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‘Down time’
Filming on Oahu is a treat
for the young actors of the
castaway show "29 Down"
In a remote valley on Oahu's North Shore, several men haul a 10-by-10 canopy mounted on four posts up a mud-caked hill to where "29 Down" director D.J. MacHale will sit. The odd thing is that two of the four men schlepping the unwieldy sunshade are MacHale and producer Rann Watumull.
"Everyone chips in on this production," MacHale says later. "It's a matter of necessity. It was something we all agreed on before we started filming (in January.)"
The Discovery Channel kid castaway drama is in its 11th week of filming 13 episodes, all of it in the Mokuleia and Waialua area, and all outdoors. The half-hour series, which will also air on NBC, finishes filming late this month and will premiere in August or September.
On this picture postcard day at Bob Cherry's rambling Flying R Ranch, cast members Lauren Storm, Hallee Hirsh, Johnny Pacar, Jeremy James Kissner, Kristy Wu and Corbin Bleu enact a scene in which they've ventured into the jungle in search of food and discover traces of other people on the island. Eventually they find Abby (Tani Lynn Fujimoto), one of three other kids who ventured off early in the series to search for help on the South Pacific island where their plane crashed.
Unlike "Lost," with its fleet of trailers for its 14-member cast, the "29 Down" crew sets up shaded areas and beach chairs for the stars to rest in between scenes. And the show's budget is $350,000 per episode, compared with an estimated $2.5 million an episode for "Lost."
Staying on budget has required discipline and creative thinking.
Recent heavy rains threatened to wash out an interior tent scene, so the crew relocated the tent inside the much larger lunch tent for filming.
"29 Down" is produced by co-creator Stan Rogow, writer/director MacHale and Hawaii Film Partners, co-founded by Watumull and his wife, Gina.
Watumull has brought most of the 10 ACT 221 investors for the production to the set to spend time with the actors and MacHale and to watch the filming. Investments ranged from about $30,000 to several hundred thousand dollars. Names of investors are confidential.
Hawaii Film Partners "has already sold the series internationally, so our investors are going to start getting a return on their investments before the end of the year," Watumull promised.
Key to the production's efficiency has been preparation. MacHale and Rogow wrote all 13 scripts before cameras began rolling.
"Knowing where we have to be days in advance and what we're going to shoot saves time, money and frustration," says MacHale, also a New York Times best-selling author of children's novels.
AS FOR THE teen actors, they travel in packs on and off screen. They're a close-knit group off camera who help one another for upcoming scenes, give each other shoulder massages and hug a lot. The group shares an entire apartment complex in Waialua.
"I miss my friends, parties, seeing independent films and other familiar things back home in Burbank," says 18-year-old Storm, "but I love living out here. It's so much fun."
Her buddy Kissner, 19, also from the San Fernando Valley, agrees.
"I'm enjoying every second of it and don't miss L.A. at all," he says. "I haven't had any problems with all of us living so close together. We're a functional dysfunctional family."
Quips Storm, "We're especially fun in our happy dysfunctions. We really get along because we're all crazy."
Working 10 to 12 hours a day means the cast can travel to Honolulu only on the weekends. During the week, dinners in Haleiwa, at Banzai Sushi and Haleiwa Joe's, are a favorite treat.
"I like KFC but no one else does," Kissner says.
Weekends finds the cast shopping in Mililani, Waikiki or at Ala Moana Center.
"If we don't do a town thing, then we'll hit a beach to swim or go snorkeling," Storm says.
Hirsh, who filmed an "E.R." episode here in 2002, purchased a surfboard and gets in the water -- usually Waikiki -- when she can get a ride.
"My strategic mistake was not buying racks with the board," she said, laughing. "It made it a little hard to transport."
Bicycles were purchased to allow the cast members to take recreational rides around the neighborhood, where most residents don't know the teens are actors.
"It's really like a three-month slumber party and summer camp," Storm says.
And director MacHale is head counselor and "surrogate uncle," Jeremy adds.
"We love D.J. so much," Storm says. "He works so hard for us, so it makes us want to do our best."
Wu called MacHale "the best part of a parent."
"We only get him for the daytime," she says. "At night he disappears."
MacHale, who is here with his wife and daughter, rented a beach house separate from the apartment complex.
"They see and hear me all day," said MacHale. "They don't need me around in their downtime."
Barbara Storm, Lauren's mother, has been here since the series began filming Jan. 3. She and her daughter share a two-bedroom apartment.
"This is the last time I'll have to accompany her on location because she's just turned 18," Barbara said. "Being in Hawaii is a nice parting gift."
"Mom has actually been pretty cool about things here," Lauren said. "She doesn't treat me like I'm a kid ... but makes sure that I'm always OK."
The actors go about their work so seamlessly it seems they're on a leisurely hike until MacHale bellows, "Action."
"D.J. lets us have fun as long as we're serious when the cameras roll," Wu says.
Before shoots, MacHale explains what he wants but asks for their input as well.
"Does that make sense?" he asks Lauren. "Or would you have a different reaction to what Hallee says?"
"D.J. is definitely in control and has a vision," Bleu says, "but likes to collaborate with us. If he disagrees, it's not like an adult to a kid, but peer to peer."
MacHale says he takes care of the actors as kids while still treating them as professionals. What's been especially rewarding for the director is seeing the actors embrace their characters, then mold them to their own personalities.
"This kind of show is what I do best," says MacHale, who prefers smaller productions to the "big headaches" of larger ones.
"There's more network scrutiny, executive involvement and actor egos the size of their trailers," he says. "We're allowed to make a fun show pretty much independently, the way we see it."
Discovery's decision on whether "29 Down" will return for a second season could come as late as September.
"We would love to be writing scripts over the summer to have them done, but we're totally at the network's mercy," says MacHale, who won't be sitting twiddling his thumbs at his Manhattan Beach, Calif., home.
"I have another book to write."
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