Rushaway Pictures is shooting scenes for its feature film, Virginia, Minnesota along the North Shore. The production company has been in Grand Marais all week, filming at World’s Best Donuts, on the Grand Marais waterfront, on Wisconsin Street and here, on the rooftop of the GunFlint Tavern. Microphone boom operator Christian Cole and script supervisor Andrew Bjorklund look at the next scene to determine how wide the shot will be.
The city of Grand Marais got an inside look at the making of a movie this week as several businesses and part of a downtown street became sets for scenes in Virginia, Minnesota, a production of Rushaway Pictures.
On Tuesday, September 13, the action was at the GunFlint Tavern. The rooftop overlooking the harbor, normally quiet after the lunch rush, was bustling with people stringing cables, monitoring computers, setting up lights, rearranging tables and chairs, reading lines, fixing makeup and shooting the same conversation over and over, from different angles.
In between calls for quiet on the set, the Cook County News-Herald visited with Mike Stine, president of Rushaway Pictures, to ask if Grand Marais was treating the film company well. “Great as always,” grinned Stine, who noted that this was the third time he had been to the North Shore to scout locations. “It’s a film friendly place for sure. The businesses just roll out the red carpet for us.”
Stine said there are about 30 people on the crew, with about a dozen from Minnesota, including brothers Brandon and Christian Cole of Grand Marais. Other crew members came from California, South Carolina, Texas, Massachusetts, and the director of photography is Pedro Ciampolini from Brazil.
Other members of the movie company are Stine’s wife, Helen and his son, Daniel, an award-winning producer of three short films. Daniel wrote Virginia, Minnesota and on this afternoon was directing the scene between troubled childhood friends Addison and Lyle, played by Aurora Perrineau and Rachel Hendrix. Stine said the women are up-and-coming actresses.
Mike Stine said his son is the one who decided it should be filmed on Minnesota’s North Shore. After a trip to California about a year and a half ago, Daniel made the trip back to the East Coast via the “north route,” serendipitously traveling through Grand Portage and Grand Marais. “He was inspired by the location,” said Mike Stine. “He had the rough idea for the story and built it around the locations on the North Shore.”
In Grand Marais scenes are being filmed at World’s Best Donuts, at the Tavern, and on Wisconsin Street. Wisconsin Street sports an event banner for a fictional festival “North Shore Legends.” The festival scene is one of the last to be shot in Grand Marais and the street will be filled with extras—residents and visitors who want to be part of a movie crowd scene. Shooting in Grand Marais should wrap up on Monday, September 19.
The film company will head down the North Shore to shoot in Silver Bay at Split Rock Lighthouse and aboard the MV Wenonah, renamed the Johnny Darter for the movie. Scenes will be shot at several Duluth landmarks before things are wrapped up in early October for post-production.
Mike Stine said the company will have 15-20 hours of raw footage to edit, starting with video, then sound, then adding the soundtrack, which he said will feature a number of Indy musicians such as singer/songwriter Leslie Sanazaro from St. Louis, who performed her moving These Things Do Not Define You on the roof of the GunFlint Tavern.
The film should be ready for viewing in February 2017 and Rushaway Pictures will enter it in film festivals. Stine said it is hoped that Virginia, Minnesota attracts a major motion picture company such as Sony Pictures or Lions Gate.
That would help finance another of the three feature films Rushaway Pictures has in the queue. One, a “B&B thriller” already won Daniel Stine an award for screenplay. “We’d love to come back in a year or so to film that one,” said Mike Stine.
Asked if there is any chance the movie will be shown here in Cook County, Stine said perhaps. “It’s a way of thanking the people who helped us,” he said, again with a smile. “And we’d love to have another opportunity to come back.”
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