If you passed by Ten West Diner early Sunday morning and saw several police cars with flashing lights, the restaurant wasn’t being burglarized or vandalized, they were shooting a movie.
Over the weekend a Dallas filmmaker, Shannon Chance, returned to Orange with friends in tow to shoot a short film he wrote specifically for the Texas Film Belt Project. Chance is an Orange County native that graduated from Bridge City High School. Other Orange County natives traveled home to participate. The script was titled “Ten West” after the diner.
“I came home to shoot it because of the film festival there,” said Chance, referring to the Texas Film Belt Project which is a brand-new endeavor of the Barefoot on the Bayou Film Group, a new nonprofit based in Orange. The goal of the project is to promote filming along the Interstate 10 Highway corridor. Films are required to be shot in Texas within 50 miles of the freeway. Extra points or received for scenes featuring I-10. Originally films could be no longer than 10 minutes, but the time has been extended to allow for more films to qualify. Now the films must be no more than 30 minutes to qualify for the traveling film block…