My car, the movie star

By Gary Dulude

July 10 , 2004

July 12 , 2004

July 15 , 2004
An early 60s Porsche, a '71 Pontiac Ventura, and Betty are parked on the main street of Estacada, Oregon. The vintage cars are background extras for the movie "Nearing Grace," which is set in 1978 (Photo courtesy of Gregg Fischel).
Overhead sprinklers create rain (ironic isn't it?) in downtown Oregon City during overnight shooting of several scenes around the gas station on the left. Betty is parked behind the yellow car, but in other scenes shot that night and the following morning, I'm driving her as background traffic (Photo courtesy of Gregg Fischel).
ESTACADA, Oregon -- It's after midnight in a smoke-filled bar in this town of 6,000 and change, about 40 miles southeast of Portland. No, I'm not drowning my sorrows in booze. I'm working. Really.

I'm on the set of the movie "Nearing Grace," where Betty and I are extras. The movie is set in 1978, and my wife Samantha saw a story on the local TV news about a casting call for extras, including cars from the 60s and 70s to be used for location shooting. Samantha left a message with information about my Impala, and they called last week. I've been here since 2 p.m. Thursday, and I'm returning for another day of shooting on Saturday.

So far, I've driven Betty in one scene where two of the leads drive off in a '69 or '70 Plymouth Satellite convertible. There's also a copper '65 Thunderbird in the shot. We must have done 10 takes, so I drove around the block several times. There are a number of other vintage cars parked along the street, so it's cool that Betty is one of the action cars. The Satellite (actually a second car that's just a shell) is supposed to get blown up tonight. They released most of the extras at 2:30 a.m. I would have stayed to watch the explosion, but it was at least two hours off and probably not until just before dawn.

I've also been a background extra in several scenes being shot in this bar. Since it's the late '70s, I'm wearing this hideous maroon striped cowboy shirt with pearl snap buttons, along with bell-bottom jeans and pointy-toed cowboy boots that are a podiatrist's nightmare. They're so hard to get on and off (this is where a grip comes in handy--literally) that I've had to leave them on for a while; by the time I get them off, my toes my be permanently bent.

I walk right in front of the camera in a couple of the shots, and in one climactic scene, I'm known as the "lonely guy in the corner" of the bar. One of the stars smacks his beer off the table, and the cup ricochets around me. On almost every take, I got splattered, and on several, the plastic cup shattered. But at least it didn't hit me (fortunately, I was hunkered down over my drink). The cast and crew were very nice to me, several asking if I was OK after they saw how wet my clothes had gotten. The hard part was after multiple takes, I knew when it was coming, but I had to be careful not to tense up.

I had been told in advance that like in the military, there's a lot of "hurry up and wait" on a movie set, so I brought my laptop and a book to pass the time. I was actually able to get in a couple hours of work done, but I've also spent a good amount of time on the set in position while lights, props, etc., are set up. There appears to be a good-sized crew in addition to the cast and extras; it still takes a lot of people to make a movie.

Return to the top.

OREGON CITY, Oregon -- Tonight's shoot is set just outside of Portland at an intersection in downtown Oregon City. Situated on a bluff overlooking the Willamette River, Oregon City is on of the state's oldest cities, with a large historic district downtown. Our call time is 9 p.m., just as it's getting dark, and we'll work through the night and past dawn, wrapping up around 6:30 a.m. Sunday.

As was the case in Estacada, there are a number of vintage cars here tonight: a '63 Ford Galaxie XL and an early 60s Studebaker Lark parked in the service bays of a gas station where several scenes take place; a '69 Mercury Cougar convertible prowling the street as a motorcycle driven by one of the actors goes by in the other direction; a '73 Plymouth Duster and a '71 Dodge Charger R/T with a 440 Six Pack that also drive up and down the main street, and a 1950s-era Chevrolet pickup used for the scene where two of the leads go streaking in the rain (actually, they're wrapped in a blanket, so I don't think that counts as streaking). Rusty, Gregg Fischel's '69 Porsche 912, which was in Estacada on Thursday is here as well, as is the '71 Pontiac Ventura and several Mustangs, including a one-owner '65 coupe.

