The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 477

Revving Up "Stingray7 on Van Nuys Blvd. BY WAYNE WARGA 6 a ta the son of Fred Feitshans. a widely respected film editor, and was thereby able to thread his way through the long apprenticeship and move on to producing because of his own editing talent and experience. The Milius-Feitshans enterprise will be reported next Sunday. The premise of "Stingray" perhaps more simply stated that it may turn out to be in the completed film-is the evolution of a relationship between a boy (played by "Star Wars" Mark Hamill) and a girl (Annie Potts) as he searches for the customized Stingray stolen after he and his auto-workshop chums build iL The script is a moral tale richly mixed with adventure and comedy.

The adventure begins when the triumphant customizes take their Stingray and parade it on a Wednesday night along Van Nuys Blvd. "Van Nuys Blvd. is the heart of the car culture on the planet earth." Barwood says. "Matthew and I were not car nuts when we were high school kids. It's come to us rather late in life.

We grew up in rather strict conservative families, me in Hanover. N.H., and Matthew in Great Neck, Long Island. "We are interested in observing culture, even though in this film the observations are peripheral. Because a big portion of the story is the car. Van Nuys Blvd.

was essential. "What I'd like is for someone 200 years from now to see this film and look at it as a chronicle of our time. The way Pepys chronicled the London of his time. In 200 years there won't be anything like this on earth." It is among the most improbable of social customs, yet it has gone on for years now and there is no end in sight Robbins and Barwood both point out that a lot of the drivers of the customized cars are no longer young, yet they continue to participate in what is generally considered a ritual of youth. The film company shot the boulevard on a Wednesday night, then returned the next night for several more late-night locations.

The cars for these nights were specially chosen. "Jim Blume, our assistant director, reconnoitered Van Nuys Blvd. for several weeks and prepared a scrapbook of Polaroid pictures of cars, with the addresses and phone numbers of their owners. We chose what we thought was a colorful though representative group of cars, hired the drivers as extras and paid them a mileage allowance for their cars. It's interesting to see they came here from all over Southern California." Barwood and Robbins-produced screenplays are "The Sugarland Express," "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings" and most recently and none too satisfactorily to its writers "MacArthur." Los Angeles has been in the movies since the movies began, a continuous terrain threading its way across the world's screens since the century was young.

It began as background, and its flexibility was such that it could be made to look like New York or the South Pacific. Only rarely did it emerge as a character on its own. but it nevertheless influenced millions who saw it, influenced them so effectively that by the mid-'20s the movies, still unable to speak, became the lure for the greatest internal migration this country has yet known. Millions moved west, and a great many of them became a part of what was then the largest industry in Los Angeles. This great migration helped to form the eccentric character of the city and the place and its populace began to exert their influence on the rest of the country.

Anyone sampling the ongoing commentary about Los Angeles will quickly find that the city confuses many: It contains the laughable but also much to envy. Tourists and writers puzzle this place in home movies and magazines and the attraction is stronger than ever. Stronger, perhaps, because more and more of the Los Angeles character emerges in contemporary films. It was fascinating, for instance, to see "Shampoo" a continent away in New York, noting the audience's reaction to both the characters themselves and the city in which they lived. Los Angeles Figured forcefully in "shampoo." and it was present as well as a sort of misplaced ennui in "Welcome to LA." So much happens here and with such incredible diversity, that one's hunch is that a trend may be in the making, one which uses Los Angeles not only as background but as a character as well Two films currently shooting here have their roots in phenomena associated with the geography.

"Big Wednesday" explores relationships and growth as it took place during the '60s surfing craze. 'Stingray" looks at a society on wheels, a boy and a girl finding one another a part of a triangle, the apex of which is a customized Chevy Corvette. The writers, producers and directors of the two films are four men intimately familiar with their material. All are graduates of USC. "Big Wednesday" writer-director John Milius and producer Buzz Feitshans grew up as Angelenos.

"Stingray's" coauthors are Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, the former producing and the latter directing for the first time. Milius, Barwood and Robbins used the one means to enter the film industry without a long union-restricted apprenticeship: they wrote screenplays. Feitshans is CO a a CO "We decided long ago when we began writing thai we wanted to make our own movies. That was seven years ago it seems like a long time to us." Barwood says. "It was simply the only way we could prevent our movies from being ruined.

Given what they've done so far. I'm more certain we want to do them ourselves." For his debut as a producer Barwood bought himself an inexpensive wristwatch which he describes as "accurate but cheap. Every so often I push the button, look at the time and see how many hours behind we are. So far we're on schedule and on budget, but it's going to be a tight race." More sprint than race, in fact, for the budget is a small $1.7 million and the executives at MGM have figured them into a 34-day shooting schedule. Some $20,000 of the budget went for the Stingray which was designed by James Schoppe and built by Richard Korkes.

It is about as elaborate as customized cars can get so extensive that it has right-hand drive. Barwood. who has become an expert if not an enthusiast of customized cars, reports the paint job is "Yellow underbase. with three pounds of large gold metal flake, a half pound of Alfa jewels, a quarter pound of crushed mirror, candy apple red lacquer, tangerine lacquer, magenta lacquer and five gallons of clear lacquer sanded and rubbed. You tell that to a car buff and they'll know exactly what you're saying." Hamill, for his part, loves the adventure.

Following "Star Wars" he was in a severe accident outside New-hall but he is recovered now and behind the wheel. "I'm back and all put together again. When they sent me this script I thought 'Oh no. not another car There had been three parts I wanted but didn't get and I turned down a lot of what I call drive-in movies. But when I read this I found a lovely romantic comedy the car connects them, the characters are real and.

for me. very satisfying." Hamill is 25. even though he says he has been told to say he's 21. "It's part of the craziness. I'm as old as I am and I'm not about to change anything." For someone relatively young and not abundantly experienced in film-making, he has a remarkable perspective on the phenomenon of "Star Wars" and his part in it.

"I hoped it'd be one of the good films of the year, but I had no idea all of this would happen. I hope they publish the screenplay all the humor and charm is there and. combined with the special effects, it's just something else. They wanted me to go on tour and because of George Lucas and all the others. I agreed.

I didn't want to the magic is too strong and I wanted to protect it for the movie. "You know what my part was? I was the straight man. I was George Burns to those two incredible robots. I knew exactly what my role was and I take pride in doing the best I can. I'm still in a state of shock." The speed with which "Stingray" is being filmed is such that its neophyte director has virtually cut himself off from everything but the work immediately at hand.

"I feel the pressure more than anyone else right now." Robbins. a low-key 33-year-old. says. "I used to think screenwriting was a tough business but it's positively luxurious compared to directing. I keep telling myself the more I do the easier it'll get" Robbins and his partner, who is 37.

are singularly unaffected film-makers, completely unencumbered by the pomp and Gucci so closely associated with the business. They met as Robbins was entering and Barwood was leaving USC. Barwood eventually returned with a grant and once both had their MFA degrees in film-making they went to work cutting commercials at Dove Films. "Our boss. Cal Bernstein, had the unenviable task of coming to us to tell us to talk less and cut more.

That's when our collaboration began." Barwood says. "We collaborate by talking endlessly. Matthew lies on a sofa staring at the ceiling. I sit at a typewriter like a turkey vulture. In the course of a day something gets written down.

In the course of many days we get a script. "This film is special to us first because we're doing it ourselves, but also because it observes life both in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Its all on wheels even the girl lives in a van and the boy's mother lives in a mobile home. People all over the country live on wheels, but most of it happened here first." From left, actor Mark Hamill, director Matthew Robbins and producer Hal Barwood on Van Nuys Blvd..