— by Matt Golec

Walpole, NH

Despite threatening clouds, the sun came out last week on day 10 of a 16-day shoot for Hanover High grad Julia Coulter’s first feature film, *Road To L’Etape Du Tour.*

The actor/director plays a young woman with a heart defect who, in the wake of her father’s death, upends her life to train for a stage of the Tour de France her father had planned to ride.

Northern Stage regular Gordon Clapp of NYPD Blue fame **and Brian Muller from Bridge & Tunnel are among the actors filming with Coulter around the region. What follows is a photo essay on a day’s work in Walpole. Here’s an earlier story on Coulter and the film’s background.

The film crew begins setting up at a secluded chapel in Walpole, N.H. Amy McCabe and her husband, Dan, built the chapel after moving up to Walpole from New Jersey. They renewed their wedding vows in the chapel, and now hope to use it for weddings and film shoots like this one. “It’s a peaceful place,” McCabe said.

Sound tech Jeremy Eisener wires actor Gordon Clapp for sound. When the mic slipped easily through his clothes, Clapp joked, "I’ve been doing this too many years.”

Actor Brian Muller of New York reviews his lines before filming begins. When asked how hard it was to memorize scripts, Muller explained that "it gets easier the more you do it.”

Julia Coulter and Gordon Clapp discuss the challenges of filmmaking in northern New England.

The actors walk to the chapel as the cameras and microphones roll.

The crew watches on the monitors as the actors film inside the chapel.

Coulter steps out of the chapel to talk to Muller, who plays her fiancé in the movie.