ELLENVILLE – Production manager Patrick Eaton is professional, as is Sabine Schenk, the producer he's working with on the film they started shooting in Ellenville Monday morning, Unintended. The two usually work in New York City, helping European productions navigate the complexities of shooting in our nation's largest city. She's German, his family's French. Their background is impressive, working on everything from photo shoots and commercials to academy award winning movies such as The Reader.

Unintended is written and directed by Anja Murmann, an NYU film school graduate who got to know Upstate New York after her first short film played the Woodstock Film Festival. Her first feature, Fifteen Months in May, won "Best New Director – Special Mention " at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. The two stars are Elizabeth Lail, who starred as Anna in television's Once Upon A Time, and plays Natalie on The Blacklist, and Sean Cullen, a Broadway actor with extensive film and television credits.

"For us, it's like a vacation," Eaton said as things were getting rolling Monday at Ellenville's Hunt Memorial Building for some exterior shots, to be followed by some road shooting complete with an auto rig for the camera. "In the city you need a permit every time someone coughs. Here, everyone's accommodating. And this village, Ellenville, is the perfect setting for the story of a girl returning home. It's a picturesque setting with a white church steeple and a mountain in the background, plus it has a great vibe about it. The local signs, the old stores... you could say it has 'ye olde looke' about it.

"We started scouting last summer. We checked Buffalo and some other locations, and then we came here and discovered this beautiful place," said Schenk on set as Murmann framed shots, prepped actors. "We totally fell in love with Ellenville. I mean look at it — American small-town architecture, beautiful white church that contrasts the big green mountains. It's perfect for us."

Eaton added that working with Laurent Rejto of the Hudson Valley Film Commission, the production's hired local crew, a New Paltz caterer. They're based in Kingston for their 26 day shoot, which will take them to Minnewaska, Mohonk and Rosendale as well as Bearsville and other locations in the immediate area, including Cohen's Bakery, the Ellenville Hospital and Peters Market in Napanoch.

"It's low budget, running through Anja and Sabine's company, Shorelight Pictures," the production manager added. "We'll end up shooting six days in New York City."

The plot, he added, has a quietly epical quality about it. A young girl of twelve has bought a gun and thinks she may have killed someone in the town she's from. After repressing her memories for years, images of what happened come back. She returns to what had been her home and starts to piece her life, and several mysteries, back together.

On set, a simple shot of two people emerging from the front of the Hunt gets repeated. To lay people, the differences between individual shots seems miniscule. Yet there's no tension among cast and crew. Everyone's had breakfast and lunch together. Elsewhere, the camera rigging for a car is being readied. And like all film shoots, everyone's busy at their individual tasks, ensuring the 25 days to come run like clockwork with no overage, no waste, and everyone doing their best, most professional job.

Off set, we check in with Rejto, who laughs after I tell him I've suggested a film festival featuring all the local films he's had cameos or small parts in over his years getting productions to shoot in the region. He talks up recent articles about the surge in productions that have come to Ulster County this summer, spurred on by changes in the state's film tax credit allowances for the Hudson Valley. He notes the new production center being built in Midtown Kingston, as well as a top indie producer who has moved to the area from Chicago. As well as the continuing work of Rondout Valley stalwarts Melissa Leo and Jim Jarmusch.

Head to the Hudson Valley Film Commission's web site, and lists of casting calls and job offers appear, along with all the top-shelf local services offered to outside productions wondering whether they should be shooting here.

Back on set, everyone's hushed... shooting's again underway. As usual, everything seems to be moving slow. And yet there's a buzz in people's eyes, from the producer and production manager to the director of photography and actors... and calmest of all, the director and screenwriter.

"Cut!" comes the call. And everyone making Hollywood in Ellenville pauses before starting work once more.