By Scott Meeker

smeeker@joplinglobe.com

There’s well over an hour to go before the actors will arrive on set for the first shot of the day, but nearly two dozen crew members are already hard at work.

The Black Hen restaurant at Red Oak II near Carthage bustles with activity — lights are being set up, cameras are tested, the table setting in the booth where the shot will take place is rearranged, and there’s a steady stream of people grabbing a bite from the craft-services table.

The scene being prepped Wednesday morning marked the start of the local shoot for “The Life of Lucky Cucumber,” co-written by Preston Lacy. Lacy, who wrote and co-starred in MTV’s “Jackass” TV series and films, has said that he based the script in part on his experiences growing up in the Joplin area.

The mockumentary is about a man named Lucky (played by Dian Bachar), whose unusual streak of bad luck doesn’t end even after a winning lottery ticket turns him into a multimillionaire, and a cross-country trip with Grandpa’s kidney in a beer cooler is thrown in for good measure.

Production began earlier this month on a soundstage in the San Fernando Valley, and will return there for several more days after more than a week of shooting in Carthage, Joplin and other locations around the area. In addition to Red Oak II, the movie will feature scenes shot in Joplin at the Kitchen Pass, Underground Paintball and Woody’s Woodfire Pizza.

Capturing the flavor

Pausing for a moment as he gets ready for the actors’ arrival at the restaurant, director of photography Ed Guttentag said that coordination is key on a film set, even when it’s a relatively small scene like the one they’re starting with — which will comprise just over four pages of the script.

“It’s similar to building a house, where you have some people doing construction, others doing the drywall,” Guttentag said. “But you have to have communication between all the people to get it done.”

Nearby, camera operator Chapin Wilson preps a digital camera when he’s called to begin gathering some footage of some of the Red Oak buildings.

Setting up outside of the Black Hen, he begins zooming in on one of the nearby structures.

“The B-roll footage is all about setting the environment,” he said. “Using these shots give you the ability to set the scene and capture the flavor.”

Artist Lowell Davis, who developed the 1930s-themed community after moving some of the original buildings from his old hometown, watches with interest as a steady stream of equipment is unloaded outside the restaurant.

“Preston used to hang out here and called to see if they could film here,” he said, adding that he had hadn’t realized the scope of the independent production.