I guess the Twilight influence is all-reaching

From CNN:

3. “Twilight” series, Washington state

The Forks, Washington, area has turned into “Twilight” heaven. Visitors can enjoy dinner at Bella Italia in Port Angeles, where Edward and Bella had their first date; stop by Forks Outfitters, where Bella worked; and travel to Forks High School, where the two first met (rumored to be the filming location for the school scenes.)

Additionally, the area boasts stand-in homes of the Swans and Cullens and motels such as the Dew Drop Inn, complete with “Bella’s suite” featuring black and red bedding.

PS. We ALL know that Bella’s bedding is purple, not black and red!!!

A bit of bad news about Forks High School (the real one) was revealed yesterday by the Pennsylvania Daily News, but an update has since been issued which indicates that there still may be a chance to save a Twilight-related monument.

The story was that Forks High School (the setting for a lot of the Twilight series books)’s brick facade, a doorway which read “Quillayute Valley High School,” was too expensive for town folks to save, even though it was a tourist attraction for a great many Twilight fans.

“The School Board was hoping to incorporate the front of the building — left standing when the rest of the condemned structure was demolished last summer — into the design of the new campus. The facade would have been left as a stand-alone structure as a part of a grand entrance to the school,” reported PDN. “The brick design of the leaky old building figures heavily in the descriptions of the Twilight saga [and] In addition to Twilight fans who often visit the school to see and photograph the place where heroine Bella Swan meets her vampire love, Edward Cullen, the building holds greater nostalgia for generations of longtime West End families who attended school there long before Bella and Edward. But saving the facade would cost $271,000 on top of the $12.2 million construction bid accepted Friday, and its just not feasible to spend the money that way, said Bill Rohde, School Board president.”

After the announcement, a lot of Twilight fans were a bit upset about the news and discussed the possibility of pitching in on the efforts to keep the monument.

Apparently, their voices were heard because PDN issued an update which reads: “School officials still hope that something can be done to save the facade at Forks High School as a freestanding monument on the redeveloped campus. According to the conditional use permit granted to the Quillayute Valley School District by the city last summer, the district must hold a public hearing and give the community 45 days in which to find alternate funding to pay for reinforcing the brick facade. Reinforcement and renovation would be required for the facade to remain as a stand-alone structure as a memory of the 1925 portion of the school, which figures descriptively in the Twilight saga of novels. A date has not been set for the public hearing.”

No word yet on whether the community is beginning a public fundraiser for the effort or not, but it should be interesting to see how this plays out.

Source

While vampires might not really walk among us, these days everyone wants to pretend. How many times in the current popular culture is the vampire falling in love with the girl necks door. Not surprisingly, there are more than a few places in the West to mirror, er, mimic vamp behavior (or revel in the scene), without giving up California sunsets forever.

1. Pacific Inn Motel, Forks, Wash.

Epicenter of the latest vampire craze, Forks, Wash., is “Twilight.” Aficionados will love their six gothic-themed rooms decked out with red-and-black walls, beds and “Twilight” posters galore. As if the Bates Motel wasn’t scary enough. 352 S. Forks Ave., Forks, Wash., (800) 235-7344 www.pacificinnmotel.com.

2. Bite, Las Vegas

Move over, Bela Lugosi. There’s a new generation of vampires in town. Bite is Vegas’ adults-only vampire revue. Help Lord Vampire search for his perfect female (and predictably topless) specimen. If you are tasty enough you might be selected to participate in the show. The Stratosphere, 2000 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Las Vegas,  (800) 998-6937 www.stratospherehotel.com/entertainment.

3. Garlic City Cafe, Gilroy

Keep the vampires at bay with their own personal Kryptonite. Breath that could kill? Who cares with these tasty sandwiches, salads and hearty soups; a Garlic City delight. 7461 Monterey St., Gilroy, (408) 847-7744

4. Cinema Makeup School, Los Angeles

Make your very own fangs. Cinema Makeup School just doesn’t suck, offering courses in prosthetic makeup, latex and silicone gel-filled appliances. No real blood here; it’s all make-believe. Probably. 3780 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 368-1234 www.cinemamakeup.com.

5. Blood Centers of the Pacific

Vampire or not, blood is a precious commodity. You don’t like needles, but you can’t get enough of HBO’s “True Blood” these days? Close your eyes and imagine some fangs. Blood Centers of the Pacific. More than 10 locations in Northern California. (888) 393-4483

Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

– Just spent five hours of hard-earned summer vacation in Forks, Wash., the setting of the “Twilight” books – whose latest film spawn, “Eclipse,” has spent the past few weekends extracting cash from teenage girls of all ages.

