In the not-too-distant future, producers wishing to shoot in Los Angeles will have six new sound stages to choose from. That’s because Los Angeles Center Studios (LACS), located in the city’s downtown area, plans to add six new soundstages plus production support facilities to its 18.5-acre, full-service campus. LACS partner Stephen D. Smith says his outfit hopes to begin building the stages this spring; construction is expected to take about 14 months.
Cody Cluff, president of the Entertainment Industry Development Corp. (EIDC), the public/private sector partnership that oversees the joint Los Angeles County/ City Film Office, says, "We’re excited about the expansion. Their expansion is into larger-size stages, which will help with a lot of feature production. That will have a tendency to free up some of the smaller stages for more commercial work. Generally, it gives us state-of-the-art stages available in all sizes, within a mile of where forty percent of all our production takes place."
Cluff says that commercial production in Los Angeles for the first eight months of the year is down about 10 percent from the same period in 1999. Cluff used ’99 as a benchmark in that ’00 was marked by the six-month-long actors’ strike against the ad industry, which adversely impacted spot location shooting in Greater Los Angeles. "When you take a look at what’s going on with the economy and the reduced number of dollars being put into advertising by most major corporations, the fact that commercial production is relatively strong is a good thing," notes Cluff. "I’m pleasantly surprised our commercial production is as high as it is, but certainly it’s not where we would like to see it."
The expansion of the studio complex would double the number of stages at LACS, which opened in ’99 with six stages. The LACS campus also features a large, multi-purpose building that formerly served as the Unocal Corporation’s world headquarters. "The configuration of the building is such that there are two four-story wings and a twelve-story tower," explains Smith. "The wings are used for temporary production office space. When people use the stages, they use those areas for office space."
The building also houses permanent tenants, including The International Documentary Association, The International Stunt Association and Zoom Cartoons. The structure has a theater equipped with digital sound, and currently the old Unocal cafeteria is being converted into a commissary. Additionally, LACS leases space in the 12-story office tower for location shooting. "The location side of it is a very big part of our business," says Smith.
Customer Base
Who are the LACS’ principal production clients? "We have done more with the major studios than with the independents. We’ve done the most with 20th Century Fox, Sony and Paramount," says Smith, adding that LACS has hosted every major studio, including Disney, Warner Bros. and Universal.
In addition to feature productions, spots and music videos are frequently shot on the site, and various television productions have used it for location shooting. "In terms of the stages, we’ve focused a bit more on features," notes Smith. Feature productions filmed at LACS’ stages include Mission: Impossible, Charlie’s Angels, Lucky Numbers and Planet of the Apes.
Smith reports that from January to June ’01, the stages were occupied more than 95 percent of the time. "It was very, very busy," he emphasizes. "At the beginning of July it fell off a cliff because of the potential strikes [by the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America; neither strike against the feature/TV studios occurred]. August picked up, and this month we are getting back in our stride again."
Why did LACS decide to add stages? "We’ve enjoyed success, but when we get a large feature in and they take three or four stages, it pretty much wipes us out," he relates. "Then we can’t really do another show. In addition, we haven’t been able to go after television because if we have one big feature in here, [we] don’t have the ability to go after pilots or do anything for TV. By building six more stages, we better utilize the existing infrastructure we have."
Both existing stages and the about-to-be-constructed ones will be up to date technologically. "The stages are among the most capable stages in the market in terms of the power and the size," Smith notes. "We also have wired all the existing stages and will wire [the new ones] with fiber. We will be able to provide a tremendous amount of bandwidth for people coming here. We’re prepared now for digital production."
Recent features filmed at LACS’ stages include the yet-to-be released The Sweetest Thing, starring Cameron Diaz. Currently The Duplex, starring Drew Barrymore, is being shot on the site. "The last two months have been very little film and mostly commercials," observes Smith, adding, "… Between features we do commercials and videos. But it’s not our main business; our main business is features. We do a lot of commercials in and around the property in addition to that."
In the past year, Chrysler, IBM, Burger King, H&R Block and Nokia spots have been filmed at the site. Music clip clients have included ‘N Sync, Madonna and Destiny’s Child.
In ’88, Smith’s company, and the Hillman family of Pittsburgh, purchased the Unocal tower, as well its surrounding campus, with the intention of building a high-rise office complex. The investment group spent several years getting entitlements and designing the complex on the assumption that Unocal would still be headquartered on the site. That plan fell apart in the early to mid-’90s when the market in Los Angeles, especially in the downtown area, took a dive. At that point Unocal pulled out of the deal.
When Smith and his associates’ next plan—to build an arena for the area’s NBA and NHL teams, and to purchase the Los Angeles Kings hockey team—didn’t pan out, they contemplated the idea of imploding the building and filming the implosion for a motion picture.
While exploring that option, Smith met with Hollywood Locations, a firm that represents office-building owners for location filming. Hollywood Locations suggested using the site for filming instead of tearing the building down. Smith’s group and Hollywood Locations teamed up and started renting out the site for location shooting in ’96.
"At that time, we were still pursuing purchasing the Kings, so we had not given up on the idea of building an arena on the site," recalls Smith. "We were looking, with Hollywood Locations, around the city for a site where we could either build some stages or convert some warehouses. It wasn’t until the arena deal finally died, and we determined we weren’t going to buy the team, that we focused our attention here on this property." The first six LACS stages opened their doors in December ’99.
Smith and his partners, Larry Hricik and Wes Munselle, work in partnership with Hollywood Locations, whose principals are Brian Brosnan and Chris Ursitti. Those two groups are in turn partnered with Bristol Group, San Francisco, in an all-equity deal.
While some areas in the LACS complex remain undeveloped, no concrete plans exist for what to do with them. "We still have some acreage along our eastern side that’s near the freeway," explains Smith. "That’s what we call our third phase, but we don’t have that programmed yet. We’re going to build our second phase and then see what we think we really need in terms of a third phase."
