S
VOL. 3, ISSUE 1 | December 2011/January 2012 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Micah Haley CREATIVE DIRECTOR Erin Theriot STAFF WRITER Brittney Franklin COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR Elizabeth Glauser EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Kasey Emas, Jenny Bravo, John Vail DESIGN ASSISTANT Lauren Jones
EDITOR’S LETTER
A
t least once a day at Scene’s corporate offices in Baton Rouge, I turn to someone and wonder how 2011 has passed so quickly! While time has flown by, I look back and see three years of accomplishment somehow contained within one. In one year, Scene has been fortunate to interview some of the biggest talents in entertainment, including Matthew McConaughey, Mark Wahlberg, Stephen Moyer, Ashley Greene, Mary J. Blige, Peter Facinelli, Kellan Lutz, Justin Chatwin, Sela Ward and now Rose McGowan. We’ve also spoken with some of the true masters that paved the way for modern film, including The Exorcist director William Friedkin and The Last Picture Show director and writer Peter Bogdanovich. “A Film/Fashion Affair,” our inaugural celebration of the fall NOLA Fashion Week and the New Orleans Film Festival, so far surpassed our expectations! Nearly 2000
8 | December 2011/January 2012
of our friends gathered to dance, dine and drink under the stars. We were humbled by the outpouring of support from our clients and other businesses in the community. The demand for these premier events is amazing, and I promise we’ve got a few things in the works that will be equally amazing. And I want to especially thank Ray Ziegler of RZI Lighting, whose lights and equipment not only transformed a film studio allyway into a Los Angeles nightclub, but personally stayed with me, working after the party until 4:00am, to ensure that the space was returned to working condition. So much has happened, and I can’t possibly mention it all here, but what I’m most excited about is 2012. Don’t worry: when the clock strikes midnight, the world will still be here. And Scene Magazine isn’t going anywhere.
MICAH HALEY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF editor@scenelouisiana.com
DIRECTOR OF SALES Gene Jones SALES David Draper, Brinkley Maginnis, Tabitha Miles SALES & MARKETING COORDINATOR Ashley Paxton CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Jay Maidment, Patti Perret, Macall Polay, Kimberley French, Mark St. James, Art Streiber, John P. Johnson, Ashley Merlin, Alicia Antoinette, Will Byington, Craig Mulcahy, Rico Torres, Andrew Cooper, Robby Klein, Caitlin Barry, Chad M. West GRAPHIC ARTIST Burton Chatelain, Jr. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS AJ Buckley, Elizabeth Glauser, Scottie Wells, Jacob Peterman, Susan Ross, Kasey Emas, Mark St. James, Jenny Bravo Scene Magazine At Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge 10000 Celtic Drive • Suite 201 • Baton Rouge, LA 70809 225-361-0701 At Second Line Stages 800 Richard St. • Suite 222 • New Orleans, LA 70130 504-224-2221 info@scenelouisiana.com • www.scenelouisiana.com Published By Louisiana Entertainment Publishers LLC CEO, Andre Champagne President, AJ Buckley Vice President, Micah Haley Controller, Jessica Dufrene Display Advertising: Call Louisiana Entertainment Publishers for a current rate card or visit www.scenelouisiana.com All submitted materials become the property of Louisiana Entertainment Publishers LLC. For subscriptions or more information visit our website www.scenelouisiana.com Copyright @ 2011 Louisiana Entertainment Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used for solicitation or copied by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher.
CONTENTS ON THE COVER
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SCENE ON CAPTAIN AMERICA After shooting The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond in Baton Rouge a few years ago, frequent superhero CHRIS EVANS bulked up to play Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger. Now the former Johnny Storm is in Shreveport with new Superman foil Michael Shannon to film The Iceman.
CONTRABAND MARK WAHLBERG, the Oscarnominated star of The Fighter, has spent quite a bit of time in New Orleans, as of late. After starring in the New Orleans-shot film Contraband – set to be released in January – Wahlberg returns to the city to shoot Broken City.
