Focusing on the Homeless : Film: The issue hits home for some members of the cast and crew who donated their skills for ‘Miracle Alley.’ Abandoned stores in Sherman Oaks were used for the set.
When Hollywood film production slowed this year, a group of more than 250 actors, producers, directors, crew members and an Academy Award-nominated cameraman teamed up to donate their skills for a film project that will help the homeless.
Most of the cast and crew of Starlight Films’ “Miracle Alley” live in the San Fernando Valley, and a lot of them have noticed homeless families living on the streets of their suburban neighborhoods. The crew didn’t go to downtown’s Skid Row to do the filming; they used an abandoned block of stores on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks and found people living there.
The issue hit close to home for some of the crew because they have worked at shelters. A few of them have been homeless themselves.
“It’s an issue that scares all of us because we all know how close we are to it,” said Cory Patrick Brown, president of Starlight Films in Universal City, who is producing and acting in the film.
“Somehow, we struggled through this project with no money based solely on how much people wanted to do something about homelessness,” added Brown’s friend, Eric Walker, a co-producer and actor. Walker recently appeared as the villain in the movie “And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird.”
Brown, 28, and Walker, 21, met other filmmakers at a Hollywood movie premiere and discussed their idea for the project. Screenwriter and actor Greg Holland of Studio City reworked a fanciful fictional script that he had written about a runaway boy who comes across three homeless men in an alley where miracles happen.
They lined up a top-notch union team willing to donate their services and received more than $3.5 million in donated equipment from dozens of businesses. Then they went to Volunteers of America to find a charity that could use the film.
Walker keeps a tally of donations--including rooms provided by both Universal Studios hotels, costumes from New World Pictures and vintage 1950s Chevys lent by private owners.
VOA Vice President Mark Cosman was skeptical of the project at first.
“I thought these young guys had some good ideas, but we’re always hearing good ideas that never materialize,” said Cosman, who visited the busy set recently and witnessed the huge cranes, camera equipment and hundreds of volunteers working on the film. “It’s amazing what they’ve done; it’s like one big family out here dedicated to a cause.”
VOA is a 95-year-old organization that helps 25,000 families and youths with housing, job training and drug abuse prevention. Although the charity has no money invested in the project, it plans to distribute the film to schools, civic groups and television networks.
“This is the first time we’ve been involved in a film project like this,” said Cosman, who lives in La Crescenta. “But like all of us, the people on this project are seeing families everywhere without a place to go. The new homeless families are just as afraid of the chronic homeless who live downtown as the rest of us might be. The streets are very mean.”
The film’s associate producer, Michael Henderson, 23, remembers being homeless with his mother six years ago in North Hollywood. They stayed in and out of shelters for eight months while begging for food and work.
“That feeling of helplessness is something you never forget,” said Henderson, a film producer and actor who is investing $10,000 in the film. “I don’t want anyone to have go through that, and this may be a step to prevent it.”
Line producer Tim White, who wrangled much of the free lighting and camera equipment from Panavision and other companies, said his negotiating skills came from his year of living on the streets.
“It’s a traumatic, rough life; no one can ever imagine what it’s like until they’re there,” White said about his down-and-out days in 1978. “A topless dancer helped me with cigarettes and a sandwich every two or three days and then one day I got so low that when they found me face down on the side of the street, they thought I was dead.”
White said he pulled himself together after stealing some soap and a razor from a store, then hustled $1,700 at a pool hall, paid the store back and found a job. Now he is an apartment manager in Van Nuys who has worked on crews on small film sets.
He says he sees a lot of destitute people where he lives.
“Sometimes I give them a buck, sometimes I tell them my story, sometimes I ask them to come in for dinner, but a lot of the times they would rather have the money,” White said.
Laura Brown, 32, decided to help her brother Cory co-produce the project earlier this year when, after 12 years producing for ABC-TV, NBC, CBS Radio and KROQ’s “Kevin and Bean Show,” she found herself without an income. With her resume and documentation of her film project in hand, she said, she begged every major charity for $100 to pay her $1,080-a-month rent.
“I found out there was no support system for the middle class,” Brown said. “They told me the film project sounded great, but they couldn’t give me money until I was on the streets and they couldn’t give me food stamps if I was working. There is no help for the working class; it’s not fair.”
Catholic Charities finally gave her the rent money.
William Phelps is directing a cast that includes Jon Chardiet, a regular on “As the World Turns”; Beverly Trachtenberg, featured in the movie “Perfect” and daytime soap “One Life to Live”; Scott Cleveland, 16, and his sister Laura, 14, who portray homeless youths, and actors G-Jo Reed, Windy Alford, Jon Batteas and Hal Braun.
Stan Lazan, a Peabody Award winner and Oscar nominee, is director of photography. “I just happened to be in the office and met Cory and Eric and saw that they wanted to do something really good,” he said. “I live in Encino and, believe it or not, we see homeless people every day. It has to stop.”
WAVE (94.7 FM) disc jockey Wally Wingert also has a small role and said he enjoys getting involved in social issues, but this one has him stumped.
“I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know I see a lot of women out there homeless and it doesn’t help to give them a quarter,” he said.
Holland, the screenwriter and actor, said he has incorporated his black belt martial arts skills into his character. “During the fight scene, my character uses it,” Holland said. “Street people have a lot of honor and courage. Our government needs to start taking care of our own.”
Holland, producer Brown and actor Randall Rike portray the three bums who teach a runaway about being homeless.
Rike, 28, who was in the Air Force and now plays a Korean war veteran, said: “I have not opened my eyes to the situation of the homeless until this project. Before, I didn’t want to touch them; now I have to play one of them.”
The unit production manager had to slap some makeup on herself to play a role in the film. Jo Giametta, who says homeless people live on her street in North Hills, helped get volunteers to join the project. “Everyone I dealt with had compassion, and we have a crew I’m very happy to be working with. This is the first time I’ve worked for free.”
Instead, participants look for how they can do something charitable. Production designer Iain Blodwell was so moved about finding actual homeless people on the set that he wanted to refurbish the entire block of stores to make it a more decent place for them. They plugged up holes in the walls and windows to keep the people who live there warmer.
And one recent chilly evening on the three-week shoot, Walker paced the outdoor set wearing a bathrobe as he prepared to play an evil businessman, but he had to take care of other problems first. A fire truck pulled up because a concerned neighbor thought that the smoke from their fog machine was a real fire.
Costumer Susan Ramer had worked as coordinator of a homeless shelter in New York, so she jumped at the chance to help the cause again. “It’s not as bad as New York, but I live in Burbank and see people wandering the streets all the time. I buy them food, but I don’t give them money. I also spend a lot of time talking to them.
“I hope this film is seen by many young people. Youths are always so anxious and ambitious, so I hope it translates to their parents.”
The project will be mentioned during a daily holiday special on KABC-TV news, where Eyewitness News anchor Ann Martin and special reporter George Fischbeck will visit with homeless families.
The film’s premiere is scheduled for March.
Movie publicist and production coordinator Mickey McGovern said she sees people wandering the streets as she drives to work through Pasadena, Glendale and North Hollywood. She joins others on the crew in saying that she is offering help now because someday she may need it herself.
“I don’t know how many people on this set have told me that if they don’t get a job, they’ll soon be homeless themselves,” McGovern said. “And they weren’t joking.”
