Cleaning The Movie Set Windows

Ron "The Whistler" Chappell cleans a window at Tait's Feed and Seed in Brunswick. Windows had been sprayed with a film for scenes from "Live by Night." Below: Workers dug and scraped down to the asphalt on Newcastle Street to restore it to pre-movie appearance.

Brunswick windows get post movie cleaning: Returning a couple of blocks of Newcastle Street to their pre-“Live by Night” movie days is getting down to the film, and a window washer was handling that. In one of the finer touches, producers of Ben Affleck’s “Live by Night” had the windows and glass doors in businesses along Newcastle Street sprayed with a film to make them appear realistically dirty.

Ron “The Whistler” Chappell was making his way down Newcastle Wednesday morning soaping down the windows and squeegeeing them clean. “The movie people told me to do this, so I’m doing it,’’ said Chappell, who gets his nickname from his loud whistling while he works.

Workers were digging and scraping down to the asphalt on Newcastle Street Friday to restore it to its pre-movie appearance. 

Even the few palm trees that were left standing got a light coating of grime so they would appear to have gotten a dusting from cars traveling along Newcastle Street, which was covered with mulch and sand to give it a 1920s look for the movie.

Downtown Development Director Matthew Hill said the producers have left downtown looking better than they found it so far. All the false storefronts to make it appear to be 1920s Ybor City, Fla., have been removed and the storefronts got some fresh paint as needed. “They look all shiny and new,’’ Hill said.

Still missing, however, are all the palms, shrubbery and pavers taken up from the median so Newcastle would be a wide dirt street for the movie. Putting the curbing back shouldn’t take long and restoring the plants should be complete by the end of the year, Hill said.

Ron Chappell, The Whistler, whistles the National Anthem for admirers who took part in a fund-raiser to buy the window-washer a truck. He had been walking or hitchhiking to his jobs.