movie

Columbia Pictures is looking for a few real-life rescue workers and journalists to staff a make-believe emergency in Piru Creek.

Bill Dance, casting director of “Hero” starring Dustin Hoffman, has been charged with finding 18 firefighters, nine police officers, two sheriff’s deputies, and eight paramedics, as well as an eight-member news crew, to react to the plane crash that opens the movie. And he’s hoping to find more than “types.”

“I’d like to hire real people from those professions,” Dance said. “A person who could really handle that kind of job--who would have the knack of knowing what to do at a plane crash site.”

While he’d like to use local people, Dance said he realized that Ventura County’s police and emergency crews might well be depleted by losing those numbers to four nights of filming. So a former firefighter or a sheriff’s cadet could fill the bill.

A meeting for interested parties has been scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday in the Piru School Cafeteria at 3811 Center St.

People should be prepared to commit to four nights, Dec. 9 through 12 from about 4 p.m. to 7 a.m., Dance said.

The final version of the scene will take about 10 minutes of film time.

Dance said he wasn’t sure how much the extras will be paid.

Although the scene involves rescuing other extras (already cast) from a plane with its nose in the creek, and closes with a mock explosion fueled by propane, Dance promised that the shooting would be perfectly safe.