This Time, He Hopes to Take the Festival by ‘Storm’

Harris Done still can’t believe it. The movie house he loyally patronized as a kid, the theater with Orange County’s biggest, baddest screen, is showing his first major film tonight.

“I am so stunned,” said Done, the Anaheim-bred director of “Storm,” an action-thriller screening at the Edwards Newport Cinemas in Newport Beach, a.k.a. the Big Newport.

The movie, starring Martin Sheen, Luke Perry and a furious hurricane, kicks off the fourth annual Newport Beach International Film Festival, an honor previously reserved for renowned filmmakers including Wolfgang Petersen, whose “Das Boot” opened the festival in 1997.

That year, Done premiered his first entry in the celluloid jamboree. “Sand Trap,” a small-budget thriller he made with his brother Erik, won the audience award. And, while Done may not have big-time renown, “Storm” will set the ideal tone for this fest, said executive director Jeffrey S. Conner.

“We wanted to program something for the opening-night gala that makes it a fun, big event,” Conner said. “Also, Harris is a fellow from the community.”

Sheen plays bad-guy Air Force Gen. James Roberts, who is helping develop a top secret “weather weapon,” capable of creating killer hurricanes, to use against an enemy of the state. Perry plays a meteorologist who must fly into the eye of a raging hurricane to save Los Angeles from obliteration.

The film is heavy on spectacular computer-generated special effects, said Done, a cinematographer who now lives in Santa Monica and whose credits include “The Last Days,” which on Sunday won the Academy Award for best documentary.

The “Storm” effects, Done said recently by cell phone from his car, include a towering tidal wave, 120-mph winds that whip down the Hollywood sign and planes that fly within the storm’s eye.

“The idea behind the movie is to look at science’s ability to manipulate weather,” said Done, 35, an unpretentious USC film school grad who studied art at Cal State Fullerton.

UFO, a Burbank-based production company that specializes in low-budget sci-fi films, hired Sheen, Perry and Done, who was cinematographer about five years ago on a movie by UFO founder and “Storm” producer Phillip Roth.

Done surmised that Sheen signed on, despite the film’s low-profile status, because he likes conspiracy thrillers.

“He’s so great in the film; he worked so hard, and he was so pleasant,” Done said. “And he brought so many great ideas to the scenes. Obviously, I was a little intimidated at first, but he and Luke were both really warm and friendly and wanted to do the work. When it became clear that we all just wanted to do good work, we had a common goal.”

Compared with the $90,000 Done had for “Sand Trap,” the “Storm” budget is a hefty $5 million, according to UFO, though that’s still small potatoes by Hollywood standards.

What Done didn’t have was as much time as he would have liked for a script rewrite. He and his partner Diane Fine, reworking a first draft by Patrick Phillips, had two weeks, he said; they wanted five.

Still, Done is optimistic, if not cocky, in thinking that audiences will like “Storm.”

“I tell you,” he said, “the special effects were finished a couple of weeks ago, and they look fantastic on the big screen.”

BE THERE

“Storm” screens tonight at Edwards Newport Cinemas, 300 Newport Drive, Newport Beach. 7 p.m. $10. Festival information: (714) 546-3456. Tickets: (888) ETM-TIXS.