A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : ON LOCATION II : Hey, Chill Out!

“It’s a ‘Rocky,’ ‘Karate Kid,’ ‘Stand by Me’ sort of story,” says producer Jordan Kerner of his film “Bombay”--the tale of a fast-track lawyer (Emilio Estevez) who undergoes a spiritual awakening when he has to turn a bunch of adolescents into a pee-wee hockey team as punishment for a drunk driving conviction.

It’s also a nightmare, as film shoots go, for it’s being shot in Minnesota, which is enjoying its mildest winter in ages.

* When a man-made lake wouldn’t freeze, the filmmakers spent $50,000 to give nature a nudge. Though the equipment succeeded in manufacturing a half-inch of ice per day, melting snowbanks ran onto the lake and made it virtually unusable.

* A 14-story ice sculpture was supposed to be the centerpiece of one scene. Four days before the shot, it turned to mush and local artisans were rounded up to create substitutes.

* With so little snow, 40 truckloads were carted in from Maple Grove, 35 miles away. “It mixed with the mud to create a brown carpet effect,” says director Stephen Herek (“Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”). “I called it the La Brea Tar Pits. Making the place look like a fairy land was a 24-hour a day process.”

Herek admits it was more than he bargained for. “Of the four movies I’ve shot, this was infinitely the worst,” he says.

Producer Kerner agrees: “This is the kind of thing they’d throw at you during a producers’ bar exam, if there was such a thing,” he says. “‘You’re in Minnesota in sub-zero weather when suddenly the thermometer climbs to 50. You’ve spent millions of dollars on the movie, have 14 kids on the set, Emilio Estevez sitting in a limousine near a lake covered in a foot of slush. . . .”

So far, the $14-million venture (tentatively to be distributed by Disney’s Buena Vista) is only two days behind schedule. Artistically, of course, it’s too early to tell.

“Movies are always shot out of sequence,” Herek points out. “But this one was all over the map. The shuffling around of scenes was particularly hard on Emilio since his character has to change. He’d ask me where we were in the script and half the time I didn’t know. This shoot has been a roller-coaster--one that puts Magic Mountain to shame.”