2011 - Busy Moviemaking Year and More to Come!

I haven't posted here much this year, due more to having a very busy volunteer project.  Did a little extra work on Steel Town (later renamed Still I Rise), and was one of about 10,000 free extras who sat in Heinz Field for a Saturday for stadium crowd scenes for The Dark Knight Rises.  It looked like Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt briefly visited the set, but Tom Hardy was there long enough for a general introduction.  Sadly, I was out of my seat and looking for some water at that point, so I missed Hardy completely.

The next Tom Cruise movie, One Shot, will be filmed here this fall.  Rosamund Pike (An Education) and David Oyelowo (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) will co-star.

Last year, I complained a little that while I'm glad more movies are being shot in the Pittsburgh area, I wished a better quality of movie was filmed here.  That just might have happened.  While Warrior, shot here in 2009, has been a slow-starter at the box office, it's a very good movie, a darker version of last year's The Fighter.  Excellent performances by Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy and Nick Nolte.  If you haven't seen Warrior, go see it even if you don't care for fight movies.

And, Abduction, shot here in the summer of 2010 with some reshoots in May 2011, has been getting lots of TV commercials and trailers.  The trailer makes it look quite compelling.

Busy Moviemaking Season Returns to Pittsburgh

For the last few years, spring and summer have been the busy times for movie shoots in the Pittsburgh region. This year has been no exception.

The big local movies here this spring include:

• Abduction - the Taylor Lautner movie, mostly shot here last summer, but returned for several days of reshoots in early May.
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower - the Emma Watson movie, written and directed by a Pittsburgh native, has been here for about a month and will continue to shoot in June
• Steel Town (formerly Still I Rise) - the Viola Davis/Maggie Gyllenhaal movie about educational controversies, will be shooting throughout June.

Steel Town is actively recruiting extras, especially kids. There are many classroom scenes, and many scenes of parents/community rallying to help support change coming to the school.

Much of a shooting day involves waiting around, so kids must be able to quietly amuse themselves, and must be able to take direction while on set. I'm honestly not sure what the pay rate is for kids, but they cannot
work as many hours as adults. Tips for Surviving as an Extra (applies to kids as well as to adults!).

To apply, E-mail name, phone number, photo and age to fourthrivercasting@yahoo.com

But, what many of us are particularly looking forward to is The Dark Knight Rises, AKA Batman. Directed by Christopher Nolan, it'll be one of the biggest movies ever shot in Pittsburgh. The 'burgh is only one stop on its international shooting tour, but I think it's going to be in Pittsburgh longer than anywhere else.