YESTERDAY IN A BEVERLY HILLS RESTAURANT… I was talking with Queen Latifah… well, okay, it was actually her hair stylist and producer friend Julie Baker… and she mentioned to me that Dana (aka Queen Latifah) was heading back to Louisiana.“For what?” I inquired. (We at 3BAAS/Candleblack Media always ask very deep and penetrating questions.) “For another film shoot,” Julie answered.
What in the past has been a marginal Hollywood story is now becoming a center page item: Film productions are moving out of Hollywood. The story used to be that they were going to Canada. And although that is still true, the bigger and more immediate story is the explosion of film productions that are occurring in the south.
The secret of Louisiana and other southern states recent success is due in large part to a generous bevy of monetary incentives the states offer producers. Under state incentive packages, makers of feature films, television movies, documentaries, commercials, and short films receive rebates and tax breaks generally pegged to how many locals they hire and how much they spend locally.
Incentives matter to filmmakers.
Nia Long & Sandra Bullock shot "
Premonition" in Minden, Louisiana.
A group of small Los Angeles-based production companies probably wouldn't be filming in Georgia this summer without them, said David Koplan, one of the producers of the comedy film "Randy and the Mob." “It's a really big deal for a small movie. It can make the difference in [our] being able to come to a city or not” he said.
But incentives alone aren't enough. Experienced workers, caterers, and camera and equipment rental houses are essential if incentives are to have any lasting effect. Low costs alone will not sustain a film industry. Consequently, Louisiana is beginning to amass just such an infrastructure of people, facilities, and suppliers as the state's film industry matures. Mississippi has set aside a 25-acre "Film Enterprise Zone" where work is scheduled to start this year on a film crew training center.
At least for now, the South is unlikely to ever rival Hollywood or New York as a center of the film and tv industry. But when stars like Queen Latifah, Julia Roberts, Diane Keaton, Nia Long, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Sandra Bullock and the hundred of other Hollywood artisans take root in places like Shreveport, Louisiana, well, there is clearly a movement afoot.