Showtime Green-Lighted for Next Shoot

A location manager for the Showtime TV program, “The Affair,” which is set in these parts and is completing the filming of episodes for its first season, got a decidedly better reception this week than the last time he spoke to the East Hampton Town Board seeking a permit for a film shoot during the height of the season.

Andrew Poppoon reviewed plans for filming in Amagansett and Montauk on Monday through Friday at a town board meeting on Tuesday, and board members agreed to issue a film permit.

In July, Mr. Poppoon was grilled about the crew’s proposed plans for a summertime shoot, and some were scuttled as being too disruptive during the busy season.

The locations to be used next week will include, as before, the Deep Hollow Ranch and the train station in Montauk, the Lobster Roll restaurant on Napeague, and a private house on Marine Boulevard in Amagansett’s Beach Hampton section, where filming in the spring set off a round of complaints from residents.

Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby asked whether the film crew rents the Marine Boulevard house it uses each time it plans a shoot there. Mr. Poppoon said it does and had rented to film there in May but not in July.

A rental this month would be the last time, under the town code, that the property could be legally rented for a short term (of less than two weeks) this year, Ms. Overby said. “I just want to make sure that we apply our code to what you’re doing,” she told Mr. Poppoon. If the property had been rented for several days in July as well as in May, she said, the coming shoot there “would not be possible.”

“Your production has to take that into account,” she told Mr. Poppoon.

After complaints about the springtime filming at the Marine Boulevard house, in a densely developed residential neighborhood, the board had told the TV series representative that it would be better to find a new location. 

“I’m a little concerned about the continued use in this way of a residential neighborhood,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said this week. It raises questions, he said, about “the commercial use of a residential property.”

Showtime producers are aware of the issues surrounding use of the Marine Boulevard house, said Mr. Poppoon. If need be, he said, and if the show continues into a second season, adjustments may be made.

Three scenes will also be filmed at Turtle Cove in Montauk next Thursday.

Mr. Poppoon said he is well aware that the ocean beach there is a popular surfing and bass fishing spot this time of year, and that the crew has been warned that it will have to work around other visitors to the site. Public access will not be denied. Instead, he said, those who are willing to be in the background on camera will be asked to sign a waiver on the spot — or, he said, the film crew will adjust its shots so as to avoid including those who do not wish to be recorded.

“I just want to make sure we don’t get a call from someone who’s trying to get down there and fish, and couldn’t,” Mr. Cantwell told Mr. Poppoon. He was assured that the crew would “work around” members of the public, just as is done when filming on crowded city streets.

In appreciation for the use of the various locations, and in addition to the film permit fees charged by the town, the Showtime production will make donations to the Montauk Surfcasters Association and to the Amagansett Life Saving Station.

Hy Brodsky, a Montauk resident, told the board at the Tuesday meeting that he believed the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee should have been given an opportunity to weigh in on the filming proposal.

“This to me is a major physical impact on Montauk, and there haven’t been any local meetings on it,” he said.

But town officials, in contrast to their skeptical reaction to Mr. Poppoon’s proposals during the summer, were accommodating.

“Thank you for doing this in September,” Ms. Overby said. “We can be more welcoming.”

“I think you’ve tried real hard here to address issues raised by the community and the board,” Mr. Cantwell said. He added, though, that as the Beach Hampton filming is “problematic,” he would ask that the show find an alternative site.

“And don’t get in the way of the striped bass fishermen,” he warned.