“Big Willie Style” — Read: Two-Story Luxury Trailer

It eventually occurs to some that 31,000 film shooting days a year is a gigantic pain in the ass:

During a peak production day, more than 75 production assistants — the “breaking-in” job in the film industry — work to create the fantasy of an empty city by keeping pedestrians out of the sprawling set. Often filming simultaneously in two locations, “I Am Legend” has so far taken over a five-block section of Midtown for stunts, Washington Square Park, streets in Chinatown and SoHo, as well as the front façade and ramp of Grand Central Station. Everywhere the movie is, a caravan of trucks, support vehicles, and [star Will] Smith’s two-story, luxury trailer take up neighboring streets. The film started shooting on September 28 and will continue through mid-February, [publicist Carol] McConnaughey said.

This is the new New York — a town that had 31,570 days of film shooting days in 2005, and seven television shows picked up this season. The city had 23,321 shooting days in 2004, according to the Mayor’s Office of Film, Television, and Broadcast [sic].

Once a rare spectacle, the giant flood lights held up by cranes, the “Spiderman III” acrobatics on downtown skyscrapers, and the eerily empty scenes of “I Am Legend” seem as common as Con Edison construction work. According to some residents, so far a minority, these productions have also become an inherent obstacle in city life, as the sets can obstruct parking, delay traffic, and make it difficult to get home or to work.

. . .

DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights have been given temporary moratoriums on filming in the last year when the onslaught of productions was too much. Neighborhood associations lobbied the Mayor’s Office of Film, Television, and Broadcast for the temporary reprieve. (Ironically, both areas are in the district of the tax credits’ most enthusiastic supporter, Council Member Yassky.) After a recent surge of film sets in Chinatown, residents and business owners there are asking for the city to stop granting street closure permits.

“It doesn’t always work well with residential neighborhoods like this one,” the executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, Judy Stanton, said. “They can sometimes be very intrusive. They are sometimes very rude.”

Then there’s this:

Helen Uffner’s vintage clothing company may be adored by the costume designers who dress the characters in Broadway shows, but their support isn’t enough to keep her in business.

During her 28-year career, Uffner has offered bargain prices to theater groups on shoestring budgets, and wanted to expand her business to include more film clients who have fatter wallets. She hoped her company would be included in the city’s list of local vendors publicized to production companies. To be included in the “Made in NY” program organized by the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting, however, she would have to offer official discounts to films that would actually hurt her business.

“[The program] may be fine for retail establishments,” Uffner said, “but it’s hard for the small artisans. Looking at their list of wardrobe-related vendors I don’t see non-retail vendors. We can’t give a discount to the people who have budgets because we’re already giving discounts to the people who don’t have budgets.”

Nice!