Movie scenes shot at Yuma Sun

It's not unusual to hear the words "death" and "newspaper" in the same sentence.

But Thursday, at the Yuma Sun, it was all pretend as Hollywood came knocking at the newspaper's front door.

Local filmmaker Robert Gwinn was at the Yuma Sun offices Thursday to shoot scenes from his upcoming movie "Renovation."

And Gwinn said he wants to help make Yuma a more desirable location for future movies, bringing a new industry and added commerce to the area.

Gwinn's current project makes Yuma home to some horror-type plot with twists and turns.

"'Renovation' is a suspense thriller about a 20-year old bank heist when the money was never recovered," Gwinn said. "The only surviving member of the gang who committed the bank robbery is getting out of prison and he's going back for his money.

"And when he gets there, to where the money's hidden, there's a group of construction people in the building to renovate it, in his way."

"The building," Gwinn said is the Hotel Del Sol, located in historic downtown Yuma.

"Deaths ensue," he said.

Gwinn said they started filming about two weeks ago and will wrap up some time next week.

He said they're on a relatively tight schedule and a fairly low budget.

That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for extra shots, he said. And with just a few more days, and some actors from out of town, they'll have to try to get everything now.

"If we missed it, we missed it," he said.

It's an original screenplay, written by a local author, Charles Pisaen, Gwinn said.

"I was looking for another project to do, and everyone kept telling me I should do a horror film," Gwinn said.

What attracted Gwinn to the project?

"It was character driven, so I liked it and said 'Let's go with this one,'" he said. "I wanted something basically in one location and an ensemble piece.

"He knew what I was looking for before he wrote the script."

While they haven't found a distributor yet, Gwinn said he is in talks with several studios.

"It's not quite a slasher film, but it's not just a crime drama, there's a good mix of the two," Gwinn said.

Stephanie A. Wilken can be reached at swilken@yumasun.com or 539-6857.