Movie filming begins in Coupeville

Quiet on set, please. A heart-racing thriller is in the works on Central Whidbey.

A crew of eight gathered on an unusually quiet Front Street Monday morning in Coupeville to kick off filming of “Mistakhan,” a social thriller created by writer and director Van Allen Cooper and produced by Dale Schomer.

Upon the News-Times’ arrival, Cooper could be seen perched underneath a half-tent directing a scene in which Khan, the protagonist, kneels alongside and speaks to a woman named Constance, a suicide bomber whose violent actions he will be mistaken to have made.

“He has his hand on the detonator, which has already been pressed,” Cooper explained. “If it’s released, they’ll paint downtown. So, how do you get out of this situation?”

“Mistakhan” promises unforgettable intensity, but moviegoers will have to wait to see how it ends.

In July, the Coupeville Town Council unanimously passed a motion to approve street closures occurring Sept. 8-10 to allow Cooper and Schomer to shoot “Mistakhan.” Doing so is paying off so far for the town and for the filmmakers.

Cooper said he hoped to accumulate at least 30 extras for rowdy crowd scenes planned for Wednesday and ended up with 70. The Coupeville Lions showed up in “full force” to guard the barricades blocking off streets for filming, Schomer added.

“To say (Coupeville has been) cooperative is insufficient. They have been supportive as much as possible,” Schomer said, going on to specifically shout out Mayor Molly Hughes and her staff, Coupeville business owners and the Chamber of Commerce.

“To get that kind of welcome is heartwarming,” she remarked.

Coupeville’s hospitality is allowing the crew behind and the talent of “Mistakhan” to fully flourish.

Cooper spoke highly of Amanda Johnson, playing Constance, and Devon Sidhu, a Whidbey resident playing Khan, and their ability to breathe life into his characters.

Seth Thompson, the one-man sound department for “Mistakhan,” is in charge of live-mixing the audio he picks up with his boom mic — that is, adjusting for volume on the fly — a job typically better suited for multiple people.

Thompson attended school for audio engineering in Shoreline. Despite his background recording music, he fell in love with the film industry and welcomes the challenge anyways.

“It’s cool to be a part of something where every single person is needed,” Thompson said. “Everybody is so essential on these projects. It’s really fun. We’re all trying to achieve the same thing.”

Cinematographer Derek Johnson, a more than 20-year industry veteran with a lengthy resume including working on “Grey’s Anatomy,” felt similarly inspired.

“It’s pretty rewarding,” Johnson said. “I know that I have my very focused, busy mind right now, but at the end of every day, I’m always grateful because I feel like what I’m doing is not something that a lot of people can do, and I’m aware of my privileges of being here. It feels really good.”

Johnson said he decided to shoot “Mistakhan” with two cameras, allowing the crew to capture both sides of conversations simultaneously.

He arrived at that creative decision after spending days combing through the script, conceptualizing how to shoot the world of “Mistakhan” in an attempt to craft “the shots that will do the most justice to (Cooper’s) story,” he said.

When all is said and done, the story in question will handle themes of “group think,” “distrust” and “preconceived ideas” about people based on appearance, Cooper said.