Hollywood action in Ashland when movie made downtown

Movie-making may not be the first thing that springs to mind as one of Ashland's specialties, but that has been changing.

The behind-the-scenes excitement of Hollywood was part of Ashland's landscape for 2 1/2 weeks in April.

Good Deed Entertainment 's production of "The Holiday Club" has been using locations all over downtown Ashland as its backdrop and stage.

The film's 13-day schedule wrapped up April 30 at Ashland Theater .

One crew member after another lugged filming equipment from around the corner at GDE, located on East Main Street, into the theater for a scene between Alexandra Swarens, who came to Ashland from Los Angeles to play one of the lead roles, and fellow actor Mak Shealy.

Some crew members are local, said Devin Paxton, GDE' s creative marketing specialist, giving them opportunities in film-making, but others "we pull from L.A. and (other) bigger cities."

Producers Andy Myers and Phil Garrett are from Ashland, Paxton said.

Swarens road to 'The Holiday Club'

The plot of "The Holiday Club" tells the story of Swarens, playing the character of Bailey, and Shealy in the role of Sam, as "their love story unfolds from one Valentine's Day to the next," Paxton said.

"I'm an actor," Swarens said. "I started performing when I was 17."

For a time, she took a visual merchandising job to "clear her head" and "started writing my own stuff."

In 2022, GDE distributed the film she directed and in which she starred called "Looking for Her," then wanted to enlist her for another project.

"I have been here two weeks," she said. "I love the people."

Danielle Meyer is another out-of-town actor who came to Ashland from Dayton to act in "The Holiday Club."

She earned a role with a virtual audition and a callback from directors and producers.

Meyer also runs her own management company called Nani Media, but calls acting her "bread and butter." She will be working in Los Angeles over the summer.

Good Deed Entertainment starting to produce

"The Holiday Club," a 90-minute film, can "resurface any given time of year," Paxton said, because its theme isn't restricted to one particular holiday.

He can't yet say where the completed movie, which still must be edited and marketed, will be shown.

When actors and crew members disburse after the completion of the film, Paxton will remain in Ashland working for Good Deed Entertainment. The company distributes films, but "we're starting to create our own. We have produced well over 150," he said. "Some of our films are in select theaters; some go straight to platforms."

They also can be found on Amazon.

Having worked in New York and Nashville, Paxton moved back to Ohio in January for "the awesome opportunity" offered by GDE in Ashland.

His role is "all the marketing, whether grassroots outreach or anything with PR, creating and digital content." It involves "all the things that get us excited and hyped about a movie," he said. "It's like painting a canvas. Even the small details matter."

Same as big movie production, just smaller scale

Paxton has performed many other jobs for the production of "The Holiday Club," including working as an extra, while still needing to keep up with his own job, he said.

A 10-15-minute scene in which he took on that role turned out to be a five- to six-hour shoot, he said, but "it was exciting. A lot of people here have worn multiple hats."

They perform all the same roles as in bigger productions, from makeup artist to videographer, "just on a smaller scale."

Paxton participated in theater as a student in Willard and got into the groove of promoting it during middle school.

Encouraging people to attend the school's productions, "I started making fliers and going around town (handing them out)," he said. "I started being an entrepreneur at the age of 12," heading to Bowling Green University after high school graduation to earn a degree in marketing.

When the cast and crew converged on Ashland to make "The Holiday Club," he and others melded a variety of backgrounds and skill sets.

Paxton described GDE in a statement as "an independent studio dedicated to producing, financing and distributing quality entertainment for various platforms."

Its genre division, Cranked Up Films, specializes in science fiction and thrillers, Paxton said.

GDE "is in the works of doing so much more things," he said, with three films to be distributed this month.

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Hollywood action in Ashland when movie made downtown