Fees for Drew Barrymore Filming at AP Will Benefit Emergency Relief Fund

By: Samuel Chamberlain This week, the newsroom on the 14th floor of the Associated Press' midtown Manhattan offices has been transformed into the offices of the fictional New York Sentinel -- part of the set of Drew Barrymore's latest film, "Going The Distance."

Filming at the AP offices was expected to conclude Thursday morning, according to Jack Stokes, AP's manager of media relations. "They've set aside two days for actual filming," he told E&P. "They start in the afternoon and go overnight."

According to Ellen Hale, AP's director of corporate communications, the producers approached the news agency in June about filming in their newsroom, and all the fees paid by New Line Cinema will go to the AP Emergency Relief Fund, which was started after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to help AP staffers and their families cope with catastrophes not covered by benefits or insurance.

"[The producers] made a really nice contribution to the fund," said Hale, who declined to give the exact amount. "It's a wonderful little fund started by staffers to help displaced staffers. We've used it to help our reporters in Gaza recently. Also, we used the fund to send rental money to help a reporter and his family leave the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Another time, we had a reporter in Haiti lose his car in a hurricane and we used the fund to help him get another one."

And though a fair amount of disruption is to be expected when a feature film moves into your newsroom, the AP staffers seem to have made the best of it. According to AP Director/News Operations Mike Bass, the crew is on hand from about 7 a.m. to about 5 the next morning.

"Many staffers looked upon it as something new and different and intriguing, and thought it would be cool to have our newsroom appear in a motion picture," Bass told E&P. "And I'm happy and relieved to say that reaction did not change once filming began. The crew has been respectful of our need to do our job, and while there's obviously a certain amount of increased activity and some inconvenience, they have not gotten in our way of putting out the news."

A good measure of the AP's enthusiasm for the film is Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, who volunteered her office for use in the film.

"Going the Distance," which is also partially filming in Brooklyn, will star Barrymore as an intern at the Sentinel. The film, a romantic comedy, will depict Barrymore and Justin Long (star of the ubiquitous Mac commercials) as a couple struggling with a long-distance relationship. It is tentatively scheduled to be released in 2011.