Tybee gets set for filming of Miley movie

The search was on and the stakes were high.

Filmmakers for Miley Cyrus' next movie needed an isolated, oceanfront house as the setting where an estranged teen and her distracted father could reconnect over a summer.

The town that had the house would win the location shoot for "The Last Song," a production expected to inject $8 million into the local economy.

For more on Miley Cyrus and her new movie, go to savannahnow.com/miley.

Then, perhaps more importantly, there would be the media attention that would come when Miley, the TV/film/blog/Twitter singing sensation, began two months of shooting a role meant to help break away from her "Hannah Montana" character.

Filmmakers had been looking since January, but by late March they still hadn't found what they wanted.

Then, one Sunday, they found it at Sam Adams' ancestral home on Tybee Island.

Tucked in a quiet, overgrown nook on Tybee's south end, the two-story, six-bedroom house was built in classic rambling beach style. Adams' great-grandfather and grandfather started construction in 1918 and knew how to design it to allow ocean breezes to sweep through wide, wraparound porches into cool, heart-pine rooms.

There is history here, too. One of the door jambs is scored with the height measurements of four generations of Adams children.

Perfect.

"It was getting down to zero hour," said Andy Young, a Tybee-based location scout who showed the Adams home to "The Last Song" production executives. "Often, it's about the house. It can be a character itself in the movie."

"The house was key," agreed Jay Self, the city of Savannah's director of Tourism and Film Services. "It needed to look kind of aged and isolated. Isolated on the beach is kind of hard to find these days."

Tybee gets more

Initially, filmmakers planned to shoot in Tybee but keep the story based around Wrightsville Beach and Wilmington, N.C., because author Nicholas Sparks based it there, where he also lives.

But the more filmmakers looked around Tybee, the more they incorporated Tybee's unique look.

City officials learned about two weeks ago that Tybee will get to be Tybee in the movie, from its pier to its lighthouse and even down to some police cruisers that will be used in the film.

"The more they look at it and the more they talk to the people, I think they're beginning to like it like everybody else," said Dean Morrison, who oversees daily operations of the Tybee pier and pavilion and has met several times with location producers. "I think they're starting to fall in love with Tybee's charm."

The name recognition is free marketing Tybee couldn't afford otherwise, and it has many locals excited.

Tybee has had other film shoots, from "Gator" in 1975 to "Gingerbread Man" in 1997 and "The General's Daughter" in 1998.

"The Last Song" is better.

"We've never had a movie that actually portrayed Tybee as Tybee Island," said Greg Stoeffler, general manager of the DeSoto Beach Hotel and chairman of the Tybee Island Tourism Council. "When we heard, we were ecstatic. That really changes everything as far as what we see as the economic impact potential for the island."

Much of the movie revolves around Miley's character getting involved in protecting a loggerhead turtle nest, Stoeffler said, which will tie in to Tybee's ecotourism efforts.

The tourism council's entire annual budget, he said, is about $500,000, and that includes paying staff at the Visitors' Center.

"You can't put a price on this exposure," he said. "And that's why we want to be good ambassadors to the filming. Hopefully, this could be the first of many film opportunities to come."

Keith Gay, a real estate agent for Solomon Properties and property manager for Tybee BeachVacation Rentals, thinks once people see the film, they will want to find out more about the island.

At the least, the island and Savannah can expect more visitors and more revenue from hotel/motel taxes. Area tourism officials say Disney officials estimated they would need the equivalent of 10,000 room nights at local hotels. That doesn't include the visitors who will come during and after shooting.

But the movie may draw homebuyers, too, said Gay, who summed up potential impact with a time-honored maxim: "We're a 5-by-3-mile island," he said, "and we only have so much dirt."

Keeping it funky

Gay has personal insight on a movie's allure.

When he and his wife were looking to relocate in a coastal community 10 years ago, they were partly influenced by "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," which was shot in and around Savannah.

The Gays traveled to beach communities along the East Coast, down to South Florida and along the Gulf of Mexico.

Tybee, he said, was the only place that still felt like "a very funky, eclectic little beach."

Self pointed to Tybee's vernacular architecture and the fact that it looks like a community, not a vacation destination.

"It looks like a place where people live," he said. "If it weren't for that, they wouldn't be here."

Gay credits the determination of city officials and Tybee residents with enacting a height restriction that limits development.

"They held to a 35-foot height limit," Gay said. "Had they not, the oceanfront certainly would have been consumed by condos."

Adams is equally vocal about the success Tybee had "in resisting developers trying to tear down entire city blocks."

"Had we allowed these developers to come in, we wouldn't have had those families living there, making it feel like a community," he said.

What to expect

As much as filmmakers loved what they saw, prepping locations for the movie will require some adjustments.

The most noticeable may be that the Tybee pier is expected to be closed for five days during filming. Morrison said the production company will reimburse the county, which owns the pier, for lost revenue. Shooting will happen during the week because, as a minor, Miley is not allowed to work on the weekends.

Crews also will add fake lampposts along the pier and a set of temporary stairs to the beach down its right side, Morrison said, and they will hang circus-style canvas murals around the underside of the structure.

They also may do a little painting to brighten up the Sweet Dreams and the Riptide Grill.

"He said the rest of it was beautiful, he wasn't going to touch anything else," Morrison said of the location manager who surveyed the pavilion.

At a vacant lot on 13th Street and Sixth Avenue, crews this week began building a facade for a church that will burn down in the movie.

The biggest question is available parking and security.

Tybee has about 1,600 parking spaces. The city is renting three small lots on the south end to the film crew, and Disney officials also are talking with Tybee police about extra security needs and handling crowds.

Because so much of the film will be shot at the Adams cottage and at quieter locations around Tybee and Savannah, Self is confident it won't be as disruptive as some past films.

"It's not a period film, it's not action. There's no car chases, no explosions," he said. "It's not going to be the circus that some people fear. Most people won't notice any difference at all."