WOODLAND HILLS : Film Copter Cuts Into Residents’ Sleep

The filming of an action movie at Warner Center has caused more than a stir among area residents; it’s been keeping them awake nights.

The Paramount Pictures production has kept residents of the quiet middle class neighborhoods surrounding the business center awake until dawn Tuesday night with the whoosh-whoosh of a low-flying Huey helicopter.

“Usually we get helicopters around here when there is a big party or something, but this was more bothersome,” said former Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus, who lives in the area. “I assumed it was a police action.”

“We didn’t know it was a movie,” said Paula Brown, who lives near Warner Center with her husband, Mark. “I would have appreciated something in the mail that warned us.” Notices were mailed to residents who live within a half-mile radius of Warner Center. Brown lives further south.

Jonathan Roberts, director of the Motion Picture and Television Division of Los Angeles, which issues permits for filming in the city, said residents will only have to put up with the noise for a few more days.

“Last night, due to the low fog cover, there was a variation of where helicopters were hovering,” Roberts said. “We will modify that tonight with a jet-powered helicopter, which is much quieter.”

The Paramount Pictures production, tentatively titled the “The Drop Zone,” and starring Wesley Snipes as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, obtained a permit to use helicopters within a half-mile radius around Warner Center, as well as to drop sky divers on a roof and on Oxnard Street. Shooting continued last night from 8:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. and again on Friday and Saturday, according to Dirk Beving, a permit officer.

Part of the permit approval process requires signatures of homeowners in the impacted area, Beving said, and “no substantial opposition” was found. A notice was mailed out to residents within the half-mile radius. On Wednesday, Beving said his office received few complaints.

But neighbors had plenty to say about the helicopter that hovered 1,000 feet in the air for 15 minutes every half-hour. One neighbor called LAPD’s West Valley Division to see what was going on and police told him they had been inundated by complaints and had sent officers to investigate.

Beving said residents are actually lucky.

“They were going to have a car blow up in the street, but they scratched those scenes.”

That wouldn’t have bothered Tim Anderson, 23. He was so tired he didn’t hear anything, but “dreamed a helicopter was flying over me.”