The producers of In Between Engagements, a “relationship comedy” being filmed around Chicago and at MacDaddy salon on Madison Street have big plans.
“We’ve got an actual camera that filmed Pirates of the Caribbean,” said producer Johnny Arreola, who grew up in Melrose Park. “This film cost less than $50,000, but it’s going to have the production values of a million-dollar film.”
Monday, the Macdaddy floor was veined with power cords and the salon was filled with light-screens and cameras as Chicago actors Layne Manzer and Helena Sopar practiced their scene in the story of an engagement-gone-haywire.
To add authenticity, Manzer read a copy of the Forest Park Review while his character soaked during his pre-engagement-party pedi.
The movie, written and directed by Croatian filmmaker Dominik Sedlar, is filled with banter, said Arreola, “in the vein of a Woody Allen comedy.”
According to the website, it’s the story of “young couples and the mess their lives become when the idea of growing up and falling in love becomes all too real.”
The crew is also filming at Gottlieb Hospital Fitness Center, a Highland Park mansion next door to Michael Jordan’s house and at various locations around the Chicago lakefront and in Chicago restaurants Cite and Yolk.
“We’re taking this to the festivals in August,” said Arreola. “We wouldn’t have been able to do it without help from Stephanie [Neubauer] at Macdaddy. That help is priceless and makes it happen.”
