Mill Basin Community Hosts German TV Film Shoot
By Neil S. Friedman

Film technicians rig car with camera and lights for a scene shot last week in Mill Basin. Photos by Neil S. Friedman

Rarely does anyone outside the film industry get the opportunity to see a movie being made. But last week in one Mill Basin community, a New York-based German production company shot scenes for a forthcoming made-for-television movie that barely seemed to be noticed by any of the residents in the tranquil community.

Over three days, from dawn until dusk on March 28-30, the cast and crew set up its base on Gaylord Drive South and Bassett Street with trailers full of props and equipment to film scenes for the movie, "Das Vaterspiel," that is scheduled to air on a German television network next fall.

The local filming took place mostly in and around 86 Gaylord Drive South, home of Marvin Epstein and his family. The homeowner recently contacted the Courier to boast that his home was chosen as the site for several scenes in the movie after location scouts visited him in January.

Picturesque Mill Basin home was recently used to film scenes for telemovie.

As crew members and technicians prepared to shoot a street scene last week, production company executive Sabine Schenk explained that over the winter they sought out a "secluded, tree-lined area with unattached homes" that were somewhat isolated from constant vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Scouts visited several Queens and Long Island communities, but opted for Brooklyn due to its proximity to Manhattan from where the cast and equipment would have to be transported for three-days of filming. After exploring the Mill Basin neighborhood last winter, letters were left at the several Mill Basin homes picked by the location scout. Schenk said the search was narrowed to the Epstein home after the director, Michael Glawogger, and a few others connected to the production approved the house last February.

During the daily 12-hoor shooting schedule the Epsteins were not allowed in their home, but were permitted to stay there overnight. Neither Marvin Epstein nor Schenk would disclose the financial terms of the deal for use of the house last week.

Schenk said that while the neighborhood was the perfect setting for the scenes filmed last week, there was some technical interference, due to the traffic pattern at JFK on March 23, as noisy jet airliners flew overhead causing interference with audio recording resulting in minor delays. However, the following day, due to gusty winds, the planes were rerouted to the delight of the crew.

A handful of curious local residents may have been bored to tears waiting for the scene to begin last Thursday as technicians painstakingly rigged cameras and lights on the 1999 automobile. The tedium and effort behind actual filming is almost certainly unfamiliar to the average movie fan. (An actor once told an interviewer that he believed performers are paid well not for acting but for the extended waiting periods between scenes as lighting, props and other necessities are painstakingly arranged.)

It took about an hour for the crew to prepare, and then film the car, packed with two actors, the director and an assistant, as it circled the block.

After filming in Mill Basin ended at dusk on Friday, the production company packed up and moved out. Subsequent scenes were scheduled to be filmed this week in Williamsburg, Red Hook and a few Manhattan neighborhoods, including Greenwich Village and Chinatown.

Back in Mill Basin, the Epsteins reclaimed their home and nearby neighbors' lives, which were scarcely disrupted, returned to normal, as the spotlight faded as quickly as it focused on them.

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