From the Austin American-Statesman
http://www.austin360.com/movies/cont...hreveport.html
MOVIE INDUSTRY
In less than 3 years, Shreveport has passed Austin as a film hotbed
Steep statewide incentives have catapulted the Louisiana ahead
By Chris Garcia
AMERICAN-STATESMAN FILM WRITER
Sunday, May 18, 2008
SHREVEPORT, La. — "This was Sandra Bullock's house in 'Premonition,' and the one over there was Diane Keaton's house in 'Mad Money.' "
Curling a corner, our Shreveport guide, Arlena Acree, director of film, media and entertainment for the mayor's office, points to other lavish properties in the historical South Highland neighborhood of Louisiana's third-largest city.
There's Meg Ryan's house in "My Mom's New Boyfriend." That mansion played the hotel where Denzel Washington's character lodged in "The Great Debaters." And that big yellow abode was Jessica Simpson's residence in "Major Movie Star."
Less than three years after Shreveport became Louisiana's de facto film capital, the city's movie industry is riding high. Thanks to aggressive statewide financial incentives, the casino-friendly city on the Red River has become one of the most attractive and busiest locations in the country for feature film and television production, surpassing Austin, once vaunted as Hollywood South, with stunning speed and volume.
Since late 2005, when Hurricane Katrina forced film production from New Orleans and Baton Rouge to the Shreveport-Bossier City area, Shreveport has seized upon filmmaking almost entirely on the power of a 6-year-old financial incentive program, which offers filmmakers 25 percent cash rebates (or tax credits) for all in-state spending on things like equipment rentals, food service, hotel rooms and, at a lower rate, labor. The primary rebates are five times the rate of Texas movie incentives.
It has been so successful that other states have upped or forged incentive programs to compete with Louisiana, whose film industry enjoyed a record year in 2007: Its 53 film and television projects poured $400 million into the state.
Shreveport hosted 24 of those projects, bringing in $182 million. In May alone, at least four major movie projects set up shop in Shreveport, including the Jim Carrey comedy "I Love You Phillip Morris" and Oliver Stone's controversial George W. Bush biographical project "W."
In contrast, Austin attracted $38.6 million in film spending last year, down from a recent high of $95.8 million in 2003. And despite a busy spring that includes productions of "Will," "Tree of Life" and "Shorts," Austin is likely to end the year far behind its Louisiana rival.
Last year, the Texas Legislature passed its first film incentive program, which offers a 5 percent rebate on money spent in the state. Many in the local film industry say it falls alarmingly short compared with the programs in New Mexico, which promises filmmakers a 25 percent cash rebate, and in Michigan, now offering a 40 percent to 42 percent cash rebate or tax credit. Connecticut and New York recently beefed up their film tax incentives to 30 percent. New York adds 5 percentage points to that figure if a project is made in New York City, a deal so sweet that the hit television show "Ugly Betty," set in New York, just moved its production there from Los Angeles.
"It's an arms race between states," said Amber Havens, a representative of the Office of Entertainment Industry Development, part of the department of Louisiana Economic Development. "Each state is going to have to evaluate what is the return. These new states that come out with guns blazing tend to fall by the wayside."
The competition recently prompted California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to propose a first-time tax incentive to prevent more productions from fleeing for better deals.
Movies have opted out of Texas, too. Texas-set films "The Great Debaters" and "No Country for Old Men," chose Shreveport and New Mexico, respectively,for the bulk of their productions. (Many exterior scenes for the Oscar-winning "No Country" were shot in West Texas.) Groups such as the lobbying outfit Texas Motion Picture Alliance are working hard to boost Texas incentives to 10 percent or 15 percent this year.
"The success of Louisiana and New Mexico is undeniable," said Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, vice president of the proposed Villa Muse Studios, which recently abandoned plans for a large movie-themed real-estate development project for Austin's eastern fringes after the city refused to waive certain environmental and tax regulations. "They've basically started from nothing and built industries solely on the shoulders of incentives. The result is they're starting to steal the Texas (film) crew, who are moving to those states, and they're starting to build studios that are at least partly publicly funded. The more time we give them to advance on those fronts, the harder it's going to be to catch up."
Texas, which developed a thriving film culture after the rise of independent productions in the 1980s and '90s, has been hard hit by the neighborly competition.
"It's extremely frustrating," said Bob Hudgins, director of the Texas Film Commission. "Here we have this amazingly diverse state, all this capacity, great crews and a great tradition of filmmaking. We have all the tools, and everything is ready to go. But we're being undercut by these upstart programs, and it's really unfortunate."
Political leaders are responding.
Krista Piferrer, Gov. Rick Perry's deputy press secretary, said Perry is very supportive of the movie industry. "The governor is going to come back in 2009 and say we need to be competitive with other states," she said. "The governor wants movie (producers) to see Texas as a place to film their movies."
State Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, said lawmakers probably would support more money for the industry if Perry can justify it. But he said the Legislature would continue to fashion its incentives to help the Texas-based segments of the industry.
"We're just not going to give money away," he said. "If we get outbid, we get outbid."
State Rep. Dawnna Dukes, who carried the incentive legislation in the House last year, agrees. In some instances, the Austin Democrat said, other states are giving away more money than they get in economic development.
"Ours is a return on investment," she said. Dukes said her conservative colleagues will be looking at the past performance of last year's incentives. But she said she's optimistic: "If it is doing well, increasing production in the state and increasing revenue to the state, we'll have support for more."
Many backers of the Texas film industry, however, are not making a traditional "economic impact" case for film incentives; they're making a cultural one: that filmmakers are an essential part of a cross-polinating community that includes game makers, musicians and other artists.
