LA Subway Drama Runs Straight Through San Diego

Indie thriller Red Line connects two intriguing Southern California dots. Although the terrorism-triggered storyline unfolds against the backdrop of a bombed out section of LA's subway underneath the Hollywood & Highland station, it was filmed entirely on a small sound stage in San Diego.

More specifically, a sound stage at John Paul the Great Catholic University. That's also where the film, which premieres Saturday September 29th at the San Diego Film Festival, got its unusual classroom start:

Producers Dominic Iocco and Chris Riley, both professors at John Paul the Great Catholic University, challenged their students to pitch confined space script ideas that could be filmed on the school’s new soundstage. Tara Stone piqued their interest with her contained space thriller... “Most industry professionals said it couldn’t be done and that we had no hope of making it look like a professionally produced feature or attracting a stellar cast,” said Iocco. “But we did and we couldn’t be more proud.”

The cast is top-lined by Nicole Gale Anderson and Joseph Williams. She has had recurring roles on CW's Beauty and the Beast, Disney Channel's Jonas LA and ABC Family's Make It or Break It, while he is perhaps most recently known for dropping into Mad Men as Peggy Olson's infamous movie theater make-out partner.

“No one can believe this film was done for such a low budget, or that we were training students on this project” says fellow Red Line producer Tom Dunn. Alongside director Robert Kirbyson, most of the crew was indeed made up of John Paul the Great students.

[Red Line]