VALLEY RECORD SNOQUALMIE
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013 DAILY UPDATES AT WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM 75 CENTS
Mayor, council to re-up, clean up firing range
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Cemetery Club brings the laughs, tears at Center Stage Page 8
City looks at special town meeting, new fireworks rules BY SETH TRUSCOTT Carol Ladwig/Staff Photo
It had to be a faith community that opened the Valley’s first winter shelter for the homeless. Only a church could organize quickly enough, generate donations and recruit volunteers to open its doors while it still mattered.
Snoqualmie Mayor Matt Larson ended speculation last Monday on whether he will seek a third term. “It’s been an honor for the past seven years to serve with such a fine group of people, the staff and this council,” Larson MATT LARSON said at the Snoqualmie close of the Mayor Februar y 25 council meeting. “If the citizens of Snoqualmie allow me, I’d like to throw my hat in for another four years.” Larson was unopposed in 2009. In 2005, he beat James Harrelson, 55 percent to 43 percent, at the polls. His announcement prompted the rest of the council to declare their intentions, and like Larson, all those due to re-run this fall choose to do so.
SEE SHELTER, 15
SEE COUNCIL, 3
Cast and crew members from “Lucky Them” exit the Mount Si Pub for another take of a scene that begins in the car outside. The film crew spent most of a day filming at North Bend’s Mount Si Pub, in a story tracking Toni Collette’s character throughout the area.
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Lights, camera, action
Where’d you get that plant? Seed exchange helps gardeners get new ideas Page 2
INDEX OPINION 4 5 ON THE SCANNER 7 CALENDAR 8 PUZZLES BEST OF CONTEST 9 11-14 CLASSIFIEDS
Vol. 99, No. 41
Actors keep dropping into North Bend, Carnation for independent films BY CAROL LADWIG Staff Reporter
“Is this a movie movie, or is this a monster movie?” That was a logical question in Carnation, which last year was the setting for the Syfy Channel’s made-for-TV movie
“Bigfoot,” and Becca Hall, who teaches a children’s writing class in Carnation, was probably asking for a lot of residents. “Lucky Them,” the movie in question, is an independent film directed by Seattle writer/director/producer Megan Griffiths (“Off Hours,” “Eden”), and starring Toni Collette (“Little Miss Sunshine,” “United States of Tara”) and Thomas Haden Church (“Sideways,” “Wings”). SEE MOVIES, 2
A season of shelter
Carol Ladwig/Staff Photo
Valley Winter Shelter supervisor Linda Beckvold laughs at the teasing she gets when she brings out the night’s chores list. One of the requirements for staying at the shelter is that guests help take care of the facility.
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MOVIES FROM 1
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Jerusalem artichoke in hand, Duvall gardener Jamie Roberts considers a box of the tubers, which includes another type of seed that resembles a large grub.
The virtues of a simple seed Gardeners exchange wisdom in Fall City They came for practical reasons, and for political ones, and they came by the dozens. Fall City’s old Masonic Hall was crowded with gardeners Saturday, Feb. 23, during Transition Snoqualmie Valley’s third annual seed exchange, picking up seeds and advice from other local gardeners. Jaymie Blatt of North Bend, a two-time participant this year, came prepared with her own seed bags and a permanent marker for labeling. Carey Thornton, a Tilth employee and Seattle resident, was there as a gardener first, but couldn’t stop herself from extolling the virtues of a three-foot, curving Tromboncino squash. SEE SEEDS, 10
Unconfirmed Facebook posts last week also suggested an appearance by Johnny Depp of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Alice in Wonderland” fame. No monsters, no low-budget effects. A movie movie. “This is just really exciting,” said Carnation businesswoman Lee Grumman, who helped the film crew arrange for Carnation filming sites. “It was pretty cool, actually,” agreed Rob Sherard, owner of the Mount Si Pub in North Bend. His log-cabin bar was the setting for several scenes of the movie, and he was there for filming, Feb. 6. “They started at 5-something in the morning!” he groaned, but he enjoyed the experience of watching the movie get made, with the added bonus of great food from the catering truck, and the opportunity of, some day, seeing his own bar in the movies. Mostly his bar, anyway. “If anybody’s been in here, they’ll definitely know this is the place,” Sherard said, but the film crew spent about two days before filming redecorating the bar to fit the script’s “logger bar” description. Animal heads, a bear skin and stuffed raccoons were added, plus lots and lots of signed dollar bills. “There are dollar bills all over our walls and ceilings, and they loved ‘em,” said Sherard. “They made a whole bunch more. Of course they weren’t real.” Only one thing about the bar couldn’t be changed, Sherard said, the name. “That was pretty big with me,”
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Sherard said, “as long as I get to keep my name.” As planned, most of the Valley locations you’ll eventually see in the movie—residential Carnation, roads in Snoqualmie, and the Mount Si Pub—will get to keep their names. “This will be the Mount Si Pub,” said location manager Dave Drummond during filming outside the North Bend bar on a rare sunny day. “Everywhere in this movie is essentially playing itself.” The movie follows Collette, a rock journalist on assignment, and Church, an eccentric former fling of hers, as they attempt to track down her old boyfriend, a rock star who vanished into the Pacific Northwest and obscurity 10 years ago. It was originally set in New York, where the writers, Huck Botko and Emily Wachtel, and the production company Mymy Productions, are based, but several factors made the transition to Washington an easy decision to make, said Adam Gibbs, a producer with “Lucky Them.” It started when writer Wachtel asked her friend