| |
 | |||||||||||||||||
 |
| | LinkBack | Thread Tools |
03-24-2007, 01:01 PM
| #1 (permalink) |
| Moderator  |  2 New Sydney White article with Amanda interview!!! PLUS PICTURES http://www.orlandosentinel.com/enter...tory?track=rss Roger moore finally got his interview with the set unlike last time! Patience definitely pays off! A fairy-tale role for Amanda Bynes Roger Moore | Sentinel Movie Critic Posted March 24, 2007 It's 1:50 on a weekday afternoon, and there's a party going on at the SAE fraternity house on frat row at the University of Central Florida. Actually, today it's the Beta Omega Rho house. SAE was kicked off campus last fall. And this party on an imaginary college campus, is being stage-managed. "You're dancing, quietly," shouts second assistant director James Giovanetti Jr. "You're walking. You're talking. You're feeling the music." He has done this before. He worked on Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The music stops, but the beat track continues, and the sea of college-age hotties parts for Amanda Bynes. And "seven dorks." Sydney White is a comic collegiate updating of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with Bynes in the title role, a "Snow White" trying to reform seven inept college outsiders. It has been filming in and around Orlando for the past month. College exteriors were filmed at Rollins College. Delaney Park has a house that is serving as a sorority house exterior. Winter Garden plays the part of Sydney White's hometown in this $16.5 million production. "People will recognize the Snow White story; that the dorks are the dwarves, and Sara [Paxton] of the Kappas [sorority] is kind of the evil witch," says Bynes, 20. "Evil witches always hate 'the fairest of them all.' And like Snow White, I'm trying to reform these seven dorks." Bynes, of TV's What I Like About You, and one of the stars of this summer's musical, Hairspray, "is a rare combination of beauty and funny," says her director, Joe Nussbaum (American Pie 5: The Naked Mile, George Lucas in Love). "She's got this incredibly expressive, reactive face." Orlando-based producer Wayne Morris says Sydney White "is the perfect vehicle for Amanda to do, taking the fans who grew up with her on TV, into college." Bynes' TV show ended its run, "but it's still on, everywhere, so it doesn't feel like it's over," she says. She hasn't lost her audience, either. A January TV premiere of her movie, Lovewrecked, did gangbuster cable ratings, which is why "this is the closest I'm coming to going to college, right now." A smoke alarm goes off between takes. Several anxious minutes later, "Action." The party picks up again. This, the seventh take, isn't ending with the right snap. Nussbaum, two cameras still rolling, jumps into the crowd and whispers something in actor Arnie Pantoja's ear. "I just told him I needed him to be a lost puppy dog, here," Nussbaum explains. Pantoja got it. "Cut. Aaaaaand, print that one." The cast of Sydney White includes Paxton (Aquamarine) and Matt Long (Ghost Rider, Jack & Bobby). The movie, scheduled for release in 2008, is the first of a slate of what may be four modestly budgeted comedies that Morris is producing in Orlando, with Bring It On Four going into production in late April, right after Sydney White finishes filming. http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/ent..._white_am.html The $16.5 million Amanda Bynes comedy Sydney White, a college farce built around a Snow White and the Seven Dorks plot, has been filming in and around Orlando since Feb. That's director Joe Nussbaum (left) chatting with his star and supporting players. Dropped in on them Thursday and watched the work. I do that just often enough to be fascinated. But man, that's an awful lot of people working long hours crammed into a smoke-filled room or two to make 90 minutes of entertainment. Never ceases to amaze me the ARMY that fills a film set, even a smoky frat-house one. Props to my photographer, Hilda Perez, who's done her time, photographing Iraq. Movie set? Pieca'a cake. She got some great stuff. The story on the visit runs Sat., but here's a peek. That's Sara Paxton, the "evil witch" sorority sister who is the bane of Sydney White and her seven Dorks' existence. Chatted with her when Aquamarine came out. She's upstairs, in the over-the-dance-floor balcony, in this frat-house party scene. They pan down from her testy reaction to Sydney's entrance to the frat dance in this scene. I saw'em do 7 or 8 takes. Actors, Samm Levine and others, jillions of college hotties as extras. Those are some of the extras. In this day of shrinking staffs at newspapers, the leisure to spend hours, or beg for a couple of days' access to a movie like this are over. No time to chat up Sara, Samm Levine, Matt Long, or the rest of the cast. Sorry I didn't get to chat with these girls. My wife isn't. But I am. Here's director and star looking at a take to see if it's worth printing. Extras were sent walking in front of the action, there was dancing (the music drops to a beat-only track for the dialogue to kick in). Very complicated bit. Nussbaum (George Lucas in Love is a stitch, American Pie 5: The Naked Mile, less a stitch) was patient, working at it to get it just right. It was a two-camera set-up in a Greek House on the UCF campus, one of several Greek frats tossed off campus in the last year or two. Lucky UCF. Rollins College provides the campus exteriors. A house in Delaney Park has been the sorority house. And Winter Garden was the hometown of Sydney, before she heads off to school. Her widowed dad (John Schneider) was in those scenes. Storyline is Sydney goes to fictional college to plege the sorority her mom once was in, finds the girls their too bitchy (Paxton), and takes up with Seven Dorks, outcasts. She reforms them. Yes, it's The Rise of Taj: Van Wilder 2, but Amanda Bynes is funnier than Kal Penn. Smoky smoky set. A smoky smoke detector even went off between takes. Mass mayhem, for a moment, for the techies to solve. Amanda Bynes turns 21 April 3. "I'll be working on my 21st birthday. Just shooting the movie. How boring is that?" She seems as focused as she was back when she was a young teen visiting Orlando for Nickeloden's Slime Time Live, six or seven years ago. Nick, you should bring that show back, and back here. Intensely green eyes, the same "incredibly expressive face (Nussbaum)" that made her a TV star. "I think people will connect with the Snow White story, the college setting, the witch, the dorks, all of it," she says. "I like the idea that my character is condemned by the Kappas, which is something a lot of girls go through. Evil witches always hate 'the fairest of them all.' So she befriends these dorks, a good movie for kids." It is, she says, "the closest thing I'll have to college," at the moment. Like a star 20 year old basketballer, she's got to use the talent while the talent pays off. "You never know, I'm thinking about in the future." She still has an audience, "Thank God," something proven when her movie Lovewrecked racked up impressive cable numbers in January. "This is fun, because I'm 20 and getting to pretend I'm in college. It feels kind of like college." "We're having the best time, hoping for the best. But you don't turn 21 every day. I hope I can come up with something fun to do." What think, kids, any Orlando suggestions for the working actress to check out after work that weeknight? (It's a Tuesday). Amanda may make an appearance at teh opening night gala for the Fla. Film Festival tonight. Thanks to Greg Mielcharz of Morgan Creek for arranging our visit. The movie is due out, last I checked, next year. Feels like a late winter-spring comedy to me. Amanda's turn in the possible/probable hit Hairspray could make her a LOT more commercial by then. Last edited by pranksalot; 03-24-2007 at 01:06 PM.. |
|  |
|
« Previous Thread
|
Next Thread »
| Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
| Thread Tools | |
| |
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 11:39 PM.
