FOUNTAIN VALLEY : ‘Scenic’ Has Another Meaning at This Park

For Cornel Stinson, not a week passes without something out of the ordinary happening at Mile Square Park, where he has worked as a ranger for seven years.

He has watched pretty models pose in enticing clothes. A few weeks ago, an automobile commercial was filmed at the park for which set designers built 15-foot candles on a giant birthday cake. On weekends, crowds often gather to watch commercial photographers at work.

But for Stinson, 64, and other park employees, none of that matches the excitement of watching the filming of the movie “Defending Your Life” at the park three years ago. Stinson’s eyes still light up as he recalls the nights when stars such as Meryl Streep and Albert Brooks were just a handshake away.

“Of course I didn’t get to mingle too much,” Stinson said, “but I was in constant radio contact with the movie crew, and they’d call me whenever they needed me.”

The 640-acre park, bounded by Warner, Euclid, Edinger and Brookhurst avenues, has become one of several favored movie and TV locations in Orange County as the county aggressively tries to lure more movie productions into the area. Mile Square Park is attractive because of its good freeway access and the large amount of space there, officials said.

Other popular sites for filming are the Old County Court House in Santa Ana, Balboa Pier in Newport Beach, UC Irvine, Crystal Cove, Town Square in Orange and certain spots along Modjeska, Silverado and Santiago Canyon roads.

Scenes from “Defending Your Life,” were over three days in May, 1990, mostly at night, on runways in the southwest corner of the park.

The Navy, which owned the runways at the time, had used them to train helicopter pilots during World War II but had not used them since.

The county bought the land last year and added it to the park, Stinson said. The runways are now part of a hobby area used by model-plane and miniature-car hobbyists, he said.

For the movie, one of the runways was converted into a tram station, Stinson said. During the filming of one scene, he said, he watched as the location took on a surreal atmosphere as the special effects and floodlights transformed the runway into an after-life tram station.

There were about 300 people in eight tram cars for the scene, he said. “It was kind of eerie. You see all these tramcars and people in it. Then the tramcars taxied off the runway as if taking off to heaven--or hell. Someplace. I don’t know.”

Stinson said he has not seen the movie yet but that he intends to soon.

Brooks directed the movie, which was about a yuppie, whom he played, who dies in a car accident and then has to defend his actions in an after-life court.