Hollywood Resident to Will Smith: Go Home

(Pic by Hollywood Reporter.)

Dresden Graham would prefer that Will Smith pack up and leave her neighborhood. As the Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit writes, the 65-year-old Hollywood resident is upset over how her Sunset Square neighborhood has been disrupted by shooting for Smith's next film, "Seven Pounds":

The production is based at a house on Sierra Bonita, between Hollywood and Sunset boulevards, just three houses up from Graham's home, where she has lived since the mid-'80s. Trucks line the street, crews are busy setting up and striking down, generators hum, and security and police officers patrol the area.

Graham, who had put signs in her yard and on her house that read "Will Smith, Go Film at Your Mansions" and "Put Potty Toilets Next to Your Neighbor's House," has a litany of complaints. She doesn't like the fume-spewing trucks parked running in front of her house, where the production has placed portable toilets. She's not that keen on the planned night shoot that will go to 3 a.m., either, because it calls for bright lights, rain machines and Great Danes.

"We had no choice," she says. "The neighborhood had no choice."

But her biggest complaint has been with FilmL.A., the nonprofit organization that acts as a liaison for the city, its residences and film companies.

Complaints over neighborhood film shoots are nothing new, but most of the attention has been on disruptions downtown, where once filmmakers had the streets to themselves. Now, downtown's new residents aren't so keen on it.