NEWS
"The Majestic" gets its sign
08 Mar 2001 Things are becoming more and more exciting at "The Majestic" homestead. With another fully detailed description of this week's happenings, JCO's Ferndale correspondent brings us closer to the fascinating process of movie-making:
�Ferndale California is a little town founded in 1852 in the heart of California's spectacular redwood empire: all around us are vast old growth forests, wilderness mountains, and wild rivers. The Pacific Ocean is about four miles west. Much of the downtown area still has its original 19th century buildings intact: Its a great place to make a movie---in fact several movies have been filmed here including Salem's Lot, A Death in Canaan, Outbreak, and many commercials.
There was a big party hosted by the film crew and workers from Los Angeles for everybody from Ferndale: it was a get acquainted evening, since they'll be here filming for awhile--all I kept hearing was that it was a big success, everybody had a good time, and there was a large amount of food that just kept coming...
This week the set dressers arrived to start dressing the shop windows on Main Street with 1951-period goods for sale: Nilsen's Hardware has a pyramid of old fashioned paint cans. 'Valley Arts' front window has been transformed into a tailoring shop complete with sewing machines, signs, and a green elf display figure; awnings are going up all along Main Street shop windows, striped and aged to look as if they've been in place for a long time. A couple of the set dressers worked on Outbreak here in 1994 and they are back with us again like old friends.
The Victorian style street lamps are now operational, spangling Main Street with big glowing pearly jewelry at night.
The California Department of Transportation came by this week and carefully removed the regulation yellow stripes from the middle of the street for several blocks, replacing them with a single white stripe, as it would have been in 1951.
Huge cut trees have been moved into place around the 'Town Hall' set, in preparation for turning the area into a park for the movie.
I guess the most exciting thing this week: the raising of the sign into place on the front of the theatre set: Ferndale police helped to block off part of Main Street while a big arch went up first, studded with small lamps, followed by the tall sign with the word 'MAJESTIC' spelled out vertically, spearing the sky, flanked by those carved figures. People came from all over to watch the crane lifting this thing into the air, including me, taking a lot of pictures. It was quite an event.
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors figures its a long shot: but they have sent a letter to the production company asking if the premiere of 'The Majestic' can be held in Humboldt County (Ferndale does not have an operational movie theatre of its own, so any premiere would probably be in Eureka, the county seat)---it might be unlikely, they said on the local TV news, but they figured they'd try.
No sighting of famous faces yet: but it won't be long.�
-- With a very big Spank You to our Ferndale reporter for the "Majestic" update. Click to comment this article.
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