Watch the credits at the end of “Ant-Man and The Wasp,” and you’ll see former Fort Myers resident Brittany Gutheim listed among the cast and crew.
That’s what Gutheim’s Fort Myers parents, Gregory and Lorraine Gutheim, will be doing this weekend. They can’t wait to see their daughter featured in the same movie scroll as Hollywood stars Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas and Evangeline Lilly.
“We’ve got to get a screen shot of that one — her name up there,” Lorraine Gutheim says. “It’s exciting!”
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Brittany Gutheim didn’t get to make any of the big decisions in the Marvel superhero movie, which opened Friday in theaters nationwide. But as an art assistant and (later) art-department coordinator, she worked with heavy hitters like director Peyton Reed, supervising art director Jay Pelissier and production designer Shepherd Frankel.
That giant purple Hot Wheels car in the first trailer? Gutheim helped research the colors and come up with ideas for what kind of car it should be.
The house that Scott Lang (aka Ant-Man) lives in? Gutheim found it by searching Google Maps for 1½ weeks.
“It’s a little bit insane,” Gutheim, 27, says about her role in what’s expected to be one of the biggest movies of the summer. “Just to be able to work on something for so long and then know that it brings others joy … It’s going to impact way more people than I could ever even meet.”
The Evangelical Christian School graduate has worked on other movies and TV shows, but “Ant-Man and The Wasp” is by far the biggest project she’s ever had.
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Gutheim — who was born in Orlando but grew up in Fort Myers — got the job after graduating with a master’s of fine arts degree in film production from Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts and working on a series of TV and independent movies, shorts, music videos and other projects.
The Los Angeles resident started on the “Ant-Man and The Wasp” crew as an art assistant and then moved up to art-department coordinator during her year on the project. “I worked my way up through the ranks,” she says.
As art-department coordinator, she was a go-between among the sprawling crew at the offices and sound stages of Atlanta’s Pinewood Studios.
“It’s your job to keep everyone communicating, especially on this type of film,” she says. “It’s huge. There are thousands of people working on it.”
Gutheim’s job involved setting up meetings, obtaining and distributing the latest scripts, building presentations, researching things and even running upstairs to another department and asking, “Hey, are you still doing this thing?”
“It’s like a giant puzzle, sometimes, about who needs what, when, how,” she says. “And now we have a script change. So scratch all of that — here’s the new thing.
“It can get intense. But it’s fun to see all of this happening.”
Gutheim’s role in the production wrapped up in November, and she finally got to see the finished movie Monday at a screening for the movie’s cast and crew.
“Through the whole opening, the whole prologue, my body was just tingling,” she says and laughs. “I had a part in this!”
Now Gutheim is working on the next step in her growing Hollywood career. She’s the art-department coordinator for two new projects — a potential FOX TV pilot and also a possible Netflix show — but she says she’s signed confidentiality agreements and can’t reveal any details.
Along the way, Gutheim hopes to keep networking and learning about the industry and maybe one day become a film director.
“I’m still figuring that out,” she says about her ultimate career goal. “There are so many hurdles in the industry that I am still not familiar with.
“For now, I’m kind of like that sleeper (laughs). I’m just gathering as much information as I can, and then I strike!”
That’s the future, though. This weekend, Gutheim gets to enjoy being a part of what’s expected to be a huge summer blockbuster.
And, of course, so do her parents, who plan to see the movie this weekend with about 10 of their friends.
“We’re proud,” says dad Greg Gutheim. “Our daughter is awesome.”
Connect with this reporter: Charles Runnells (Facebook), @charlesrunnells (Twitter), @crunnells1 (Instagram)
