Lights, Camera, Action: Or Is It Just a Healdsburg Wine Tasting Room?

Move over “Bottle Shock” and “Scream.”

A new movie is being made in Healdsburg -- complete with local cast and crew.

Technically, it’s not quite a movie, but a 15-minute short that serves as a final in the Santa Rosa Junior College Media 20 class this semester, "Introduction to Digital Filmmaking."

Producer Frank Lewis, a Healdsburg grape grower, came up for the idea for the short film, and enlisted two other classmates to complete the project. Craig Gettmann wrote the script and served as cinematographer; Eric Ivy worked as director when they shot the movie over last weekend.

The on Matheson Street serves as the set for the short. Topel Tasting Room is transformed to a bar where scientist Bruce Davis goes when he realizes, though his research, that there are only 15 minutes left before the Earth self-destructs.

He tries to convince other people at the bar of his logic, but no one believes him. He leaves, just moments before the 15 minutes are up. The film, in fact, is called “15 Minutes.”

“It’s a little hard to be a director when you don’t know what you’re doing,” said Ivy when I dropped by the Topel Tasting Room on Sunday for the second night of filming. “It’s a challenge – I fell like I’m learning a lot.”

Students in Jim Helmer’s Media 20 class switch off different roles in their projects – one time scripting, the next photography, the next directing or acting – but many of them have more specific reasons for taking the class.

“The reason I’m taking the class is I wanted to learn Adobe Premiere,” said producer Lewis, “which many professional filmmakers are turning to out of disappointment with Final Cut Pro.” Lewis will be editing the movie as well, which is the task that Premiere and FCP are designed for.

As the three crew members set up lights and camera angles, a couple of the actors drifted in for the 8 p.m. – 2 a.m. shoot. Among them was Kevin Roach, tasting room manager at Topel by day, who plays a bartender; and Nick Stanford as a reporter.

They were set up to cast Stage One of the movie, when a casting call went out via Craigslist, Facebook and other social media. To everyone’s surprise, according to (co-owner of the winery and mother of screenwriter Gettmann), “a real actor showed up!

“It was instantly apparent that he would get the lead role,” Topel said, and there was no argument from the other readers. The role of Professor Bruce Davis will be played by David Wigginton, who had a minor role in the movie "Bottle Shock" and has played on stage throughout the county.

While “Bottle Shock” is the most well-known recent movie about the North Bay wine country (“Sideways” took place in Santa Barbara County), it’s not the only one.

A couple years ago another local winery, , had a production role in “Corked,” an off-beat satire with a local cast and crew that premiered at the Raven, but never managed to land a theatrical release deal (though it’s available on DVD).

No one expects “15 Minutes” to be anything more than a student final (due Dec. 22), although it would be nice if it served to launch some careers. And who knows? It just might.

“This is our last day of principal photography,” Lewis told me on set the other night. “Maybe we’ll do some pick-ups, then we’ll start cutting on Monday.”

Spoken like the pro he hopes to become.