Movie Magic Returns

Actors Erin Cahill and Martin Kove cook up some chicken and waffles in a scene from “A Taste of Love,” filmed around Dunedin in July.

After a year of silence, the film industry returns to Pinellas County

BY MARCIA BIGGS

It’s a late July morning and the heat and humidity in Tampa Bay is reaching “Excruciating” on the comfort scale, but it’s all smiles on the set of “A Taste of Love,” a full-length feature movie being filmed at the rooftop bar of the Fenway Hotel in Dunedin. The scene being shot might be Jordan’s 35th birthday party, but the astounding view is the real scene stealer — billowing clouds floating in a bluebird sky over picture-postcard Caladesi Island, seagulls swooping down to take a peek.

Watching the action unfold is Tony Armer who helms the St. Petersburg Clearwater Film Commission. Armer is one happy camper lately. When the three weeks of filming for “A Taste of Love” wraps in Dunedin, the same production crew heads to St. Petersburg for another three weeks of shooting a Hallmark movie.

The action is finally picking up for the film commission after a year and a half when the film industry came to a screeching halt thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Last week I was scouting locations for a film and by the end of this year will have done scouting for four different movies,” Armer says. “There’s a flood of interest now.”

That’s good news for Pinellas County. Since Florida lacks a film incentive program, the St. Pete Clearwater Film Commission smartly devised a cash rebate incentive in 2005. The program, which has helped more than 1,800 production companies, pays up to 10% on qualified expenditures in Pinellas County’s 24 municipalities.

The impact of producing films and commercials gives a boost to the local economy as film crews come and spend money on everything from lodging and food to truck and equipment rentals. Electrical, video and audio professionals get hired, as do local hair and makeup artists. “A Taste of Love” is expected to spend $1.5 million locally, says Armer, and the Hallmark movie is expected to spend some $2 million.

Directors monitor the scenes shot on Clearwater Beach during shooting of “A Taste of Love.”

Photos by Rod Millington

And the attention that filming here brings, from the sparkling (usually) beaches of Clearwater to the charming historic neighborhoods of St. Petersburg, serves as a tourism calling card, an invitation to “come on down, we’re open for business.”

Lincoln Lageson, a movie veteran and co-producer from Los Angeles, is here for his second film in the area. In “A Taste of Love,” he says, all locations are keeping their names, Dunedin is Dunedin and St. Pete is St. Pete, which offers buzz to these destinations once the movie is released. “Lots of times you go to places and you have to make them look like someplace else,” he explains. “In this movie and the next one in St. Pete, we get to embrace the locations and their character. They essentially have starring roles equal to any actor.”

Despite the uptick in the delta variant, “things are really busy in Florida,” says Todd Yonteck, executive producer and founder of Digital Caviar, the independent Tampa Bay film production company that wrote, produced and directed “A Taste of Love.” But creating a safe environment for everyone involved on set, including dozens of extras each day, has been extensive, adding to staff, time schedules and costs.

Filming a scene from the movie at the rooftop bar at the Fenway Hotel in Dunedin.

“All the guilds came together to form a protocol for filming,” he explains. “It divided actors into groups, with swab tests three times a week for everyone, masks mandatory. Twelve-hour days are typical, but the covid testing process took up to several hours.” (Even this reporter was required to undergo covid testing).

Flash forward three weeks and the production crew is at it again, this time filming in and around St. Petersburg. Both “A Taste of Love” and the Hallmark movie (tentatively named “South Beach Love”) have similar storylines – family, food and romance. Both are feelgood movies centered on young chefs who reconnect with family and cook up unexpected romance.

The Hallmark Network seems to be taking a shining to St. Pete and local environs. “True Love Blooms” was the first movie the network made locally in February 2019, followed by “Love in the Sun” in April 2019. Other Hollywood movies filmed here (pre-pandemic) include “Zola” (2018 but released this year), “Shark Season” (2020), “Fear of Rain” (2019), and the highly popular “Dolphin Tale” and “Dolphin Tale 2” (2010,2014).

It appears our “Day in the Sun” (pun intended) has arrived once again.

Working on set at the Fenway Hotel in Dunedin, from left, executive producer Todd Yonteck, director/writer Conrad De La Torres and Michael Brown, producer Elayne Schneiderman Schmidt, director of photography Mike May, producer Lincoln Lageson, and film commissioner Tony Armer.