Gainesville Goes To The Movies

(Or: There really is a Hollywood in Florida)

On October 9th, 1996, one Keanu Reeves visited Gainesville, FL for a few hours to do research for his role in an upcoming film entitled "Devil's Advocate". It seems he will be playing an attorney from Gainesville (Hmmmm!) so he wanted to come to the County Courthouse to get a feel for what it's like. There are no confirmations yet on whether any of the movie will actually be filmed in Gainesville or Alachua county.

• The Naked Ape - The oldest major-motion picture known to be filed in Gainesville, made in 1973. Starred Victoria Principal and was based on the Desmond Morris novel of the same name.
  
• Parenthood - This was the first big-time production to film in Gainesville, back in 1988. Parenthood is a Ron Howard film starring Steve Martin, who plays a father dealing with, well, Parenthood.

In one scene, Steve Martin's character daydreams about the future of his son. In one version, his son graduates from an Ivy-League college with top honors. But then in the nightmare version, he envisions his son going nuts (because Martin's character didn't raise him right) and sniping at people from a tower on the campus. That scene was filmed on the University of Florida campus.
The tower shown is UF's Century Tower, and in fact just catty-corner to it is the Computer Science Engineering building. Most of the people in that scene were UF students, and the police cars shown getting shot up were borrowed from the Gainesville Police Department (no, they weren't really shot).
The most amusing thing about the whole event, which only took 2-3 days to film but really excited the town, was that to prepare for the coming film crew the UF Grounds department had all of the Spanish Moss raked out of the trees, to help give everything a more Northern look.
There's a web camera at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that gives a shot of the area immediately joining the filming location.
• Doc Hollywood - This was a pretty sucessful film as well, starring Michael J. Fox. The basic premise is that a young doctor from L.A. ends up having to do community service in a small town called Grady. Unlike Parenthood, which just did one small scene in Gainesville, Doc Hollywood filmed the bulk of the movie in Micanopy, a small historic town just a few miles outside of the Gainesville city limits. However, a few fill-in scenes were done within Gainesville as well.

Biggest piece of gossip about the filming: Most of the storefronts and such you see in the film are not real. Aparently it was decided the town didn't look quite quaint and historic enough. So large, fake fronts were built for most of the buildings and stores that were filmed. This included fake signs as well (no free advertising is a modern Hollywood rule, apparently). But one antique shop owner didn't like this idea and made a lot of noise about it, trying to keep her shop visible. Understanadble, when that's your main source of income. Unfortunately, she got yelled down.
However, there was no need to fake the scenery. Just about everything you see in the area is real, natural territory just surrounding Gainesville. Some shots of Payne's Prarie were used as well.
Tidbit: A friend of mine works at a local jewlery and collectibles shop. While the filming of Doc Hollywood was underway, several crew members came into the shop. They needed a porcelain swan for a particular scene where the item gets knocked over and broken. They ended up buying something like nine of these, so they could re-shoot the scene as needed. My friend was pretty happy about the commision she got, :)
• Just Cause - Sean Connery plays a law professor who is asked by a sentenced killer to prove his innocence.

In the movie, Sean Connery is initially contacted by someone at the university where he teaches. Surprise! That was an auditorium at the University of Florida. A few other scenes were shot around Gainesville, including right along the Student Ghetto, and at a locally owned restraunt called Phill'n'Nicks Sandwich Shop. The filming was done in record time, over a course of just several days.
• Devil's Advocate - The latest major motion picture production with ties to Gainesville, Devil's Advocate won't be coming out until around October of this year. It's about a lawyer from a small southern town that goes to work for a New York law-firm, where it turns out his boss has an increasingly bizarre personality.

None of the major scenes from this movie were filmed in Gainesville, sadly. However, one of the main characters (Kevin Lomax, played by Keanu Reeves) is a lawyer from Gainesville. The character is somewhat loosely based on an actual attorney who lives here in Gainesville, who happens to be a friend of one of the writers.
The crew for the film did come to Gainesvile on the July 4th weekend of 1997 to film some establishing shots around town, mostly for the opening credits. They also filmed shots of the old Masonic Temple in downtown Gainesville (one of the older and more historic sections of town), but with a fake sign on the front of the building that said "Alachua County Courthouse". Most likely that shot will appear in the beginning of the film when Keanu Reeves first appears. The real courthouse is not that far away, but probably didn't look "Old South" enough.