Initially, I was kicking myself for not extracting an hour of yard work from my daughter in exchange for every hour spent in Forks. But in retrospect, Forks provided our family with a valuable lesson in that most American of traits: Forks has reinvented itself.

This town of 3,100 has pimped itself out for “Twilight” in ways that stretch the bounds of marketing.

To read the rest of the Article go here

Where did Stephenie Meyer’s inspiration for the Cullen home she described in the Twilight Saga come from? Was it based on a real house in the Forks area?

Diane, CBA’s wonderful Fork’s reporter, provides personal details on the story of the “real” Cullen house in Forks – including info from Stephenie Meyer herself!

Okay, as you know the Twilight in Forks DVD is now out and for sale..One of the interesting stories told in the DVD was about the “Real” Cullen home. The day the dvd was released the house burnt to the ground. So very sad because it was a hundred years plus old. The good news is this: I took photos of this house during a tour I took a couple of girls on who were from Salt Lake who came to visit me the summer before last. Now, there is a story behind that house..One I feel personally connected to because my Sister in Law actually grew up in that house with her Aunt Franky. It was beautifully kept up and was a beautiful home. But then it was put up for sale and sold and then later on was put on the market for sale again..Now, here is where the connection comes to Stephenie Meyer..During this period of time while she was writing her first Book, she gathered this information off of the internet and used this house as the “Cullen” home in her series. The reason I know this is because Stephenie came to church here in Forks the weekend of her book signing (before the book became famous) and my sister in law happened to ask her about it and she shared that information with her. If you read about the house and where it is located and by the river and so forth,it perfectly describes the house she grew up in. Sadly, the person who bought the house last did not keep it up to the standard it had been previously. But the good news is they are going to rebuild it to hold to the replica of what it was previous. The reason for the Bread and Breakfast in Forks being the adopted “Cullen” home was due to the tour that takes place in Forks and for Convenience sake so that the bus didn’t have to travel so far out of the way. But with the new tour buses that have come to Forks and with the building of the new house..it just may very well be the Real Cullen home when its finished. That will depend on the owner and whether he wants his privacy imposed upon or not. So that is the story of the Cullen home. Hope it sheds some light on some of the mystery around it.
A little eerie isn’t it?

Your Forks Reporter,

Diane

P.S.
I thought I would let you know one more thing about this house. I’m not sure how many people actually were aware of this and so there may be just a few that have photos of it..I feel fortunate that I made the trip out to get photos. On the Twilight in Forks DVD, Charlene Cross made mention that the day the DVD came out, the house burned down..that in itself is kind of eerie isn’t it?

(See what York Bauer, the producer of Twilight in Forks, had to say about the house here.)

CBA recently had a chance to interview York Baur, the producer of Twilight in Forks, the 90-minute documentary video released in conjunction with Twilight Saga: New Moon on DVD.

Of course I was anxious as I sat waiting in Borders for York Baur to show up for our interview. He is the producer of Twilight in Forks, the video Summit is marketing along with the New Moon DVD. Who wouldn’t be nervous! The moment York and his teenage son, Alex, walked right over to me, I knew this would be, not just OK, but fun. He had cheated, he said. He looked me up on the Internet.

York and I had “met” months ago, when they were still self publishing Twilight in Forks. I was curious, how it all had changed. “We weren’t pursuing anything,” York said. In one whirlwind trip to LA, they were on MTV, chatted with Larry Carroll, and stopped in at Summit to give them a heads up about the venture. “Two weeks later, there was a deal in place.” York had high praise for Summit’s team, especially the Home Entertainment Division who he worked with, calling Summit the “antithesis” of everything people hate about Hollywood. “Summit is unique in many respects,” he commented, “but in particular because they are not afraid to take risks and try things, and be entrepreneurial. I think that is what has enabled New Moon to outsell Twilight in a year when DVD sales in the aggregate are down year over year, and that doesn’t happen by accident.”

