By KAREN LEE ZINER and G. WAYNE MILLER
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writers

NEWPORT -- As raw sleet iced the air and trucks spread tons of crushed gravel to camouflage streets and sidewalks, the 19th and 20th centuries crashed into one another during final set-dressing for Steven Spielberg's major motion picture, Amistad.

Beneath a huge wooden sign advertising "Nicholas B. Lundy Hat Emporium" - shoppers could still purchase "The Ultimate Beeper" at a bargain $39.95, as well as pagers, cell phones and faxes.

The beeper signs and others welcoming major credit cards "will all be covered," said Tom Walden, a film and television designer from Providence, as he loaded produce into period bins and barrels at the fictional "Horn Butcher, Drovers' Market."

As set-dressing reached the 11th hour yesterday before today's opening shoot, Walden and a co-worker carefully but hurriedly tossed lemons, pineapples and root vegetables into pretty piles for their film debut.

They hung a turtle shell, and stuffed pheasants and ducks on racks.

"What are we going to do with the corn? That's a nice color," said Walden. "We could probably get a lot of yardage out of that."

A hectic buzz, punctuated by warning beeps of heavy equipment, filled Washington Square. Shutterbugs took pictures of DreamWorks crew members slogging through an artificial underfooting that resembled soggy cinders.

Barring unforeseen circumstance, director, producer, actors, extras, best boy, key grip, propmasters and others were to all assemble as shooting -commenced sometime around 7 this morning.

AMISTAD is the story of 53 Africans who were kidnapped in 1839 by men who intended to sell them as slaves in America. Following a mutiny, the Africans took control of the ship but were captured off the Connecticut coast and charged with murder and piracy. They became the center of a national abolitionist controversy, and their freedom was finally won in a long legal battle joined by former President John Quincy Adams.

Amistad is the first feature film to be produced by DreamWorks SKG, the studio Spielberg co-founded in 1994 with ex-Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg and record mogul David Geffen.

The film's stars include Academy Award-winner Anthony Hopkins, Oscar- nominee Morgan Freeman, Tony Award-winner Nigel Hawthorne, Matthew McConaughey, Pete Postlethwaite and Djimon Honsou.

Filming will continue into early April in Rhode Island and nearby Connecticut.

Principal photography began Feb. 18 at Universal Studios in California, where Spielberg's old production company, Amblin Entertainment, is based. Other scenes will be shot in the Caribbean.

Spielberg began looking at New England last fall while filming The Lost World, sequel to his 1993 box-office smash, Jurassic Park.

By January, advance teams scouted locations and Spielberg himself visited Rhode Island, which boasts historic architecture and hospitality.

Scenes for several Hollywood movies have been filmed in recent years in the state, whose merits have been aggressively marketed by Rick Smith, director of the Film and TV Office of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation.

The Amistad film crew - 175 men and women - assembled here several weeks ago and immediately began building sets, gathering props, preparing costumes, and casting hundreds of extras.

Spielberg, whose Long Island summer home is but a helicopter hop away, was expected to arrive in Newport yesterday afternoon.

Film crews will also shoot scenes at the State House in Providence; Bristol's Mount Hope Farm (a private residence), and Mystic Seaport, the popular maritime museum in Mystic, Conn.

Although interior sets will remain closed, the public should be able to at least view exterior shooting - from a distance - at most locations.

"HEY RICK . . . can you find us 100 people with really bad teeth and long straggly hair?" How about five trained mutts? Or antique carriages? (From Connecticut). Or antique nails? (from Newport).

Those are the types of details that Smith, the fellow who landed this film for Rhode Island, has fretted over during endless, seven-day work weeks.

He ran both casting calls for extras, which drew a total of nearly 9,000.

Smith says he doesn't mind the workload. Or the tension.

"In the end, we beat out Annapolis, and Philadelphia, with our service, and our attention to detail, and our architecture."

As he paused over pastry Monday at an Ocean Coffee Roasters, Smith glanced toward the bustle in Washington Square. "It's hard to believe we're gonna have a major, major film out that door in less than forty-eight hours."

FILMING STARTS this morning inside the Colony House in Washington Square, where DreamWorks provided a $50,000 or so historically accurate restoration.

(That's roughly equal to the cost of gravel being dumped and raked over Washington Square, according to Chris Mello, whose father owns the company in charge of that task).

Art director Tony Fanning said that the Colony House, now off-limits, was being "dressed" top to bottom with benches, shutters and other props.

As Fanning scurried away for consultations in the nasty sleet, elsewhere in Washington Square, crew members tossed bags and bags of leaves around bushes and lawn edges.

Electrical equipment - spud adaptors, baby and junior offsets, 220/110 snake bitesand the like-sat protected under an "E-Z Up" instant shelter and doubly protected by blue tarp.

Tomorrow's shoot is scheduled for outside the building, when 300 or so extras will crowd the square as the Amistad "mutineers" are led into the courthouse.

Several blocks away, construction crews were putting finishing touches on a wood and fiberglass "jailhouse" whose facade convincingly resembled brick.

"I think it's exciting," said Maggie Gillis, of the Art Barn, in Newport. "I wish I could be in the movie."

Back to: Amistad page Printer-Friendly Version Read/Post to our Bulletin Board on this topic