With hurricanes Katrina and Rita overwhelming the state of Louisiana, and the former storm devastating New Orleans in 2005, SHOOT checked in with Alex Schott, director of the Governor’s Office of Film and Television, to find out about the state of filming in the Big Easy and beyond. With attractive incentives and rebuilding underway, the film production industry should be a strong revenue source for the state in ’06.
Schott: It looks like it’s going to be a busy year. We had a lot of inquiries toward the end of 2005. We have a lot of productions that are itching to get back into Louisiana, into the southern part of the state where a lot of the activity was happening prior to the hurricanes.
SHOOT: I understand that productions that were filming when Katrina hit were redistributed around the state.
Schott: A majority of the productions went up to the northwestern part of the state, which was a positive thing for us. The ability to keep them here was really important. And, other parts of the state got to see the impact the industry can have on its community.
SHOOT: What is the overall state of filming in Louisiana now?
Schott: Right now we have the majority of productions shooting in the northwestern part of the state [and] we have three that are gearing up to go in the Greater New Orleans area.
SHOOT: Those are three feature films?
Schott: Yes, one of them is Déjà Vu, that’s the big one, that’s for Disney Films. That was planning to go before–they actually opened up offices just before Katrina hit and they were scheduled to shoot in the fall but they wanted to use the city as the centerpiece of the film. Once the hurricane came through, they decided to either move it or push it, but the director really wanted to film in New Orleans so they’re looking at a late January/early February start date. And then the other two are independent films Deal and Labou, which was actually filming when the hurricane hit and they’re coming back to finish filming and do postproduction here in the city.
SHOOT: How is the city right now? How are you able to plan for these productions in the next couple of months?
Schott: Really all we can do right now is basically bring together those people who are going to be the decision-makers with the people that would be impacted or affected or have the ability to get a film made in any respective area. … We’ve had a lot of positive meetings with city officials and they’re very interested in getting the industry back in the state because it certainly stimulates an economy, because it gets people working and it’s certainly positive press because you get a lot of exposure when you have a film shooting in your area. Our message has been that we’re open for business.
SHOOT: Can you speak specifically to the state of commercialmaking in Louisiana right now?
Schott: I really don’t know what the state of it is. All of our time is taken up by those productions, whether they are commercial[s] or feature films, that qualify for the incentive program. Our office is administering that program and it’s going through a change right now so we’re actually trying to work with all of the producers and the people involved in wanting to shoot in the state and explaining to them the changes and getting projects certified as they come in. We don’t have many commercials that meet the threshold [$300,000], or the ones that contact us are very few and far between. I do know from speaking with people in the industry that the commercial industry is picking up. I know it was very busy prior to the hurricane and now we’re starting to see more commercials filter in.
SHOOT: What was the production distribution before the hurricanes? Did other parts of the state like Shreveport (in the northern part of the state) host a lot of production?
Schott: No, actually the majority of the productions were centered in the Greater New Orleans area because of the logistics of the city, because of the hotels, the housing, the crew base. What infrastructure we do have for the industry, the service companies that were located here, the seeds of growth were forming in the southeastern part of the state. But, as we got more films, we saw more starting to go out into areas such as Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and it just started to move out into different parts of the state. Once we got them here, they started to look at other parts of the state so we saw the seeds of that coming, but overall there wasn’t any kind of film activity in other parts of the state like there was in the southeastern part.
SHOOT: And you’ve seen the relocation of productions in Louisiana benefit the state?
Schott: Oh, yeah because if you only have one part of the state benefiting from the state-wide incentive, then you’ll always have grumblings that it doesn’t benefit other parts of the state. But when you have that statewide incentive bringing in these companies to other parts of the state, they get to see the economic impact and the importance of what the industry can bring to your community. So to have the industry go to other parts of the state was certainly a positive because they got basically a piece of the action.
SHOOT: What is the state of the infrastructure in Louisiana right now?
Schott: It was certainly growing and I think that as with any infrastructure in most parts of the state right now, we’re in a rebuilding phase and there is an infrastructure tax credit on the books now for building up the industry, which was instituted last summer before the hurricane but now I think we are going to see more rental service companies and sound stages and postproduction facilities and things that would certainly come about if we continue to have the activity that we have been seeing over the past three years. …
The infrastructure credit is for state-of-the-art facilities, something that contributes to the growth of the industry.
SHOOT: Can you tell me about the other incentives that you have and how they changed as of the first of this year?
Schott: The sales tax exemption is no longer available [now it’s just the labor tax credit and the investor tax credit]. [The changes] tie into wanting the industry to have a permanent presence in the state and it’s tied to the Louisiana expenditures, so the more money that they spend here, the more money they earn. It’s based upon indigenous local spend only as opposed to out-of-state spend and it’s also tied to local hires so the more people they hire, the local employment level is more, it’s incentivizing to them to hire as many people as possible because they earn credits based upon that — basically we are not incentivizing out-of-state spend anymore. It’s strictly in-state spend.
SHOOT: How is removing the sales tax exemption going to impact your efforts?
Schott: That wasn’t anything. That’s insignificant to tell you the truth. It was just a little something extra for the companies to come here, but it wasn’t anything that affected their decisions. That was a decision based upon what was needed and what wasn’t needed and right now we need to focus on more money being spent in the state and to grow that infrastructure. To increase that base of production you need to have more of the service industries with a permanent presence in the state so it all ties in together with the increased Louisiana spend and at the same time building up the industry so that it remains a permanent presence.
SHOOT: What makes Louisiana’s incentives competitive?
Schott: The way production companies essentially earn a rebate for shooting in the state. Technically, they earn a tax credit but that is quickly converted to “cash” which translates to a bottom-line savings on their production, and that is what drives the industry to Louisiana. It is also a very streamlined program with no red tape or bureaucracy to navigate.
…There is no question that the incentive program has been a resounding success. Also, with the support of the locals and the legislators, and the governor and lieutenant governor’s support, it’s really been at all levels something that’s paid off for the entire state. And with the devastation of the hurricane, we certainly view it as something that can really help put Louisiana back to where it was before and it was one of the fastest growing industries in the state. There’s no reason to think that it won’t continue to be in 2006.
