Bay Area/ San Francisco
Published on August 28, 2012
Woody Allen Films at Zam Zam
As you may have gleaned from our Twitter and Facebook feeds yesterday, Woody Allen was in the 'hood shooting his new movie.

He and Cate Blanchett were first spotted around 8 this morning when a cavalcade of trucks and hospitality carts moved in to block just about the whole strip on the south side of Haight between Clayton and Belvedere.
We got the tip and headed over to find about 30 people milling around on the sidewalk holding clipboards or talking on cellphones, while a crew of guys hauled furniture out of Zam Zam and into the street. The entrance to Zam Zam was blocked with a big black curtain, as you can see above. We spied a resident trying to squirm their way out of their apartment into the frey, and they told us that some collectors had come by earlier and Woody had signed some things for them. Overall, they told us, things were relatively peaceful despite the crowd. We poked around a bit and asked if we could peek inside, but they said he's so adamant about security and secrecy that the film crew isn't even allowed to see the script. They didn't even know the name of the film. All they could tell us was that they'd be shooting most of the morning. We were so busy trying to get details about the film that we completely missed Woody leave the bar and start talking on his iphone right in front of us:
We snapped a quick photo and then cleared out of the way. By about 11a.m. the SFPD had closed off the block to vehicle traffic, and a crowd of gawkers had formed across the street. We had to take off before they wrapped (they were cleared out by around 2pm), so unfortunately, we didn't get any photos of Cate. If you got any, we'd love to see 'em - [email protected]. In the meantime, Zam Zam's awesome status has been upgraded, so go have a cocktail.