Chris Evans as Captain America photo by Jay Maidment
Mark Wahlberg as Chris Farraday photo by Patti Perret
Elizabeth Banks as Lara Brennan
THE NEXT THREE DAYS The beautiful and funny ELIZABETH BANKS recently starred in a purely dramatic role in The Next Three Days. That was with Oscar winners Russell Crowe and director Paul Haggis. Not too shabby. Now she’s in Baton Rouge producing Pitch Perfect with Anna Kendrick and Brittany Snow.
12 | December 2011/January 2012
Anna Kendrick as Jessica Stanley photo by Kimberley French
THE TWILIGHT SAGA With The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 in theaters, ANNA KENDRICK has returned to Baton Rouge and is spending all of her time on Pitch Perfect, a comedy set in the world of college a cappella singing competitions.
Michael Shannon as Agent Nelson Van Alden photo by Macall Polay
BOARDWALK EMPIRE The years since shooting Bug in New Orleans have been good to MICHAEL SHANNON. He’s currently starring in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire on the small screen, while filling some mighty big shoes as General Zod in Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot. Next up he has The Iceman in Shreveport.
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BEHIND THE
SCENES S NATIONAL LAMPOON’S
ANOTHER DIRTY MOVIE Written by Alan Donnes and directed by Jonathan
Silverman, Another Dirty Movie carries on the comedy tradition started in the 1980s by movies like Animal House. Starring Jonathan Silverman, Maeve Quinlan and Robert Klein, along with locals Lance E. Nichols, Michael Arata and Ashton Leigh, the laugher fully utilizes all of Louisiana’s local filmmaking resources. photos by Mark St. James
ALAN DONNES
“Everything is being filmed here [and] being edited here. Jonathan Silverman
we’ve worked with before, and Robert Klein from the original, but a lot of local people. And the crew, as far as I know, is 100% local. We were very lucky before we got a lot of projects in town [to hire everyone]. We’ve been blessed with an amazing crew.
”
Jonathan Silverman with Alan Donnes on the set of Another Dirty Movie
“There will be some fairly big name cameos in it. I can’t say who they are, but
there will be cameos of people in the movie saying that they refused to be in the movie. So it will be stars playing themselves being asked to be in the movie and they’re saying, ‘No, I can’t be in the movie!’
”
MORE BEHIND THE SCENES 16 | December 2011/January 2012
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FILM |
S THE TELL-TALE HEART Inspired by the acclaimed short story from macabre author Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart stars Rose McGowan, Peter Bogdanovich, Patrick John Flueger and Damon Whitaker.
Rose McGowan as “Ariel”
DAMON WHITAKER
“I play Charlie who is the character who gets Shawn and delivers him to the home, like
the boatman in the river Styx. There’s a huge, long scene with me talking about life and reflecting on the Mississippi and the writer uses it as a metaphor of change and flow.
”
Peter Bogdanovich as “The Old Man”
PATRICK JOHN FLEUGER
“I play a young kid by the name of Shawn. When we open the
film, you find him in a mental institution. An old Air Force buddy comes to chat with him and he tells him the story of how he kills a man with one eye and hid him in the floorboards. It has all of the elements of the Poe story, but we may have expanded on it. The character Shawn is much more accessible. I think by the end of the film, you’re gonna feel for the guy, where you don’t necessarily feel for the guy in the short story.
”
18 | December 2011/January 2012
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by AJ Buckley
Before the Scene is where we all start. In a small town with our families. In front of a mirror with our friends. The days spent sleeping on a couch. The nights working at a bar. Living with the unknown and surrounded by uncertainty. It’s about the times that define us. It’s about the darkness just before the limelight.
PETER BOGDANOVICH Peter Bogdanovich is an Academy Award-nominated director, writer and actor. His most acclaimed films include The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon and They All Laughed. He is also the author of This is Orson Welles, the authoritative biographical work on the legendary director of Citizen Kane. His next project as an actor is The Tell-Tale Heart.
What made you want to become a filmmaker? Oh, I don’t know. I thought I was going to be an actor. And I wanted to be a movie star. For a while when I was a child, I decided to be an actor and I started in the theatre first. I started living in New York and at some point, I decided I wanted to direct and not act. I think the first time I became aware of a movie director was seeing Citizen Kane when I was about sixteen. I suppose it was because Orson was up there acting, and I figured out he was also directing. That interested me. That’s sort of how I got in to thinking about it.
What was your biggest fear? That I wouldn’t get to make pictures. Or at least, the pictures I wanted to make.
