by Leslie Cardé
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FROM L.A. TO LA. That was the route Hollywood filmmakers were taking around 2010 when the influx of big movies to the Big Easy first began to take shape. Thanks in part to a 30 percent tax credit offered by Louisiana, L.A.’s film and television crews began packing their bags and heading for New Orleans, and the term “Hollywood South” was coined. It was boomtown, and everyone was cashing in on the influx of big movies and big spenders all around the city and state. But in an industry where you’re only as good as your last picture, things can go from boom to bust at the speed of a Tinder swipe. It was just three short years ago when local production crews began bemoaning the fact that many Hollywood films and TV series had begun taking their location shoots to other cities. The underlying reason was simple. Promises had been made to the film industry in the form of tax credits. Shoot your motion picture in Louisiana, and the state would rebate a considerable percentage of your costs in exchange for bringing jobs to the state and spending money on everything from hotels and restaurants to transportation. Unfortunately, when the studios tried to cash in those credits, the monies were not available. It wasn’t long before chaos and a mass exodus ensued.
Inside New Orleans
“The state stubbed its toe in a big way, and unscrupulous characters at the Film Commission sunk the $500 million incentives program,” explained Scott Niemeyer, the founder and CEO of Deep South Studios. He is now in Phase II of the construction that will ultimately find New Orleans with 262,000 square feet of sound stages, grip and lighting equipment, office space and pre- and post-production facilities. It will be the largest studio between Pinewood in Atlanta and ABQ in Albuquerque, which is now being bought by the streaming-content king, Netflix. Niemeyer definitely understands finances— and film. With a business degree garnered from Tulane University in 1987, he ventured off to L.A. to learn about financing films and spent decades there. He eventually got into production, producing, along with his two partners at Gold Circle Films, such hits as My Big Fat Greek Wedding I and II and Wedding Date with Debra Messing; Because I Said So with Diane Keaton; and White Noise with Michael Keaton, amongst many others. He knows that when Hollywood is promised something, they will hold your feet to the fire. To say the tax credit debacle undermined a thriving Hollywood South is a massive understatement.