Movie productions often create their own weather, even on location. And since summers are generally dry in Oregon (suprise!), they've set up several sprinklers on 30-foot stands along the street to produce a steady rain. Gregg's Porsche is not exactly watertight, but Rusty survived the downpour without too much leakage.

For some reason, the cinematographers seem to like to park red cars on the street where they show up nicely under the streetlights (and some additional lights set up on a crane). The Cougar, Charger and Duster are driven in some of the early scenes, and Betty is one of several cars parked along the street.

Later, however, the crew wants a different car to drive through the intersection while one of the characters fills a gas can at the station. Scanning the cars parked on the street, they pick Betty, and I'm back in action. I make several passes through the intersection and impress a couple of crew members with how quickly I can make a U-turn in the middle of the street with such a big car.

Most of the evening, we extras wait in a parking lot outside the camera's view diagonally across from the intersection. It's too dark to read, but I have my laptop, and surprisingly, wireless Internet access. I also make out better with wardrobe this time. They give me a brown corduroy shirt, and I get to keep my faded Levi's. I wore my Birkenstocks for relief in case I'm given another pair of pointy-toed boots, but since these classic sandals have been around for ever, I get to leave them on tonight.

I have only one scene as a background extra tonight, walking along the sidewalk when the motorcyclist drives through a plate glass window. The glass is rigged to blow right before impact and it goes off without a hitch on the first take. I don't see it, however, since I'm not supposed to be paying attention until I hear the glass break.

After dawn, the producers set up one last shot, this time with the motorcycle coming up the street from the opposite side. Wanting a car to drive through the intersection past the camera as the scene begins, the crew scans the vintage cars, which have now been assembled in the parking lot where the extras spent most of the night. They must like green, because they choose Betty once again.

Since I drive right past the camera, I'm pretty sure you'll see Betty in the movie. As usual, we do several takes. On the last one, I hear the director call for background action, and I see the other extras walking down the sidewalk. The crew member who normally tells me when to go misses his cue, so I'm late, and I step on it. With the pavement still wet from the fake rainstorm, Betty peels out, but it's a good take anyway.

Return to the top.

PORTLAND, Oregon -- Although I didn't have time for another overnight shoot during the week, Samantha has Fridays off, so she volunteered to take Betty to Portland for filming in a northeast Portland neighborhood. One of the houses is where the main character is supposed to live, so they need to film several establishing shots with vintage cars parked along the street.

I had been trying to fix a rattling hubcap with several loose spokes, but it committed suicide on the drive to Portland. Samantha didn't hear it and was mortified to discover it missing when she arrived on the set and one of the crew pointed it out. Fortunately, I had a spare hubcap on the spare tire in the trunk, so Betty didn't look tacky while they were filming. I also found a replacement on eBay without too much trouble and at a decent price, too.

As was the case before, the shooting took a while. Samantha arrived in Portland at 8:30 p.m. and got back home around 4 a.m. One of the biggest delays was finding the owner of a late model Jeep Grand Cherokee that had managed to park right in the middle of where they needed to shoot.

Return to the top.

Links

There is a little bit of information on "Nearing Grace" on the Internet Movie Database. It's based on the novel "Nearing's Grace." The book was published in 1979, and it's less than 200 pages. It's out of print, but you can find used copies on Amazon. I got one for $10, ironically a discarded book from the Phoenix Public Library). Stories about the movie have also appeared in several local news outlets, as the state offered the producers incentives to film the movie in Oregon (even though it's set in New Jersey). You can download the stories in an Acrobat .pdf format below:

The movie will probably be released sometime late next summer; depending on how well it does there, we should see it on DVD a few months after that.

It's been interesting and fun, but not something I'd want to do every day. I've gotten lots of compliments for Betty and have enjoyed talking about cars with some of the other extras who brought theirs.

Return to the top.