What was your lowest point? That’s a complicated question because I had success in the theatre first. Then, I had a big flop in the theatre, which was a low point. Then we moved to California, mainly because I had a big flop in New York. I realized that I did most of the writing about Hollywood subjects. I really wanted to make movies not plays. I didn’t want to direct plays; I wanted to direct movies. Then, it was sort of an upward climb to make Targets and, eventually, The Last Picture Show. I don’t think there was a real terrible downer, like the play flopping. That was terrible.
What kept you from walking away? It never occurred to me. Well, I thought I’d be discovered by Hollywood directing plays. Like Mike Nichols did. It didn’t happen that way. Roger Corman gave me my first break in movies. He didn’t know that I’d directed in the theatre. He had read my stuff in Esquire and he thought of me as a writer. And when I told him I had directed in the theatre, that was an added plus. I moved to California in ’64, middle of ’64, met Roger a year later. And it was pretty consistent work from then on. There was a long time between the time we finished Targets and sold it to Paramount. That was quite a delay. And I was a little low during that period and trying to sell it. But it didn’t take that long.
Who was your closest ally?
until ’66. I particularly didn’t like writing for TV Guide. Not the kind of magazine I like. Roger’s a big thing because he offered me a job that wasn’t merely writing. He offered me a job working as an assistant and I worked on this other picture, The Wild Angels. Did a lot of work on it, 22 weeks. I did just about everything you could do on a picture.
What were the words that kept you going? I looked at older films. I was inspired by them. Pictures by Ford or Hawkes or Welles or Hitchcock. The old masters.
How have you changed? Oh, I’m a different person now. Changed a lot. I think when Dorothy Stratten was murdered, that was a big change in my life. I didn’t want to direct anymore for a long time. I didn’t think I’d make another picture. That’s after about twelve years…about fourteen years of making pictures. ’66 to ’80. When she was killed I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t do another picture for three or four years, in fact.
What words do you have to inspire others? People ask me that all the time and I think the only thing I can say is, “Don’t give up.” Because the tendency to want to give up is strong. It’s a very difficult business, unless you get very lucky. I was lucky actually. I was quite lucky. I got Roger who was a big, big deal and he put me to work right away. I didn’t really stop working there from the time he hired me. I kept working on pictures. It was non-stop until I went around the world in ’77. I almost stopped making pictures then for two years — three years almost— because I hadn’t liked what had happened to two of my pictures. I’d thought I’d f****** them up. Generally, success had f***** me up a bit. At Long Last Love and Nickelodeon were not where I wanted them to be and I was very discouraged so I went around the world twice with Cybill Shepherd – we were living together. That was pleasant. But then I decided to make a film absolutely without any compromise. And that was Saint Jack and then following that was They All Laughed, which was also made with no compromise of any kind. Then Dorothy was killed which destroyed the basic mood of the picture.
Probably my first wife, Polly Platt. We were quite close at that time.
What were you doing before the meeting that changed your life? Complaining about writing articles for TV Guide! It was 600 dollars a pop, and I needed the money. I was broke. I didn’t like writing for magazines, particularly. I lost interest in it. I kept doing it for Esquire 20 | December 2011/January 2012
One of the partners in Scene Magazine, AJ has starred for the last seven years as Adam Ross on the hit TV show CSI:NY, now on Friday nights at 9pm. Originally from Dublin and raised in Vancouver, he has spent the past twelve years in Los Angeles acting, writing and directing. He is currently in pre-production in Louisiana on North of Hell, in which he will star and produce. Find out more on Twitter at @AJohnBuckley and at his website, www.ajbuckley.net.