"You have to have the cultural impact to have the economic impact," said Austin City Council Member Betty Dunkerley, who helped shape the city's incentives for cultural projects. "Without that, you don't have a dynamic city that people want to come to."
Don Baylor of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin said the economic argument is "a zero-sum game."
"There's much more prestige that comes with having the film industry in your state than there is true economic impact," the senior policy analyst said. "It's not really a sustainable effort. You're subsidizing things one project at a time, and the impact is fleeting."
Red carpet treatment
Shreveport remains what Variety magazine calls the granddaddy of successful film incentives, but more than irresistible financial breaks draw productions to the city.
Shreveport has developed a sophisticated filmmaking infrastructure, including a healthy film-crew base, equipment vendors and three enormous production studios: StageWorks of Louisiana, Mansfield Studios and Stage West. The Louisiana Wave Studio, an 8,000-square-foot tank holds 750,000 gallons of water that can create giant waves and simulate ocean storms. Millennium Films is building a $10 million, 100,000-square-foot studio in the city this year.
Comparatively light street traffic, easy access to all parts of the city in 10 to 15 minutes, and low-cost housing compound the appeal. (The median home price in Shreveport in early 2008 was $131,000, compared with $184,000 in Austin.) The city government bends over backwards to aid filmmakers and smooth the process, waiving permit fees for location shooting and offering free city water to productions for simulated rain and floods. The City of Austin discounts services but rarely offers them for free.
"Customer service is everything," said Acree, Shreveport's film director. "We really roll out the red carpet for them."
Acree said she helps productions find crew and office space and scouts locations.
Like Central Texas, the Shreveport area provides versatile landscapes and architecture that, with little modification, can stand in for almost anywhere.
Austin beats Shreveport for resident film crews — about 400 workers to Shreveport's 160 — but there's fear that stronger out-of-state incentives will siphon off crew members, everyone from hair and makeup artists to grips and electricians. Almost 25 percent of Texas' crew base has taken jobs in Louisiana and New Mexico, and some of them are moving away permanently for consistent work, Hudgins said.
The talent drain reaches as far as Hollywood. Jim Hayes, a prop master and owner of LA House of Props, moved from Los Angeles to Shreveport last year and has worked on films such as "The Mist" and "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt."
"The hospitality is No. 1, and it's still No. 1," Hayes said. "The incentives are fantastic, and that's what brings everybody here. But once they get here they want to come back because everyone is so accommodating and it's so easy to get around.
"The city is just super about getting us permits to block off streets and you name it. Everyone gets spoiled by how easy it is to work here. It's 180-degrees different from any place else." He also reports a significantly more affordable cost of living in Shreveport.
These virtues nudged Shreveport-Bossier City to third place in MovieMaker Magazine's 2008 "10 Best American Cities to Live, Work and Make Movies," which focuses on independent films that cost less than $1 million. The area was No. 6 in 2007.
No. 1 on the magazine's 2008 list: Austin.
Austin's advantage
So why is Austin still in the game?
"We do have a proven track record," Alvarado-Dykstra said. "Every major Hollywood studio has made a movie here since 2000, and every major network has done a series or pilot in Texas in the past few years. So there's a sense of comfort and security about this being a good place to make movies, to bring them in on time and on budget."
Austin's competitive edge is based on cultural, not financial, incentives: a large, respected film school at the University of Texas, resident film pioneers like Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Bill Witliff and Mike Judge, as well as decades-old film advocates such as the Austin Film Society.
Yet, despite Austin's durable appeal — the 7-year-old Austin Studios, undergoing $6 million in improvements this year; direct flights (Shreveport has few); the city's nightlife and general quality of life — the region is in a fight for its filmmaking life.
Boosting incentives, most in the local movie industry agree, is the first crucial step.
"Outside of Los Angeles, it's hard to find the indigenous talent pool of name filmmakers we have," Alvarado-Dykstra said. "We should be making it easier for them to stay here and do their projects here instead of penalizing them. Given that incentives are now the norm, not the exception across the country, Texas is effectively penalizing productions on cost for coming here. The incentives are not about giving us an unfair advantage; it's about leveling the playing field."
Dunkerley said, "With a labor force so mobile, you're going to lose them. That turns out to be huge."
The local film community is marshaling its forces to get the Legislature to increase incentives this year from the 5 percent to at least 10 percent. "Five percent just doesn't have enough teeth," said Rebecca Campbell, director of the Austin Film Society. "We need a couple extra teeth."
Calling the 5 percent figure a "prototype," Alvarado-Dykstra said that it has "given legislators going into the next session hard evidence that film and production incentives are a net gain for Texas, the economy and Texans. They're a good investment. The money doesn't leave the state. It's reinvested in multiples."
For example, some of the cast and crew members of the TV series "Friday Night Lights" have bought homes in Austin since it began filming here in 2006. They've also invested in Austin's culture, taking part in charity events and joining the movie industry squad cheering for Texas-based productions.
"People are not coming to Austin for soundstages," Campbell said. "They're coming here for the fantastic locations, incredible crews and, frankly, for the nightlife. Austin just needs to keep being Austin to attract production. It's a cool place, and people want to be here."
Hefty incentives or not, Austin stays in the game mainly because it's a desirable place to work and live.
"My old line is that there's a reason they pay you to film in Shreveport, which is: It's Shreveport," said Gary Bond, director of the Austin Film Commission. "It's easier to get talent to come to Austin or Texas. Do you want to spend six months in Bossier City or six months in Austin?"
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