Pages

Friday, October 24, 2014

Rockaway and Broad Channel have become popular cinematic backdrops


New Film Shoots In Rockaway

By Dan Guarino

As Rockaway business owners and pedestrians look on, production crew members set up to shoot the new movie, Freeheld, at the Waterview Care Car garage and the Wave gas station. As Rockaway business owners and pedestrians look on, production crew members set up to shoot the new movie, Freeheld, at the Waterview Care Car garage and the Wave gas station.Rockaway and Broad Channel have become popular cinematic backdrops for everything from movies to commercials to cable and network television shows.
The latest entry is Freeheld, a feature film which has been shooting in and around Beach 102nd StreetRockaway Beach Boulevard and Beach Channel Drive and other locations.
On Monday, Oct. 13, a small platoon of production crew members, hefty miles of cables and scores of lights out of a dozen large trucks, turned the Waterview Car Care garage into a movie set. They started early in the morning and could be seen well after nightfall, continuing the shoot in the rain.
Freeheld dramatizes the true story of 23 year veteran New Jersey detective Laurel Hester. Diagnosed with rapidly spreading terminal cancer, Hester sought to pass her pension benefits to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree.

Photos by Dan Guarino Photos by Dan GuarinoAlthough this option was available to heterosexual spouses, in 2005, the Board the Chosen Freeholders of Ocean Countyturned down this request,
Hester and Andree’s struggles and the national issues that it raised became the subject of an award winning 2007 documentary titled Freeheld.
The current film, which takes the same name, stars Julianne Moore as Hester, Ellen Page as Andree and also features Steve Carrell.
Both Moore and Page have been spotted filming in the Rockaways.
Renee Radenberg, who lives on Beach 102nd Street, said “They used my house, well, the front of my house (for the shoot). They filmed them walking down the drive between my house and my neighbor.”
Radenberg related that the movie’s location scout “said they specifically wanted to film in Rockawaybecause of Sandy. They wanted to support the community and create jobs for people here.”
A release date for Freeheld has not yet been announced.
To date the area has stood for New Jersey locales for at least two productions. Rockaway has portrayed various parts of Prohibition-era Atlantic City for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Broad Channel, featured in early episodes of the same series, also became Ocean City, New Jersey for the comedy Girl Most Likely,released in 2013.

No comments:

Post a Comment