BEFORE THE SCENE PETER BOGDANOVICH www.scenelouisiana.com | 21
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STATE OF THE ARTIST
Written in Blood
A CONVERSATION WITH TRUE BLOOD AUTHOR
CHARLAINE HARRIS by Brittney Franklin
Alexander Skarsgard, Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer
H
er vampire-driven tales of drama, mystery and romance through the eyes of southern beauty Sookie Stackhouse are famous. Though producer Alan Ball brought True Blood to television, it was Mississippi native Charlaine Harris who first brought the small, fictitious Louisiana town of Bon Temps to life in the pages of her novels in the Southern Vampire Series. “I just love the series,” says Harris of HBO’s True Blood. “Obviously it’s very different from the books, and rightly so, because what reads well on the page doesn’t necessarily look good on screen. But I love Alan, I love the actors and the crew. They’re all super talented people and I think it’s great to get a different version with the same characters. It’s been a lot of fun for me.” Though the show and the books are similar, there are enough differences between the two to still maintain an element of surprise, from arcs to characters. One character Harris would like to see appear on the Louisiana-set show is Sookie and Jason’s great-grandfather, Niall. “In the books, Sookie’s great-grandfather is a big influence and I would love to see him in the show. He’s a fullblooded fairy. But I don’t know if that’s part of Alan’s plan or not.” Though she didn’t spend a lot of time in the state growing up, Harris has “enjoyed many visits to Louisiana.” In planning, she noticed that Southern Louisiana already had a lot of pull in the media, so she 24 | December 2011/January 2012
photo by Art Streiber/HBO
chose to focus on the North. “I found the Northern part of Louisiana is the left-handed homage to New York.” About eight books ahead of events on the show, she is bringing the stories of Bon Temps residents to a close. The thirteenth installment will be its last. “I’ve always known how the books would end and so, to me, I’m coming to what I’ve been waiting for for a long time,” she says. “Obviously readers don’t know where I’m going but I hope they’ll come along with me.” In addition to the Southern Vampire Mysteries, Harris has written short stories and novellas featuring human and supernatural characters found within her books, a collection of which can be found in A Touch of Dead. A reference guide to the beloved series, The Sookie Stackhouse Companion was released in August. It includes interviews with Harris and Ball, recipes based on dishes served in the books, the Stackhouse family tree, a history of the fan club, a synopsis and timeline of the novels, and an original novella, Small Town Wedding. “It’s for people who love the series, definitely,” says Harris. “It’s pretty exhaustive and a lot of people have really enjoyed it as a reference book.” In September, Harris joined True Blood cast members Joe Manganiello, Jim Parrack, Kristin Bauer Van Straten and Denis O’Hare at Dragon*Con, doing three fan question-and-answer sessions over last Labor Day weekend. Soon, the mystery writer will be joining the ranks of graphic
STATE OF THE ARTIST
Alexander Skarsgard as Eric Northman
novelists, working with fantasy novelist Christopher Golden on the three-parter, Cemetery Girl, set to be released next year. “It’s about a young woman who wakes up in a cemetery. She knows something terrible has happened to her but she’s not sure what and she doesn’t know who she is. And through the length of the books, we gradually find out who she is, why she’s there, and how she survived living by herself in a cemetery,” explains Harris. “I’ve never written a graphic novel and I’ve never collaborated so this is a big new experience for me to learn how to write a graphic novel. Chris is a very experienced writer in the graphic novel field and in novels so he’s kind of leading me through this and I hope that I learn to be good at it.” “Graphic novels, it’s just a completely different writing process. You have to boil down pages and pages of material into a few panels per page and convey with dialogue and the picture content a lot of action that would take you a while to describe in the books. So, it’s really a whole different approach to storytelling.” Harris wrote her first book over thirty years ago and has since branched off from her mystery roots, dabbling in everything from romance to fantasy. “I pretty much covered the spectrum. I’ve written straight science fiction, I wrote one romance novella, and I write now in urban fantasies. So I’ve kind of covered the spectrum on that,” she says. Down These Strange Streets, a collection of urban fantasy short stories by Harris and others, hit shelves in October. Season five of True Blood is prepping now with new episodes set to air on HBO next summer. Deadlocked, the twelfth book in the Southern Vampire Mysteries series will be released in May 2012. S 26 | December 2011/January 2012
photo by John P. Johnson/HBO
Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer in HBO’s True Blood photo by Art Streiber/HBO
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FILM |
