It’s lights, camera, action for Lake Tahoe as the film crew for “The Deep End” makes Tahoe its temporary home.

Until recently, the crew was mostly confined to West Shore. But last week Tahoe residents caught a glimpse of the filming project in Kings Beach, Crystal Bay and Incline Village.

On Friday, California Highway Patrol Officers controlled traffic in Kings Beach for a majority of the day as cameras rolled at the corner of North Lake Boulevard and Coon Street.

Cars have to be stopped because the road noise is picked up by the microphones, said Terry Wyner, location manager.

Although it’s unusual to be stopped for anything other than construction at this time of the year, CHP officers state it’s common practice in the movie business.

“This is common practice for the highway patrol to do movie details,” said Steve Skeen, Truckee CHP officer. On Friday, Skeen and other fellow CHP officers started “movie detail” at 6:30 a.m. and continued late into the afternoon.

But this isn’t the first time Skeen has dealt with traffic control for the purpose of movies. Many commer cials come to Tahoe to film and scenes from “The Rookie” were also filmed in Tahoe, he said.

“Where else can you get a background that looks like this,” said Skeen.

The female lead is played by Tilda Swinton who starred in the movies “Orlando” and “Female Perversions” and recently had a love scene with Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Beach.” One of Swinton’s fellow actors is Goran Visnjic also known as Dr. Luka Kovac in the smash hit “ER.” Visnjic also starred in “Practical Magic” where he played Nicole Kidman’s boyfriend.

“The Deep End” will be a dark family drama about a Tahoe family. The movie involves a dead body, blackmail and a mother trying to hold the family together.

“It’s basically a suspense story,” said Beverly Lewis, director of the Placer/Lake Tahoe Film office.

Lewis said this is the first time North Shore has had such a big movie filmed entirely there.

“The whole movie takes place in Tahoe,” said Key Set Production Assistant Hayley Goggin, who added that a few scenes are filmed at a bar in Reno.

Goggin is one of the five locals working with i5 production on this independent film.

“I’m everybody’s local liaison,” Goggin said.

“Wrangling extras,” is also one of Goggin’s duties as key set production assistant.

However, the majority of the extras in the movie are from Sacramento, she added.

But Wyner said the movie will represent Tahoe. The crew has even gone so far as to repaint the Homewood Post Office and rename it the Lake Tahoe Post Office, said

Wyner.

“This is a great cast and crew to work with,” said Goggin.

Many of them had to take a pay cut in order to film this independent movie, but because this is Tahoe many were willing to do it, so they are laid back, said Goggin.

The film was almost filmed in Canada because of generous tax incentives. But because the script was written for North Shore, it had to be filmed here, said Lewis.

The script for the movie was written by directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel and was written specifically for North Lake Tahoe.

“They are shooting the beauty of Lake Tahoe,” said Lewis.

As director of the Placer/Lake Tahoe Film office, Lewis acknowledged the county and Lake Tahoe are great draws for the film world.

The crew for the film, numbering between 60 and 70, works six days a week and up to 15 hours a day.