AN INCREASING NUMBER OF PRODUCTIONS ARE HEADING TO LOUISIANA AND IT’S NOT JUST FOR THE LOCATIONS, FROM THE WATER WAYS OF THE BAYOU REGION TO THE BATON ROUGE, BUT ALSO FOR THE STATE-OF-THE-ART STUDIO FACILITIES AND A 40% INCENTIVE.
“LOUISIANA’S 40% INCENTIVE HAS ATTRACTED A NUMBER OF PROJECTS, INCLUDING THE RECENTLY RELEASED THE IRON CLAW, DOUBLING BATON ROUGE FOR TEXAS.”
National Treasure: Edge of History © Disney/Brian Roedel.
| You name it, Louisiana can be that location,” insists Chris Stelly, executive group director for entertainment and media at Louisiana Entertainment. That’s no hyperbole either. The Pelican State has doubled for the streets of Tokyo, Mexico, The Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, Miami, Las Vegas, San Francisco, New York City, LA, Kansas, Chicago, and even outer space in recent film and television productions. One of the stand-out doubling filming locations is the state’s capital city Baton Rouge, situated on the Mississippi river, known for its cultural and culinary scene. “Baton Rouge is unique in the fact that you can find a variety of looks,” says the city film commissioner Katie Pryor. “You can still do the swamp scenes in the old South, but we've also had people shoot downtown to double for a number of cities or as a futuristic cityscape. There’s a variety of options to make it look like what you need. It’s a very versatile city for filming.” Another huge draw is the 40% incentive, which is split into a 25% base credit on qualified expenditure, 10% for Louisiana screenplay productions, and 5% increase if outside the New Orleans Metro statistical area. “Our tax incentive is game changing at really attracting productions,” says Pryor. Both were key in attracting the BBC Film/ A24/Access Entertainment sports drama The Iron Claw set in the 1980s about the wrestling Von Erich brothers, which doubled Baton Rouge for the Texas-based home of the brothers. The production team also came for the quality local crew and utilised alternative studio space, including a repurposed furniture warehouse to recreate the infamous Dallas Sportatorium, which provided ample space for the full-size wrestling ring and bleachers. “Getting the occasional small road closures and working with the local municipality was no problem whatsoever thanks to the Baton Rouge film office,” says Angus Lamont, producer of The Iron Claw. “Filming in the state, we were able to double a lot of the locations really well, achieving the look we would have if we had actually gone to Texas.” STUDIO SPACE There’s also plenty of regular studio space in the state. One of the stand-outs is Celtic Media Centre Studios, with nearly 150,000 sq ft of design-built stage space and 80,000 sq ft of covered support space. “Our facility sits on 29 acres of gated property which allows the production to have full control of its environment,” says Celtic Studios executive director Corey Parker. “Baton Rouge and its surrounding area gives productions the opportunity to choose from one of the most diverse landscapes and film friendly communities you can find.” The Celtic Studio’s most recently hosted Disney+ film Crater, predominantly in its Stage 5, which measures 70 foot high, so ample space for lighting, stunt and VFX work, which helped the film qualify for the 5% incentive boost. “We built a huge ‘sandbox’ taking up most of the ground floor leaving enough space around for equipment, stunt rigging and fire lanes, which served as our lunar surface,” says Kevin O’Neal, assistant director of Crater. Louisiana’s own Jimmy Ryan was key grip and rigged two 360 degree green screen tracks from the ceiling around the sand box, one for green screen and the other for solid black, “allowing quick changes between the two (like pulling a curtain open and closed) depending on which shots we were working on,” says Ryan. “The vastness and well circulated (exhaust vents) stage also made it easier to manoeuvre and work with large set pieces and vehicles such as the lunar vehicle in Crater.” Pryor says this was their first large project coming out of Covid-19, “so there was this spirit of camaraderie on the project. They really tied into the community. It was a magical experience working with the producer John G Scotti and Disney.” There’s also Second Line Stages in New Orleans with three soundstages, Sterling Studios with two stages and a 20 acre backlot and the Louisiana Wave Studio in Shreveport. Its 80ft x 100ft x 10ft deep wave tank contains 750,000 gallons of water and can generate computer controlled multiple wave and swell pattern effects. Don Ross, the studio’s MD says, “From ocean simulation to special camera work underwater or on water, the tank is quite capable of facilitating anything. Ultimately controlled by computer, it can generate waves up to ten foot high.” Louisiana’s crew base has more than quadrupled over the past couple of decades with more than 1,200 members of film and television unions such as SAG-AFTRA, Directors Guild of America and Teamsters. Most of the state’s air travel is through Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, which offers direct flights to London, LA, New York, Toronto. But there are also smaller airports in Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Shreveport. Main Image: | Q&A JOAN CUNNINGHAM PRODUCER National Treasure: Edge of History
Q: Where did you film? A: National Treasure was based and shot mostly in Baton Rouge although, since we were so close, we shot several days in and around New Orleans as well. Baton Rouge’s Celtic Media Centre gave us everything we needed in terms of large office space and plenty of stages. Q: What was a stand-out moment for you? A: We shot in both the swamp and bayou regions – the majesty and beauty was amazing. Q: How was your experience? A: Our show shot at a time when the industry was at its busiest and finding crew was difficult across the globe. But we were able to build almost our entire crew from New Orleans due to their depth of numbers and experience. I was happily surprised to find great SPFX teams and even a stunt coordinator. Grip, electric and camera equipment were also fully supplied out of the city. We used LED screens for all our driving work and as backdrops for many sets and got the best deal from a local company called Pix-El, which beat bigger companies facilities out of Atlanta, New York and Florida and saved us the shipping costs. Q: Were there any challenges? A: We were planning scenes that were set at The Alamo and we found a great location to do the ‘cheat’ in downtown Baton Rouge. The location was attached to some government buildings and our requests to shoot there were initially denied. We reached out to Katie Pryor at the Baton Rouge film commission and she was able to reach the right people to explain our requests and cut through some red tape to secure the location for us.
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