Filming in El Dorado County

There are a couple of large white trucks parked along a frontage road along Highway 50. Crews of young people are scurrying around, loading and unloading equipment and working hard at trying to be obscure. But El Dorado County is the kind of place where everybody knows everybody and when those big white filming trucks begin to appear along the country roads, in front of businesses on Main Street or winding their way up a mountain road, you just know it’s the work of Kathleen Dodge, executive director of the El Dorado Tahoe Office of Film and Media. On any given weekend, Dodge could be hosting a formal premier, like the one that was recently held for the first viewing of the Hallmark movie “Out of the Woods.” You might find her traveling the back roads of El Dorado County, showing filmmakers the beauty in this county.

You might not recognize it, but you can catch glimpses of El Dorado County in movies that date back as far as 1951, in “A Place in the Sun”. Other times you can recognize the majesty of the Sierra Nevada’s in movies like “Cobb”, “Bushwhacked”, or “City of Angels”. Scenes in the 1997 movie, “The Horse Whisperer” were shot in PiPi Valley, while scenes in the 1996 Kurt Russell movie “Breakdown” were shot under the bridge along Highway 49 and the south fork of the American River. “They bought five red Jeep Cherokees just like that one,” Dodge says, recalling the filming of “Breakdown.” One of the Jeeps was sent off a bridge. Another was gutted so that they could stick a car into the river with out causing pollution. And another simply floated away one morning as the cast sat having breakfast. Seems the river had risen that night and no one thought to secure the Jeep.

Dodge has met stars like Cheryl Ladd, Alan Alda and Steven Baldwin. Kathleen Dodge sells El Dorado County to Hollywood. In a time when so many movies are being shot out of the country, Dodge manages to convince the producers that filming in this county has its rewards. She sells the county’s 1,800 miles of diverse topography, pointing out that the county has open ranch land, rugged forest, verdant meadows and the snow covered Sierra Nevada.

Dodge has developed a relationship with many of the homeowners in the county. She’s found a number of beautiful estates where she is able to “house” the actors while they are working on a film. She’s found a number of properties that have been used as sets during filming. And it’s Dodge who makes sure that the hundreds of crewmembers know where to eat, stay and have fun while they’re in El Dorado County.

Movies shot in El Dorado include: “A Place Called Home”, with Ann Margaret, “Love Comes Softly” which was shot in April of 2003, “Straight from the Heart”, shot in February of 2003, “Bloodthirsty: Legend of the Chupacabras”, “The Retrievers”, “Inferno”, “Deep End”, “The Horse Whisperer”, “City of Angels”, “Breakdown”, “The American President”, “Crosscut”, “Good Luck”, “Bushwacked”, “Cobb”, “Baywatch: the River of No Return”, “The Bodyguard”, “Almost Famous”, “Rocky and Bullwinkle”, “Anna and the King”, “A Place in the Sun”, “Out of the Woods” and countless commercials and many, many made-for-television movies and documentaries.

To find out more about the El Dorado Tahoe Office of Film and Media call 530-626-4400 or visit the web site at www.filmtahoe.com.