Just a Savage Garden-Variety Day on Location

Welcome to the dream factory, kid.

The house of illusion.

Show biz.

Piru.

Of course it’s well-known that the tiny town off the 126 does a brisk business as a backdrop for Hollywood productions. From time to time, movie companies have complained of being gouged by Piru residents. In turn, some Piru residents have complained that other Piru residents (can’t we just call them Piruvians?) have gutted the town by keeping its six-store center fetchingly vacant.

I knew all that when I dropped by last week for the shooting--we insiders call them “shoots”--of a music video featuring Savage Garden, the fantabulously mega-successful Australian pop-rock duo. Still, I wasn’t prepared for the white Cadillac convertible and the four blond beauty queens perched on the back seat.

“Are you real?” I asked.

“No, we’re actresses.”

“How did you get the part?”

“We auditioned. We had to appear on camera and wave for 10 seconds.”

Sarah Hawkins demonstrated her waving technique.

“It’s like screwing in a light bulb,” she said, swiveling her wrist.

The actresses were accomplished wavers. They were a featured attraction in a simulated parade that was being staged for the video of “The Animal Song.” That’s a song--Columbia Records says it’s “feverishly awaited”--performed by Savage Garden for an upcoming movie called “The Other Sister.”

The idea of the video is elegantly simple: A fantabulously giga-popular pop-rock duo shows up in a quiet Midwestern town, which celebrates their appearance with a parade. So last week on Piru’s normally dead main drag, hired onlookers looked on as confetti rained down, streamers streamed, Marines strutted, majorettes twirled and bands oom-pahed.

With more than a dozen Hollywood productions to its credit, the Riverside Community College Marching Band has become the group to hire for your next simulated parade.

“You know the commercial where a marching band is attacked by ravenous wolves?” director Gary Locke asked me. “Well, that’s us.”

The Fillmore High School band was on hand as well. The school’s music program will receive $1,000 for the two-day shoot. That’s nice money, considering that all the players except the drummers were under orders to only pretend to play their instruments.

Melanie Speakman carried a piccolo. “In real life, I play a French horn,” she explained.

During the endless wait between takes, the band members struck a pose somewhere between ho-hum and wow! They were fast becoming old hands; in December, many of them had performed in an upcoming TV movie starring Jane Seymour.

Other segments of the community had also been lured to the shoot. Oxnard’s Shriners whipped around on their trademark scooters. Blue tractors from the Fillmore High School agricultural program were used to haul dippy floats--a bale of hay on a wagon, a pint-size missile adorned with sparklers.

The role of Savage Garden--a.k.a. Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones--was to sit on a bench and be exalted by the passing parade. During a break, I started chatting with them, but was quickly hustled away by a motion picture executive, who reacted as if I had just staggered off the streets of Rome for a chat with the pope.

“This is a serious violation of protocol,” he said. “Would you go up and talk to Bruce Willis on the set?”

I’d never thought of it that way, I guess. I just figured we were all on what might once have been called a public street.

Anyhow, that’s show biz for you. Even in a place as seemingly predictable as Piru, you never know what you’ll run into.

“I thought I was coming here for one of the principal roles and I wound up as an extra,” said Hal Savage, a distinguished looking man who was marching in a vintage military uniform with the faux-VFW.

What are the principal roles? I asked.

“You got me,” he said.

Savage gave me his card and said he also writes screenplays.

“If you hear of anyone who needs a good comedy, let me know,” he said.

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Steve Chawkins is a Times staff writer. His e-mail address is steve.chawkins@latimes.com.