On the set of HOPE FLOATS

Here are some interesting facts about Smithsville during the filming (these were
submitted by two very kind people who live in the town):

--Smithville, Texas Pop. 3,496 (i think..it's small!)
--the house used in the movie is owned by the junior high principal and his
family--while filming, the family moved into there summer house early
--the scene where Sandra(Birdee) is in the bathroom was set up in the
bedroom of the girl who lives
there, because there was more room.
--in the beginning of the movie, when she and her daughter are coming into
Smithville, it looks like they're taking a nice and straight route to
the house, but in real life they drove down the same road like 3 times at
different angles, and down main street the wrong way in the opposite
direction!
--when Sandra is wearing the cheerleader outfit, it is one of the real ones
our cheerleaders use, plus, in that same scene, they used our cheerleaders
for the cheer.
--the parade scene took 9 straight hours of filming (from 7pm to 4am)(not
great when you live on the next street and you're trying to sleep! Loud!)
--the pond behind the house that everyone talks about doesn't really exist
behind the house--it's about 15 miles away in Bastrop, TX
--in real life, the fence and columns around the house aren't there, the
trim on the house isn't there, and there is no fountain...all props
--almost everyone in s'ville was in the movie except us! lol! Almost every
extra was some smithvillian but if you look closely you can see our yard in
the beginning and our van wayyyy down the street! :-) heh heh heh....
--in real life that is not our real water tower, there is no photo shop (we
wish!), no job agency, and there is no Honey's Diner...however, because it
is such a small town, the props that identify them as so remain there to
this day...
--Props from the movie were sold to build a rec center here
--the dance hall is called Watterson and is where all us local teens go on
Friday and Sat. nights until 1 in the morning dancin'. yep, it's a hangout.
-- the movie was filmed awhile back(i was in 8th then and now i'm in 10th),
but i think it was filmed May through July..l think...sorry if i didn't
remember exactly
--our town was crazy when they came... people were on our street all hours
of the night...it was really kind of annoying...students would walk from the
schools(afterschool--about 9 blks. away) just to watch some of the filming
--once i had to be escorted by a policeman to my piano lesson because they
had roped off the block for filming and it was next door to the house
--i only saw Sandra once--when she rode by in a golf cart in front of my
house and waved to me! But I think i saw some filming, though!!!

Thanks to my friend Jane for telling me all of this stuff to share with you all! :)

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This was written by my friend Wade (Wado123@aol.com):

I can't remember exactly when the crew got here, but they really turned this little quiet country town completly upside down. The trailers that they were staying in where actually a block away from my house, where an old school used to be (the building is still there), and they had all of the trailers parked around it. My mom was actually asked by a lady named Anna (wardrobe head) if she could do some laundry, so my mom did. It was pretty cool, I remember all of the clothes had a tag inside that said wherever they were from, it was somewhere in California. There were quit a few trailers here. I saw Sandra one day riding around in her golf cart, boy, is she beautiful. She drove back to Austin every night after shooting, I think she was driving a pathfinder, or something like that. At one point, there was a rumor going around that she was being stalked, I don't know if it was true or not. A couple of night, me, my mom, and my sister in law, would go watch shotting that they were doing outside of the house. We went one night, and stayed until like 12:45 when they wrapped. It was pretty cool though, seeing how it would turn out in the movie, it was really a few anxious months, waiting for the movie to come out. There really wasn't a photo shop where she worked out, it was a building down on mainstreet, and same as the employment agency. Although, these business do not exist, all of the windows were left with the writing on them, like the photo shop still has all of the slogans and stuff on the window. THey did take down the sign for it though. Me brother was an extra in the funeral scene, but he could not be seen on camera. Me and my mom left in July of 97 to go to florida for my grandfathers surgery, and they finished up about a month after we left. The parade scene at the end of the movie was shot for about 8 hours to my knowledge, and they used about 4 minutes of it in the movie. lol. Anyway, a lot of the older people in town, weren't crazy about them being here, because it caused such a fuss, but I thought it was really neat. A lot of the business have hope floats posters up, and a lot of people were angered, because in the movie, when sandra comes to smithville, the sign that says "Entering Smithville" was taken down, and replaced by a crisco sign I believe. To my knowledge, there is a petition going on to bring the sign back as a permanent type landmark of Smithville. Another tid bit, my mother owns a cleaning service for a living, and she actually cleans the house which the movie was shot in.

That's it! If you have any stories to submit,
maybe I can add them to this page!
Email me at HopesFloat@aol.com (if you have one)!