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The Livermore Film commission is promoting several available locations that may appeal to production companies, including some vacant areas of the VA Hospital in Livermore, Calif., on Thursday, May 8, 2008. (Cindi Christie/Contra Costa Times)

The Tri-Valley ought to be in pictures. Just ask anyone on the Livermore Valley Film Commission.

Oh, the Tri-Valley plays some bit parts here and there, mostly in commercials or corporate shoots. But commission members will tell you the Valley should be an A-list player.

"Obviously, the area has a vast selection of great locations — mountains, mansions, vineyards," said Derek Zemrak, a Danville-based film producer and commission member.

"We have windy roads and old barns that have been used over and over for car commercials, and Lake Del Valle, the windmills, and then we have suburban streets and downtown areas that look like they could be anywhere," commission chief Dale Kaye said.

Kaye has been promoting Livermore for a few years now, but recently ramped up efforts to make the surrounding cities and county land a draw as well. This week, she convinced the Dublin City Council to toss $2,500 into the promotional pot.

"It's a small investment in order to make a lot more money," Kaye said.

Indeed, it's not vanity that drives this effort. It's "purely an economic development tool to bring business into the area," Kaye said.

According to Kaye: All productions require a support crew. The bigger the production, the bigger the crew. A feature film coming to the area for a 14-week shoot would pump $14 million into the regional economy. A television series making 22 episodes would bring nearly $3 million.

"A crew

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of 150 people, it's like a circus comes to town and pays to live there and go to restaurants and buy supplies, and then, just like that, they're gone!" Kaye said.

It's not hard to see why local governments have no qualms about their turf being used for someone else's set. Among the parties Kaye and her crew appraoched, Livermore Mayor Marshall Kamena and Supervisor Scott Haggerty were among the most interested in her proposal.

So far, the commission has not attracted a blockbuster project. But since its inception, it has brought in a lot of commercial work and corporate videos.

Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters" show has made repeated visits, and recently scouted a site in Livermore for a shoot that would involve a pair of Bradley Fighting Vehicles ripping apart intermeshed phone books.

"We could be successful just getting the commercials and videos," Kaye said, "but in order to sustain it, we need to get feature films."

Toward that end, the commission is actively lobbying major studios, such as Disney, Universal, Warner Brothers, Fox and Paramount. Kaye brought along Kamena, Haggerty and others on a trip to Los Angeles last fall.

She's an old hand at lobbying studios: She did the same thing in Florida for more than a decade.

While not rare, the only other film commissions in the East Bay are city-based, in Oakland and Berkeley.

Kaye said she's hopeful that filmmakers will acknowledge the charms of the area, and make the Tri-Valley a repeat destination. She said the producers of the next "Transformers" movie took a look at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which was also used in 1982's "Tron."

There's another potential benefit — publicity.

Kaye said feature films can create a widespread interest in the region, like 2004's "Sideways" did for the Santa Barbara region.

"After that, magazines and newspapers all started running articles on the virtues of Santa Barbara," she said.

Tourism in Santa Barbara's wine country made such a jump after "Sideways" that the local visitor's bureau produced a map showing the locations of the various wineries and restaurants used in the film.

"I wouldn't say the P.R. part of a film outweighs the economic benefits, but it's part of the cachet," Kaye said.

Eric Kurhi can be reached at 925-847-2184 or e-mail ekurhi@bayareanewsgroup.com.