Lights, Camera, Product Placement

“The real metaphor is Willy Wonka,” aspiring filmmaker Seth Wiley says, standing on the terrace outside the faux Tudor mansion on Sunset Boulevard on a recent evening. “Everybody’s saying it’s like ‘The Real World’ but it’s Willy Wonka.”

Wiley gropes through pop-culture touchstones, trying to find one that can describe the last six week of his life--a Roald Dahl fantasy for adults, he says. In Willy Wonka terms, he’d be the poor kid hoping to win a lifetime supply of chocolate--the “chocolate” in this case being a million bucks to make an independent film. He’s one of five movie-making hopefuls competing for film money this summer in an “art meets commerce--in a big way” version of the Hollywood dream.

So far, Wiley’s got nothing to complain about. For a month and a half, he’s been living in a Beverly Hills mansion, driving a new car and roaming the Universal lot. Oh, and he doesn’t have to clean, cook or worry about utility bills.

Wiley’s adventure began last fall, when the 31-year-old University of Kansas grad submitted a short film, “The Good Things,” to the “Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival,” a competition that, according to an early press release, would “merge independent filmmaking with Chrysler brand vehicles.”

Along with 24 other contestants, he was chosen by a panel of judges from Hypnotic (a marketing and production company), Universal Pictures and Chrysler. He then made the semifinals and was flown with nine others to Cannes during the film festival for the “Extreme Filmmaking Competition phase,” in which they had to cast, shoot, edit and premiere a five-minute short film during a 10-day period. Mood, concept and plot were open to the filmmakers. The only condition: The “cast” had to include one of two new Chrysler models.

“The casting of the PT Cruiser and Crossfire provides the Extreme Filmmakers the opportunity to embrace and reflect the Chrysler brand’s dedication to design, romance and innovation into their films,” one company statement said. And how different would that be, really, than making a film for Miramax that slipped in a few cans of Coors? Corporate sponsorship, wave of the future.

Wiley was picked as a finalist alongside Patrick Daughters, Matthew Ehlers, Geoffrey Haley and Jeff Wadlow. Two are USC film school grads, and among the credits listed on the collective bios are “film production: The Thomas Crowne Affair” and “grand prize winner, Nintendo’s Eternal Darkness Films Competition.”

On July 1, in “reality” TV fashion, the five were moved into a Sunset Boulevard mansion, adding a touch of personal contact to the competition. Each was provided with production equipment, a movie industry mentor and access to Universal Studios’ sets, props and costumes, as well as post-production facilities.

By Sept. 1, each will have to finish a movie package--a pitch, a final script and one fully developed scene that (surprise) also has to feature a Chrysler car, even if its appearance is just a cameo.

On this night at the mansion, there is little evidence of competition. The five contestants are cordial, sharing hamburgers and hot dogs on the terrace overlooking the pool, as members of the house staff haul beer in ice buckets and turn beef patties on the grill.

“We don’t sabotage each other,” Wiley says. But this is no all-for-one, “let’s make a movie” situation, either. He’s circumspect when describing his project, not wanting to tip his hand.

“It’s called ‘Rx,’ ” he says. “It’s about a middle-aged doctor ... who meets a younger woman who takes him to a rave.”

Living with his competitors can be intimidating, and Wiley has imagined himself going down the chute. Right now, though, he’s enjoying himself. He’s impressed several friends by inviting them to spend evenings at house parties, sipping energy drinks poolside.

“Jewel came to play the other night,” he says, adding that among the guests were Gloria Steinem and Carmen Electra. “They were in a corner, deep in conversation.”

It was one of those Hollywood moments that has become strangely mundane, he says.

Like this one:

In the kitchen, director Doug Liman (“Swingers,” “The Bourne Identity”) is chatting on his cell phone. A publicist whispers, “You know, ‘The Bourne Identity’ made more than $100 million at the box office.”

“It’s not just a contest,” says Liman, one of the organizers. It’s helping independent filmmakers, and that’s why he and other Hollywood mentors are “rolling up the sleeves” and helping out, he says.

Contestant Daughters, whose competition entry was “Work” (a dark comedy about two bumbling criminals and an epileptic boy out to rob a Mormon temple), is a little disconcerted by the experience of the “Chrysler Summer House.” (If it sounds a bit like some sort of reality-show concept, well there’s talk of a so-called reality series next year.)

“It’s like having foster parents who are lavishing all these gifts on you,” Daughters says. “One day, these just appeared out of nowhere,” he says, picking up a colorful toy from a table. (Mostly, table decorations are toy cars of a certain make.) “The house is a shell.”

Or, perhaps, a set with plenty of product placement.

The black-and-white photographic portraits on the dining room walls depict a Chrysler from several angles. Downstairs alongside the pingpong table, entertainment console and dart set, Smirnoff Ice has provided a fridge full of its products, and outside, parasols announce another sponsor, Samuel Adams.

On a refrigerator door in the kitchen, a note reads:

“Fellas, although you’re probably just getting comfortable at the house, I wanted to let you know what the move-out schedule is. Friday, Aug. 30, most of the house furniture will be picked up,” it says, explaining why the interior of the house looks as though it’s been sponsored by Crate & Barrel. Turns out, it was rented.

“Corporations put a fridge full of drinks in your living room,” Haley says. “It feels strange to be sponsored.”

Product Placement 101 for aspiring filmmakers?

“Well, it’s learning how to be diplomatic and political,” he says, diplomatically.

For now, life is a scene from a movie, one whose end will arrive Sept. 13, when the contest judges decide who gets the prize.

Wiley’s sad to see it end. He’s grown to like the sponsored life. “I don’t even have air-conditioning” at home, he says. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to go back.”