Independent Movie Films in Westfield and Cranford

Downtown Cranford was calm and quiet around 11:30 a.m. Saturday – until a group of about 20 people swarmed Rockn' Joe Coffeehouse and Bistro, armed with cameras and microphones.

Located smack dab in the center of downtown across from the train station, this small coffee house served as a filming location for an independent film written and directed by Cranford resident Ken Castellano, 36, titled "Return to Start."

Rockn' Joe staff served coffee drinks as props for the scene and lit candles on the tables, producing a cozy glow for the film. Actors and actresses sat in the plush chairs at the front of the shop, playing a group of writers.

"(The characters) meet here once every two weeks and read their poetry or read their journal work," Castellano said. He added that he chose Rockn' Joe as the filming location as the atmosphere is "artsy but it's not pretentious."

Ending at about 3 a.m., the film crew shot two hours of footage that will be edited down to 12 minutes, Castellano explained.

Called "Return to Start," the movie centers around two characters who question the meaning of their lives and what their destiny is, Castellano said. Vera is a children's entertainer who aims to reassess her life and find her roots – and since her father's from New Jersey, she drives from Arizona to the Garden State. The male lead, Anthony, wonders if being rooted in New Jersey is what he wants.  He's a bank manager who moves to New Jersey with his girlfriend Shelly five years ago. "I think that's a central theme of the film. Where we're rooted and how that defines us," Castellano explained.

Rockn' Joe is not the only place in Cranford the filmmaker is using as a location. The group just wrapped up a scene at the Cranford Public Library the night before. Among the stacks, two main characters have a serious discussion.

"Anthony and his girlfriend Shelly are looking at books but they're talking about where their relationship is," he said.

Castellano's production team, 908 Media, started filming June 13 and expect to finish Aug. 12, he said. The group just wrapped up filming scenes in Westfield as well — at the Gulliotine Salon and Spa and Flower Zone.

He added that 90 percent of the film will be shot in Union County. After finishing, the producers will hold limited screenings at nearby movie theaters and will submit the piece to both local and national film festivals.

The film is a new project of 908 Media, a group of four producers that formed in 2006, Castellano said. He added that the group aims to tell real stories about real people. You won't be seeing kung fu or car explosions in their pieces, he said jokingly.

Their first film, "Close to Midnight," dealt with the grieving process, as the main character's fiance' dies suddenly. This film screened at the New Jersey International Film Festival in New Brunswick and the NewFilmmakers Film Series in New York City.

With 908 Media just starting to output material, Castellano hopes that it will continue. An English teacher who went back to graduate school for film at New York University, Castellano added, "I want to make movies as long as it's humanly possible."

Castellano said filming is challenging on a number of levels. Sometimes 10 extras may be booked and only four show up. Or the filming location might be a lot noisier than expected. "A lot of unplanned things happen and you have to adjust on the spot."

He cited one particular incident that happened the other night while filming at the library.
"Someone was cutting a tree down Friday night at eight. We had to adjust where the mic goes."

While Castellano as the director is focusing on all aspects of creating the film, actors and actresses are focusing their attention on a much narrower scale – getting to deeply know their character, explains actor Michael Anthony Bianco, who plays Anthony in the film.

"When you're really digging into a character, really getting to know that person on a different level. It's awesome really," he said.

In order to align himself with the character this way, Bianco said he reads the film script over and over again.

"Once you just read the script so many times it starts to just live in our body and you find yourself moving in a different way," he said. "You start to think like your character, you start to look at things from your character's perspective."

He added that it can bleed over into real life. A financial analyst in New York City by day and an actor by night, he has been questioning his destiny in life lately. Just like Anthony, a bank manager who's an aspiring writer."You start thinking these things because it's what your character is thinking," Biano said.

He added that he also played Chris Ryan, the main character in "Close to Midnight" who loses his fiance. When filming ended, he said, "I was still in the grieving process."