An Amish buggy clip-clops along Bachmantown Road in East Lampeter Township.

A candy-apple red Ford Mustang cruises up from behind, slows and then passes the buggy, continuing on its way as an Amish family walks along the shoulder of the road.

It is the kind of scene that plays out hundreds of times a day on Lancaster County's roads.

This particular scene, however, was scripted by filmmaker Michael Landon Jr., who watched the action unfold Wednesday on a monitor connected to a movie camera.

Landon has been in the county since Tuesday shooting scenes for a movie called "The Redemption of Sarah Cain." The filming here ends today.

"The Redemption of Sarah Cain" is based on a book by best-selling author Beverly Lewis. The film will be released theatrically through Fox Faith Films, a division of Twentieth Century Fox that specializes in family films.

Most of the movie was shot near Park City, Utah, but Landon said it was necessary to make the trek to the county to capture panoramic scenes of rural farmland and shoot horse-and-buggy scenes.

Interiors and "tighter stuff" can be recreated in Utah, Landon.

"We had to come here to give us the true Lancaster County," Landon said. "You can't fake it."

The movie, set for release in August, focuses on Sarah Cain, a professional woman living in Portland, Ore.

The plot pivots on her becoming the legal guardian of five Amish children. The children become her responsibility when her older sister, Ivy, who married into the Amish faith years earlier and was widowed, dies.

Cain travels to Lancaster County, where she tries to decide what to do with the children and comes under the unwelcome scrutiny of the Amish community.

"There's a sequence in the story where Sarah is leaving Lancaster County thinking that the children don't need her or don't want her to be with them any more," Landon said, describing the scene being shot on Bachmantown Road. "In this scene, they are chasing after her."

Cain is being portrayed by actress Lisa Pepper, but it was not Pepper behind the wheel of the Mustang.

Instead, it was Franklin & Marshall College dance student Maggie Selzer acting as Pepper's double.

"The college sent out an e-mail through all the dance and theater classes that the film company was looking for someone to work as a double," Selzer said. "I responded to the e-mail, and I ended up getting the part."

The State College native said this was the first film work she's done.

"It's a good place to start," she said.

The Amish family being filmed here was about as authentic as one can get without intruding on the Plain community.

Jonathan Fisher and his wife, Fannie, who live in Holtwood, left the Amish faith about a year ago. They still had the look Landon wanted — Amish clothes, a beard and a brood of children, including Sarah, Rachel, Mary, Ida, Matthew and David.

"They wanted to have Amish people in the movie since there are Amish in the book," Fisher said. "But most of the Amish, if they're orthodox, won't be out here being filmed."

The family, in various combinations, was used for "walk-throughs," both on Bachmantown Road and during filming along Paradise Lane earlier in the morning.

"I don't know what all they'll have us doing," Fisher said. "They had my wife riding in the buggy, then they had us just walking down the road as a family."

The horse and buggy was supplied by Reuben Stoltzfus, who offers buggy rides at Kitchen Kettle Village in Intercourse.

Stoltzfus also helped Landon buy buggies for use in the film.

Landon, the son of actor Michael Landon, who starred in "Bonanza" and "The Little House on the Prairie," said he filmed "beauty shots" of farms, buggies and other rural Lancaster County scenes Tuesday.

None of the members of the film's cast, which includes actor Elliott Gould, accompanied him here.

Landon said the book had "a certain high concept to it" that attracted him.

"The author, Beverly Lewis, has quite a following," Landon said. "So it was that, plus my fascination with the Amish, and the fact they are able to hold their traditions in this world just amazes me."

Landon, 42, said he "grew up on film sets," watching his famous father work, but that he never wanted to act, even though he appeared with his dad in a 1977 episode of "Little House on the Prairie."

He also played the role of Benjamin "Benj" Cartwright in "Bonanza: The Return" (1993), which he also wrote, and "Bonanza: Under Attack" (1995).

"I did some acting for directing purposes, just to know what it was like to be in front of the camera, but I never had the acting bug," he said. "You need to have the bug because it is so competitive."

Landon has been directing films for the past nine years. His most recent film, "The Last Sin Eater," was released theatrically in early February.

E-mail Larry Alexander at lalexander@lnpnews.com.