Past installments of this column have focused on industry relief efforts in the wake of the devastation wrought on the Gulf Coast by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. We covered the initiative taken by individual directors such as John O’Hagan of RSA and Matt Ogens, formerly of Headquarters. These helmers went to impacted areas, offering help and supplies. For the American Red Cross, Ogens shot video footage and still photos of the people and neighborhoods affected by the hurricanes.
SHOOT also covered the trucking in of needed supplies to the needy–with caravans organized jointly by Zoic Studios and Backyard Productions, as well as by Janimation and Post Asylum.
In our January “Meet The Commish” column, Alex Schott, director of the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Film and Television, expressed optimism that filming would play a significant role in helping the state’s economy to recover.
Now further advancing those positive prospects voiced by Schott is the news that a major soundstage and production/post complex is being built on some 11-plus acres of land in Baton Rouge. The facility, the Celtic Media Centre, is scheduled to have its first phase of construction–entailing five stages, production offices and a post studio–completed during the third quarter of this year. The construction is taking place on a partial facility, which had been vacated by rapper Master P.
Key movers in the new facility are Baton Rouge-based real estate developer The Celtic Group, Nova Pictures, Baton Rouge and Los Angeles, and Hollywood-headquartered Raleigh Studios, which is billed as being the largest independent studio group in the country. Raleigh, which manages some one million square feet of studio space, is particularly well known for its stage complexes in Hollywood and Manhattan Beach, Calif., which host a mix of projects ranging from spots to longform.
Raleigh is serving as a design consultant to the Baton Rouge facility. After it’s completed, the Celtic Media Centre will be managed by Raleigh. And Raleigh’s lighting company, Hollywood Rentals, is slated to supply lighting and other production resources to the Baton Rouge studio.
Michael Moore, president of Raleigh Studios, said Louisiana’s major financial incentives for filming will become more accessible to commercialmakers who tap into Celtic Media Centre resources. While feature and TV producers have taken advantage of those tax credit incentives, the spot industry hasn’t done so at nearly the same level. Moore hopes to help change this, noting that a producer’s commercials can qualify for the Louisiana tax credit based on their cumulative impact spanning production and post.
Beyond incentives, the Celtic Media Centre embodies another coveted “i” word, infrastructure. Each element, incentives and infrastructure, feeds off of and spurs on the other. The Baton Rouge facility is a major boost to the state’s infrastructure. The development of these kinds of resources–and a skilled workforce–can translate to more filming in Louisiana, recouping in this post-Katrina era the positive effects of an industry that’s been a prime contributor to the health of the state’s economy.