PIERCE COLLEGE : Farm to Be Site of ‘Toys’ Filming

A movie set for a toy factory and part of a skyscraper being built on the Pierce College farm will be used in the filming of 20th Century Fox’s film “Toys.”

Actor Robin Williams, Academy Award nominee for “The Fisher King” and “Good Morning, Vietnam,” will play the lead character, a comical toy maker who attempts to save his father’s business from a crazy uncle.

“Toys” will be directed by Barry Levinson, who won an Academy Award for best director in “Rain Man.”

The filming will not disrupt campus activities, said Malcolm Sears, chairman of the college agriculture department, which operates the farm.

The department received $20,000 from the movie studio for rent and expenses, which included replanting the pasture on which the movie set is being built, Sears said. The money possibly will be used to rebuild dog kennels for the college’s animal-health technology program, he said.

Filming was scheduled to begin in March, but the torrential rainstorms during the week of Feb. 9 probably will delay the production until April.

Although the set will be completed in a couple of weeks, filming cannot begin until a grassy crop covers the hills near the set, said Charlie Harrington, the movie’s location manager.

Previously planted crops were damaged by the rain, so the hills had to be reseeded, Harrington said.

Pierce farm manager Richard Melickian, who is in charge of growing the pasture, said that if there are no heavy rains in the near future, the grass will be ready for filming in about six weeks.

The Pierce farm has been used for filming scenes in movies, television programs and commercials for years, Sears said. Opening-credit scenes for the television program “Beauty and the Beast” and a country fair scene in “Little House on the Prairie” were filmed there, Sears said.

Pierce was chosen for “Toys” because the scenery fit the “rolling hills” called for in the script, Harrington said.

Two other sites in Simi Valley and Washington also were considered, but Harrington said Pierce was chosen because of its convenient location near 20th Century Fox Studios.