BRUNSWICK

Is the Brunswick area Hollywood on the Androscoggin? Not quite, but a burgeoning cast of young filmmakers is making a coastal Maine version of it.

Over the summer, film projects were filmed in the Mid-coast region by three young artists who hoped to parlay local knowledge and technical training into films incorporating Maine themes and scenery that could attract an audience.

Mike Lobikis, a Brunswick High School graduate and film producer, talked to us in July about turning the camera on the state’s restive lobster industry.

“A Piece of the Bottom” is his film about two rival lobster crews’ “final clash” in the backwaters of coastal Maine “as they fight for their piece of the bottom,” according to a news release announcing the film.

Filmed at Mere Point in Brunswick and Bailey Island and Potts Harbor in Harpswell in June and July, Mid-coast communities “really jumped on board to help us make this film,” said Lobikis, the film’s producer, who graduated from Brunswick High School in 2002 and moved to New York City in 2006 after majoring in film studies at Denison University in Ohio.

Beyond the subject matter and scenery, Lobikis said there were plenty of reasons to make the film here.

“What sticks out about Maine is we have found amazingly talented young people in Portland and Brunswick,” he said. “We were able to source some (production assistants) locally, which was paramount because a lot of our NYC crew couldn’t make their way from Bailey Island to Walmart in Brunswick without Google Maps, and the cell service isn’t great down in Harpswell.”

“Our location scout (Chris Gauthier) managed to get us some terrific spots by driving up and down every road in Harpswell and knocking on plenty of strange doors,” Lobikis said.

Gauthier “also managed to secure a Boston Whaler for one of our most important shots,” Lobikis recalled.

Filmmakers usually hunt incentives, as states have begun one-upping each other in order to attract the lucrative business of filmmaking.

According to the Maine Film Office, the Maine Attraction Film Incentive package includes a new wage-tax rebate plan, a new income-tax rebate for investors in media projects, no state sales taxes on most production items, reimbursement on lodging taxes for long-term stays and no state sales tax on purchases of most fuel and electricity for productions.

A move has been made to make Maine more attractive to the big budget films — like “Empire Falls,” the HBO movie filmed in Waterville in 2003 that larded out $13.6 million into the economy, invigorating small inland towns.

In 2006, the Maine Film Office, helped develop the current set of modest incentives.

Speaking of funds, Topsham native James Mixon, who currently resides in Brunswick, is a short-film producer seeking funds for “Node,” a personal story of two disconnected people coming together.

Mixon, who has produced a number of short-films in the past including the short film “As We Were,” is utilizing the website Kickstarter in the hopes of garnering $12,000 for “Node” by Sept. 1

If the funding goals are met, Mixon said he would begin filming in September in the Lisbon and Portland areas.

Mixon is also seeking local help wanting to acquire up and coming local actors for the film.

Mixon grew up in Topsham before going to Wheaton College in Massachusetts. He then returned home to continue his career in film.

Another group of locals is filming “Neptune,” which was being shot on Thursday at The Town Landing restaurant in Bowdoinham.

The draw to make local films this summer seems a function of part natural artistic pull, part friendly financial backing from friends and family.

The mercurial weather of summer in the Mid-coast provided further authenticity for Lobikis to shoot “A Piece of the Bottom,” with the Boston Whaler scene the only one involving sunshine over the course of a weekend of filming.

“When we wrapped that scene, we looked up across Maquoit Bay to see a truly magnificent rainbow,” Lobikis said. “Half of our crew was soaked up to their butts and had cut up hands from moving rocks, but we couldn’t help but look up and get a little shiver down the spine when we saw that.”

Lobikis said he tried to do as much local research on the local lobster industry as he could, with help from Nan Hauser at the Center For Whale Research who “has been a huge supporter of our film and the message of conservation and sustainability that we hope to get across. …

“Our hope is that we can be just as diplomatic about the message through our film as she is every day. In our film, a decades-long feud finally boils over and ultimately we can’t be sure if anything is truly resolved. Nothing about it is cut and dry, which we believe rings true to how life normally works out.

“That might be the best part of the Maine film industry,” Lobikis told us in July. “Barry Evans of Bailey Island not only let us shoot on his superunique property, but he also had a bit role in the film.Peter Scheren, a former U.S. Marine, of Harpswell provided his boat shop for a scene.”

Lobikis, who works for a commercial production company called Uber Content, said his start in the film industry came when he interned on Susan Landau’s production of “Wake,” starring Martin Landau and Gale Harold, in Bath in 2001.

It was the closest thing to a Hollywood production he had ever seen. “They paid me in gas, food and beer,” he said. “I was 17.”

Post-production for “A Piece of the Bottom” will take place over the next few months in New York.

Lobikis said he hopes the film gets “some high profile looks at festivals, and leads to us producing a feature in Maine, perhaps with a little more money this time.”

“We’d love to spend every dollar in Maine. We just want to convey, more than anything, what an honor it was to be able to make this film in Maine,” he said. “And how cool it was to work with local folks to ensure that this film rings true.”

BRADLEY WATERHOUSE, a Times Record intern, contributed to this report.

ON LOCATION

THE BEAUTY OF MAINE has long
been featured on screen.
• Marshall Point Lighthouse in Port
Clyde, shown in the 1994 film “Forrest Gump”
• Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth was filmed for the 1999 film
“Snow Falling on Cedars”
• BOWDOIN COLLEGE’S CAMPUS
IN BRUNSWICK is shown in the
1993 movie “Man Without a Face.”
•The small mill town of Skowhegan
was seen in the 2005 HBO miniseries “Empire Falls”
• Boothbay Harbor is where
“Carousel,” starring Gordon
MacRae and Shirley Jones, was
filmed in 1956
• In Camden, Lana Turner and Hope
Lange were filmed in the 1957
classic “Peyton Place”
• In Stonington, scenes for 1991’s
“Sarah, Plain and Tall” were shot.
• Eastport was the location for the
2001 mini-series “Murder in Small
Town X”
• Belgrade Lakes inspired local
screenwriter Ernest Thompson to
write the film “On Golden Pond.”