My response to the video was to tear up in several places, as I relived my pilgrimage to Forks/Mecca, but I knew not everyone responded that way. “We got interviewed by the wall street journal!” Baur said. “But you know, they are journalists as opposed to a deeply personal reaction like yours and so it’s been more fun to watch twitter with the little bursts of “OMG, I really want to go!” Alex chimed in here, obviously proud and happy for his dad, “My dad called me into the office and you can just see the tweets flying by.” “Which is another good sign,” added York . “And you can see Portuguese flying by and Spanish and German. Its been fun because it is global. I followed a young lady in Chile -how she reacted to it- and I wished her well with all the earthquakes. She replied back, ‘Yes, we’ll get through it and this is helpful.’ So it is just fun to see that we are making people happy. Also someone in Brazil had a launch party for our movie. I have a picture of it. When people are having a launch party half way around the world… There are always haters, who don’t get it, who don’t get Twilight. Like John Granger, said in the video, ‘It is about people having this amazing literary experience.’ Who cares if Stephen King doesn’t get it?” Whether Forks is Mecca or, as suggested in the film, Eden, when people say “I came for Twilight, but I will come back for Forks”, York’s mission has been accomplished. He said he feels lucky to have the “lens of Twilight” to be able to show what an incredibly unique part of the world it is.

York told me they used a different technique from say, Michael Moore, in making the video. “Did you notice there is no narration, only the people talk?” York pointed out. “That was important for two reasons. First, it is more engaging if it is the people telling the story and secondly, we wanted the people to tell their story. That was important to us, to let everybody that’s in the film tell it in their own words“

Listening to the people tell their stories, like those of the Quileute tribe being derived from the wolves, one realizes there are an awful lot of co-incidences between the book and the real Forks area. For instance, Roy Black, an honest-to-goodness, real Quileute, talks about their legends in the video. For York, Charlene Leppell’s stories about the real Cullens and the “Cullen” house are the most intriguing. Charlene, a life-long resident of Forks, tells of a real Cullen family, who lived on the Quileute prairie. Cool, huh? Better yet, is the story of the Rixon house, the real “Cullen” house, not the Bed and Breakfast one in town. While researching the area, Stephenie Meyer came across a real estate ad for the Rixon house and used the information from that ad as a the basis for the Cullen House in the book. Little did she know how close the house she would go on to describe in the book would be to what that real house was.  There are pictures in York’s video from a fire, which would later destroy the house on the very day the Twilight DVD was released.  The Baur connection to the Rixon house goes back to fishing on the Sol Duc river, that runs through the property, when their kids were young. It’s way back off the highway, in the forest, over an old falling apart bridge, in a setting the perfectly mirrors what you would imagine the Cullen house to be. “All which Stephenie Meyer had no way to know – I mean she saw a real estate listing. She wouldn’t have been able to feel it, because she wasn’t there. If you ever see it you’ll see the setting is just spooky, not in a horror film sort of way, It is like the history of the forest is right there. It is incredible.”

It is all pretty incredible and we are so happy for you, York, and your company!

If you haven’t check out Twilight in Forks, you need to. (You have to see the real biology lab and the real biology teacher at Fork High!) Thank you York, Alex, and company for making this video so everyone around the world can feel a bit of what it is like to make that pilgrimage to Forks, Washington.

Links:

twilightinforks.com
twitter

Twilight in Forks-Saga of the Real Town

Here is a lovely little video of Forks from the Seattle Times. It is supposed to be a bit of  a commentary on how Twilight has invaded Forks, good or bad, but it really is a nice visual tour of the area.  The shots of the stores, forests, and people, let you feel some of the local charm, and Forks is very charming indeed. And,  La Push’s beaches are so awe inspiring!

From Diane, our Forks Reporter, an update on the recent casting call held in Forks for the proposed reality show:

Subject: UPDATE ON REALITY SHOW

“Twenty people were called back who interviewed for the cast on the upcoming reality show that is going to be filmed in Forks..Among those were mostly Forks young people. A few from outlying areas from Port Angeles and LaPush were included.. It will a few weeks before anything else is forthcoming about it..the film company will take it back and have it reviewed by some of the networks evidently to try and sell them on the idea. So we will see what becomes of it..Will keep you informed as I recieve new information. From Forks Washington, Cullen Country, signing out!
Have a great day!

Quick survey: Would you watch a reality show based in Forks but not related to Twilight? Would you watch a reality show based in Forks that somehow involved the Twilight world?

Tapping into Twilight interest… Forks “docusoap” details

Yesterday we posted an eyewitness account of the casting call for the possible reality TV show that would be set in Forks Washington. There is some additional details on the show from TheWrap, who interviewed the producer, Zig Gauthier. I know we have all be wondering if this is going to be some tacky, embarrassing thing for Forks residents and also what plot direction the show would take.

Gauthier tells TheWrap:

“We’re not going up there looking to cast people who have claims to the supernatural.” “We want people who have a true connection to the community. We want to avoid people with outlandish claims.”

