More than a dozen members of the Black Butterfly production company Tuesday rushed around The Attic vintage clothing store as they briefly transformed the Columbus business into a snapshot of Hollywood.
Crew members applied makeup to vintage dress-clad actresses, adjusted camera angles and altered lighting conditions in a small upstairs room of the business as the film company commenced its second day of shooting in Lowndes County.
“Columbus is the most perfect place to film a movie,” production company owner and actress Tanya Wright said excitedly. “I just looked outside one day and thought to myself ”I can”t imagine a place more perfect for this movie.””
Wright, a Bronx, N.Y., native who has starred in the TV shows “NYPD Blue” and “24,” is using Columbus and Lowndes County as a stage for a movie adaptation of one of her books, titled “Butterfly Rising.”
The actress and her production company will be shooting at several locations throughout Lowndes County for the next three weeks, Wright explained.
“We were in Caledonia yesterday, and we are over at The Attic near Third (Street) and Main Street today,” Wright said Tuesday afternoon. “We will actually be filming at many locations between (Monday) and June 12.
“We plan to shoot at the Gray Goose as sort of a juke-joint location, in the beautiful Friendship Cemetery and even a lake scene at some point,” Wright added.
The movie”s plot revolves around two women who one day decide to leave their homes and seek the “legendary and mythical Lazarus of the Butterflies,” Wright explained.
“Lilah is a naive, grief-stricken half of an unhappy marriage and Rose is a willful and independent spirit,” Wright wrote of the movie. “The two take a long road trip to visit Lazarus in New Hope, and what happens along the way binds the two women together forever.”
After filming is completed in a few weeks, Wright and her production company will complete post-production work before attempting to get the movie in theaters “sometime next year,” Wright said.
Although Wright originally was unsure where she would film the movie, a recent visit to Columbus presented her with the “perfect choice.”
“I was actually down here a while back working with one of my friends, Wil Colom, when I looked out the window and realized what a wonderful place this would be to shoot the film. There”s such a diversity of areas around here to film.
“The entire movie will be filmed in and around Columbus, and I am very excited about that,” Wright added. “The city has been wonderfully accommodating, and we are all very gracious for the hospitality everyone here has shown us.”
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