Locations

500 South Lakeview Drive,
Lake Helen,
Florida, 32744-3501, US

The First of May was shot in Lake Helen, Florida

Nestled away in the small picturesque town of Lake Helen, in Volusia County, Florida, is a film/television studio now called Pyramax which was originally built by the founder of the Nautilus exercise machine. The First of May's production office was here in 1997.

The movie was shot around the town of Lake Helen and also parts of nearby DeLand. Many of the circus scenes were actually a real circus performance arranged just for the movie. This 1 day event took place in a cow pasture not far from the studio. The location was locked down by Writer/Producer Gary Rogers and prepared by Co-Producer/Location Manager Chris Haviland (the webmaster of this web site), and hundreds of people from all around the area were invited to partipate in not just the splendor of the circus but to watch the making of a film with Mickey Rooney as the circus owner and Charles Nelson Reilly as a clown.

Additional circus footage came from commercial spots shot by SHO Entertainment for the Clyde Beatty / Cole Brothers circus a year earlier, and other scenes took place at a mock-up of the tent at the circus' winter quarters in DeLand.