businessreport.com: Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge has 150,000 square feet of design-built stage space at the Celtic Media Centre, in the capital city of a state with one of the most generous film incentive programs in North America. But no one's shooting there right now. Meanwhile, film productions practically saturate New Orleans, even though they often end up working in old converted warehouses. What gives?
3 comments:
This article just proves that with the advances in technology and digital filming you can really film in any city. With the competition of major cities for the small amount of big budget films the amount of tax incentives will continue to determine the finalists in the selection process but as this article shows there are many shows that will choose a bigger city with better deals on labor over a better equipped city. Cities need to realize that they will not remain competitive with just space and it is not practical to try to stay current with studio space if you do not have a clear lead in attracting the large budget movies.
One of the questions this raises for me is why the Baton Rouge crew has not yet split off from the rest of the local. As a production center, that would seem the likely next step, and it would also be beneficial to all those involved. I disagree with the premise that making Baton Rouge a Production Center will not attract more crew- that doesn't follow the "if you build it they will come" rule of supply and demand. In the end, the crew from elsewhere will follow the films- otherwise, the film industry will go away entirely and NO ONE will have jobs.
In the midst of the continued decline of unions in the workplace, obstructionist tactics like those employed by local 478 seem counter-productive, and withholding support for a Baton Rouge Production Center for the sake of a fairly meager stipend collected by a few journeymen on an irregular basis seems insane. In an economy where, increasingly, all anyone seems to care about is the bottom line, I sincerely hope unions will continue to play an important role in maintaining the other, largely ignored pillars of a healthy economy, like worker health and satisfaction, responsible resource management, and employer-worker loyalty. That said, maybe 478 should put an actual dollar amount to the annual benefit their members receive from the stipend and balance that against the potential earnings of a new and robust Production Center. They may find that bottom line out-balances the politics of the moment.
Post a Comment