6/8/2011
Feature movie ‘Trust Me’
‘Scene’ around area
Director films in native NEPA
jandes@timesleader.com

Bob Heim barely recognized the inside of his Wilkes-Barre duplex Tuesday, after a film crew transformed it into a messy apartment.
Heim’s South Franklin Street residence became the home of Charlie, the lead character in an upcoming feature film, “Trust Me,” written and directed by West Hazleton native Chris Fetchko.
Most of Heim’s furniture was temporarily hauled out and swapped with thrift store finds. The character Charlie was downtrodden in the scene shot Monday morning, so junk food wrappings and other debris were scattered about the place.
“It’s amazing to watch,” said Heim, 75, a well-known local artist. “I had no idea of the amount of people involved in making a film.”
Scenes will also be filmed during the two weeks or so at several area locations, including the Mohegan Sun Casino at Pocono Downs in Plains Township, Cooper’s Seafood House in Pittston and PNC Bank in Mountain Top, said Marina Donahue, the film’s co-writer and co-producer.
Donahue said the Wilkes-Barre filming locations will include the River Common, the Gallery of Sound, the Place One women’s clothing store, Quad Three Group Inc., the Little Theatre, the Stegmaier Mansion and Bell Home Furnishings Inc.
Filming also will take place at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster, she said. Crews will edit the film during the summer with the goal of completing a rough cut by September for consideration in the Sundance Film Festival, said Donahue, of Summit, N.J.
Fetchko scouted the area and knocked on doors looking for prospective filming locations that had the necessary physical characteristics, Donahue said.
Fetchko, who now lives in Mountain Top, said during a brief conversation Monday that he wanted to highlight Northeastern Pennsylvania.
“Setting it in the area was a no-brainer for me,” he said.
Plot inspired by director’s life
His film career started in 1998 when he co-wrote and produced “Everything’s Jake,” a film about two homeless men in New York City that was released by Warner Brothers in 2007. He also produced the feature film, “Eavesdrop,” which was written and directed by Matthew Miele and released by Shoreline Entertainment in 2010.
The plot of “Trust Me” was largely inspired by Fetchko’s decision to leave a stable accounting career to manage a rock band, his experience managing The Badlees and a past choice to put his work over a relationship with a woman he loved, according to his online blog about the movie.
The film tells the story of Charlie, who quits a high-paying job on Wall Street to manage a struggling rock band. Charlie’s battle to balance ambition and love “spirals into a romantic, financial, and emotional tailspin, culminating in a last-ditch effort to put on the most unique rock concert of all time,” said a movie description released by Fetchko.
New York City actor Sean Modica has been cast as Charlie. Actress Lynn Cohen, who played Miranda’s housekeeper on the HBO series “Sex and the City,” is Charlie’s nosy yet concerned neighbor, Mrs. Joshman.
In the scene filmed Tuesday, Mrs. Joshman burst into Charlie’s apartment and pushed him to get off the couch and face his problems.
Cohen hung out on the sidewalk in front of Heim’s home between shoots, dressed in a housedress she had to wear in that scene. Modica also walked around in a frayed, stained sweatshirt, with unkempt hair and a beard.
The scene will be shown toward the end of the movie, but it had to be filmed first because Modica had to grow a beard that was to be shaved Tuesday afternoon for the rest of filming, Donahue said.
Fetchko said he will release the names of all actors and musicians featured in the film at a later date, though he noted that area resident David DeCosmo, who has worked in local television, has been cast as Charlie’s father.
Bon Jovi engineer helps film
Music will be an instrumental part of the film, and Bon Jovi’s sound engineer, Obie O’Brien, will supervise the film’s music, live recordings and soundtrack, said Donahue.
“He’s a huge catch,” Donahue said. “We have incredible music in this film.”
In the scene to be filmed at the River Common, Charlie and his girlfriend will stroll through the park along the Susquehanna River and encounter an animal adoption area, Donahue said. Charlie’s supportive girlfriend will cuddle a puppy she wants to take home, but he keeps walking, oblivious.
“He’s so wrapped up in his work that he tends not to pay attention to what is important, which is his girlfriend,” Donahue said.
The scene at Place One will focus on the girlfriend, an aspiring fashion designer who initially shelves her dreams to bolster Charlie. Place One will become the girlfriend’s movie workplace, where she sketches her own designs when she’s not busy selling prom gowns, Donahue said.
A crew of roughly 80 is involved in the filming, from camera operators and sound experts to wardrobe and art people, Donahue said.
Interns manned the perimeter of the set Tuesday to make sure passersby did not get too noisy or pass into the camera view.
Ryan Hertel, who graduated from Dallas High School last week, said he volunteered to work as an intern without pay because getting involved in a movie would be interesting and stand out on his resume. He met movie crew members from New York and Los Angeles on set Tuesday.
“This is really cool. There are some really talented people here,” Hertel said.
Heim was in his glory mingling with the crew Tuesday. Donahue said he will get a role because he’s “very, very sweet” and “a bit of a darling of the crew.”
The film’s set designers repainted a second-floor bedroom of his home gray for a scene. He rejected their offer to return the room to its original appearance when filming is over, saying he wants it to stay the way it looked in the film. He said his house might be part of a tour someday if the film takes off.
“I plan on becoming more obnoxious than I was before, if that’s possible,” he jokingly said, feigning celebrity status.