So just what will the show be?

Gauthier said the goal of the as-yet untitled series is “to peel back another layer of the onion that is Forks and see what the real people there are like.”

The exact format of the series hasn’t yet been worked out and won’t be until Gauthier finishes casting. He also wants to give potential network partners maximum flexibility in shaping the series.

Possibilities for the structure of the show include focusing on a group of high-school students (the real life Bella!), following one or more families who live in the town or a “Real Housewives” model, in which cameras tag along with several interesting personalities in the town.

Forks has been hit hard by the Great Recession, so the tourist dollars that have come from “Twilight” have been helpful. Gauthier hopes exposing the real Forks via a reality show could further boost tourism.

Mike Gurling, who manages the visitor center for the Forks Chamber of Commerce, said residents were aware of planned casting sessions for the Gauthier project — but not yet sure what to make of the idea.

“It’s pretty hard to imagine the concept,” Gurling told TheWrap. “This is a really small logging town. If you were to compare what happens here to Las Vegas or Los Angeles, it’s hard for us to believe” there’s enough interesting content for a show.

That said, Gurling said that he just hopes that “anything that’s produced “sheds a positive light on Forks. If it’s hokey or embarrassing, my personal impression is that’s not something we’d want to see.”

Not a problem, says Gauthier: He wants to be considerate of locals who might not be keen on a Hollywood camera crew hanging out in the town of 3,000.

“I come from a small town of 100 people in Northern California,” he said. “I do expect some people to be resistant. But we want to be respectful of what the town has gone through. I think we’re making our best effort to make this a good experience.”

Stay tuned to CBA for more info. Our friend and reporter, Diane, is on-site and will be feeding us info as this thing unfolds.

CBA’s Forks Washington reporter, Diane,  just sent in the following account of the casting call in Forks today:

Now for the latest on what’s going on for the Reality sitcom they are auditioning for..there was a lineup of about 30 people today according to my husband who serves on the Forks EMT ambulance corp.. One of his fellow EMT workers and someone who manages in the Hardware section..(he certainly could be Mike Newtons Dad..) went also to audition..He is in his early 50s maybe late 40s..but they stated he was too old.. So it appears they want a younger group on this show…I will keep you updated as to what they are really looking for as I get the info.

OK,  I know this sounds crazy but MTV is reporting it and it is on the Forks local paper, the Forks Forum so…  Anyhow, here is the entire article from the Forks paper:

Los Angeles-based television producer Zig Gauthier is scheduled to hold a casting call in Forks on Tuesday, Dec. 22 and Wednesday, Dec. 23.

Gauthier is proposing to film a reality show in Forks that would star local residents. The concept for the show would be presented to television networks who would decide whether to commit to backing the project.

The casting call is set for the Twilight Lounge (the former Vagabond bar and restaurant) at 81 North Forks Ave. On Tuesday the casting call starts at noon and ends by 4 p.m. On Wednesday, prospective participants will be interviewed from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Gauthier said in a call from Santa Monica that he is working with Annette Root, owner of Dazzled by Twilight, on the logistics of the casting call. He said Root has been very helpful in arranging for the Forks interviews.

A typical casting call consists of filling out information about yourself including contact numbers and then standing in front of a back drop to have a digital photo taken. The producer then goes over the photos and information and may, or may not, call back those they are interested in appearing in the show.

The producer told the Forks Forum those attending the Forks casting call will be asked to fill out a one-to-two page questionnaire, have their photo taken.

In a press release the Los Angeles producer said he will be considering both individuals and groups when casting.

The press release asks:
“Do you have a dynamic, outgoing personality?”
“Are you TV friendly?’
“Do you permanently live in Forks?”

Anyone interested in trying out for the series should go to www.redvarden.com or call Red Varden Studios in Santa Monica at (310) 450-5860.

Here are MTV’s suggestions for the show:

“Survivor: Forks”

The coven has spoken! Two teams of unwitting humans are released into the vampire- and werewolf-invested forests of the Olympic Peninsula. The last contestant standing with all his/her blood and limbs in tact wins.

“Real World: Forks”

This is the true story, of seven strangers (not all entirely human), picked to live in the woods and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when vampires stop being polite and start getting real … real bloody.

“Fork of Love”

One lucky lumberjack must date 15 logger groupies, eliminating one each week until he finds his one true Fork of Love. Weekly challenges include tree climbing, chainsaw juggling, and a flannel bikini contest.

Would you watch  a Twilight/Forks-based reality show?  Any ideas for the “plot”?