We were delayed getting home Monday night by a movie production crew that was filming on our street and at our neighbors home a couple doors down. Seems they’ve been shooting around the county all month.

Setting up for a movie scene is a pretty involved and elaborate procedure, and the one being filmed at the time required a gigantic “cherry picker” with a huge light that lit up the house and yard, a firetruck and firemen to hose down the street, a team of paramedics in case someone got hurt, several “movie” police and other cars, and the usual trucks filled with assorted cameras and movie making equipment that spilled onto the adjoining street. Various hoses and cables crisscrossed the road, and movie and security personnel with walkie talkies were everywhere. While waiting for the scene to wrap, we chatted with movie people about the film.

The title, we learned, is “Chain Letter,” a film “similar” (that’s movie double-speak for, “I can’t tell you”) to 2003’s “Thirteen” that starred Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed and Holly Hunter who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. The film, which won numerous awards, is about a teen who befriends the “popular” girl at school and becomes involved in drugs, petty theft and piercings. Sounds like a shallow plot, but it was apparently a good movie about teens coming of age, at least those on the more extreme end of the scale. And apparently at least one of the female stars of “Thirteen” is in “Chain Letter” (which may be, as is sometimes the case, a “working” title.)

I’ll be interested to see how much of our street and neighbor’s home show up in the film when it’s released, I’d guess sometime in late 2008 or early 2009.