Colin Trevorrow (“Safety Not Guaranteed”) to direct the film. He was working on another project, but suggested Griffiths, also a Seattleite. Along with Griffiths came much of her crew from her past two films, including Drummond, an expert on Washington locations, and the location manager for last summer’s “You Can’t Win” shot in Snoqualmie and North Bend. “The story seemed to make sense up here, and the city (Seattle) is so film-friendly,” said Gibbs, so the script was rewritten for a Seattle setting. Washington Filmworks, a non-profit organization devoted to supporting film productions statewide, helped make the state an attractive shooting location by subsidizing up to 30 percent of the movie’s locally-incurred costs. The Snoqualmie Valley, at about 30 miles from Seattle, is also perfectly spaced for production rules limiting work to within a 30-mile radius of a production hub. “It’s called the zone,” explained Drummond, and it means that the film can take advantage of “these beautiful rural settings,” and the spectacular view of Mount Si — “that’s a value for sure,” Drummond says — without incurring additional travel expenses for cast and crew. The distinctive red Mount Si Pub was just inside the zone and, of the handful of Valley businesses Drummond scouted for the bar scenes, had the right look, Drummond said. Sherard had owned the bar for only two months when Drummond contacted him about using the building for the film, last December. He said he didn’t mind closing the bar
Star sighting Johnny Depp joins roster of celebrity actors to stop in small town of Carnation Keep your binoculars when you visit Carnation these days. The little city on the Snoqualmie and Tolt Rivers, population 1,905, seems to be ground zero for spectacular sightings. Last week, the Internet was abuzz with news of movie star Johnny Depp (Captain Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series) being spotted in Carnation and later at the Salish Lodge on Snoqualmie Falls. Before that, there were stars Toni Collette and Thomas Haden Church, filming scenes for the just-finished-filming “Lucky Them,” (see Movie, p. 1) and before that, Michael Pitt (Boardwalk Empire) and company were seen filming the hobo story “You Can’t Win” soon to be released. And who can forget January, 2012, when Bigfoot was in Carnation? Officially, only the first three sightings actually happened—Bigfoot was created later in the Syfy studios with special effects, so it only looked like he was there. Several movies have used Carnation, and other parts of the Valley, for filming locations. “Lucky Them,” for example, has scenes in Carnation, Snoqualmie and North Bend. Johnny Depp’s appearance, however, is a lot like a Bigfoot sighting. Several people have confirmed seeing Depp in Carnation, although most of the Internet posts with photos of him there have been removed over the past week. There has been speculation that he’s associated with the movie “Lucky Them,” but production staff cannot confirm that. Little about Depp’s visit can be verified. He was in Carnation on Monday, Feb. 25, the same day that two off-duty Mercer Island Police Officers came to the city to help with traffic control for the movie being filmed there. The officers were there through a joint partnership, the Coalition of Small Police Agencies, which includes Carnation and Snoqualmie. The officers were not there because of Johnny Depp, said Mercer Island Police Sergeant Brian Noel, who said the officers on traffic duty asked him to speak for them. In fact, the officers were unaware that Depp was in Carnation for most of the day. They did see him near the end of their almost eight-hour shift closing intersections along Tolt Avenue, which is also S.R. 203. The rumor mill also revealed that Depp stayed at the Salish Lodge, and several websites, including www.seattlemet.com, provided details about who he dined with and what he ordered. It’s not clear where this information came from, however. Salish Lodge General Manager Rod Lapasin said Salish staff do not discuss who does or doesn’t stay at the hotel, for privacy considerations. down for a half day, considering it an investment in the future. However, he was glad the company paid him for the space, enough to compensate his bartender for her lost hours for the day. He also enjoyed watching the movie being made, although he didn’t try to talk with the stars. “I just said ‘hi.’ I didn’t want to be the star-struck weirdo,” he said. “They had stalkers… there were people parked across the street, trying to get autographs.” He was impressed with the professionalism of the crew, he
“They had stalkers...There were people across the street, trying to get autographs.”
Rob Sherard, Mount Si Pub owner said, but a couple of things about the day were baffling to him. One was “rolling.” “Every time they said ‘rolling,’ you had to shut up and not move,” he said, “even in the parking lot.” He also was surprised at what it took for anything to happen in the movie, including the final scene, being filmed as pool
league players started showing up for their 7 p.m. matches. In the scene, an actress closes down the empty bar and walks out the door. “It was only once, but she had to do it five or six times,” he said. Getting out of the bar turned out to be tricky, too. “You know we have multiple doorknobs on our door inside,” Sherard said, “and we got ‘em a couple of times with that.” Church especially seemed to struggle with finding the knob that actually opened the door, he said. “They could have marked the doorknob for the poor guy,” Sherard said. Filming wrapped up on the movie Thursday, Feb. 28, with a final day of shooting in Tacoma. The movie travelled throughout the Seattle area, including Capitol Hill, West Seattle, and Fremont. When it’s through production, producers hope the movie will travel further, to the Toronto and Sundance Film Festivals, where a major studio could pick it up. Because it’s an independent film, Gibbs said, there’s no guarantee it will be distributed widely, but many on the crew are optimistic. Drummond says, “I believe you’re going to see it in theaters.”