GENERAL MORSHOWER by Elizabeth Glauser
A
familiar face, veteran actor Glenn Morshower is an increasingly busy guy, with roles this year in Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon, Moneyball and X-Men: First Class. Recently in New Orleans filming the television series Wild Card, Morshower sat down with Scene at the famed French Quarter eatery Café Du Monde to talk about his current projects and his time spent across the state. Though born in Dallas, Morshower made his way to the Bayou State early, working in Morgan City as a teenager. “We used to work on the crew boats that would take men and supplies to and from the oil rigs. I was there in Amelia, New Iberia, Jeanerette, Franklin — I know all those Southern Louisiana cities,” says Morshower. “I’ve traveled extensively throughout Louisiana.” Despite the early connections to Louisiana, this is only the actor’s second time filming here and the first post-Katrina. The first was with Sean Penn and Jude Law on All The King’s Men. “When Katrina hit, things pulled out of this area but they didn’t leave Louisiana because of the tax incentives so they simply moved north,” says Morshower. “Whoever believed on God’s green Earth that Shreveport would become a film town? But it did! I mean it’s incredible. And now that New Orleans is back and cleaned up quite a bit, and recovered largely from Katrina, the work has returned and I’m thrilled to see it for this community. I think it’s beautiful.” The second project, Wild Card, has Morshower portraying the father of an aspiring professional football player and first round draft pick who gets into trouble in Las Vegas. “The series will take place in Las Vegas… and I love that they found a way to have New Orleans play as Las Vegas,” he says. “Of course you’ve got Harrah’s here, which they’ve done a lot of filming [at] so the interiors of all the casinos are alike. So it’s convincing as Vegas there and I suppose all you need to do is throw in a couple of stock footage shots, flyovers of Vegas, to legitimize the fact that you’re in Vegas even though you’re in Southern Louisiana.” The pilot is being directed by Animal House alum Tim Matheson. Morshower’s co-star is Jennifer Finnigan. “It’s just been great. Tim Matheson is directing and Tim’s been an actor himself for many, many years,” says Morshower. “Having an actor direct is always a nice touch because he certainly understands what it’s like to be in our skin. And Jennifer Finnigan I’ve enjoyed immensely.” “I liked the script a lot. It was one of the best reads I’ve ever had as far as the material,” Morshower says of the show. “I thanked my agent in advance for the quality material that I was going in to read and I felt like I would get the job because it’s just right in my wheelhouse.” When not on set, the fifty-two-year-old shares his wisdom travelling as a motivational speaker. “It’s really wonderful and it’s very satisfying,” says Morshower. “There’s no part of me that doesn’t experience fulfillment when I’m able to go into a large room or large auditorium full of people and play a role in facilitating someone else’s healing. It’s really like a show and I do a lot of
28 | December 2011/January 2012
Glenn Morshower as Agent Pierce in Fox’s “24”
ON WILD CARD:
The series will take place in Las Vegas… and I love that they found a way to
have New Orleans play as Las Vegas.
last looks |
photo by Ashley Merlin
FILM
www.scenelouisiana.com | 29
FILM |
photo by Ashley Merlin
my lessons in character. The show has been gaining so much momentum around the world and I just love it.” Morshower’s eagerness to help others is evident in many of his roles, including one of his most famous: secret service agent Aaron Pierce on the hit Fox series 24. “Pierce was all about values and he was someone of backbone and reliability and trustworthiness. I mean, this character belongs on the cover of Trustworthy Magazine,” says Morshower. “He’s someone that people feel safe [with]. I made sure that I was really just playing a man that is built out of the very principles that I believe in and so it was great fun to offer that to the world.” Morshower’s ability to project stoic trustworthiness has kept him in demand. The actor has played Secret Service agents, police officers and military personnel on screen and even in video games. Recently the actor not only lent his voice to the newly released game Battlefield 3, but also his image. “The executive producer just contacted me last week and he said, ‘You think 24 affected your anonymity? Wait ‘til this game comes out,’” says Morshower. “He said, ‘It is so enormously popular, and unlike Modern Warfare 2 where it’s just your voice, the fact that you’re featured through this game, you just want to buckle your seatbelt because it’s going to be enormous.’ And the exposure has been so big on that,” says Morshower. “I’d never dreamed how many people would call up and be like, ‘Dude! I was playing and all of a sudden I hear my buddy’s voice!’” To see Glenn Morshower in amazingly realistic CGI, Battlefield 3 is available to own now, and look for him on the USA Network’s new television series Wild Card. S 30 | December 2011/January 2012
photo by Ashley Merlin
scene BETTER THAN EZRA OPENS UP
photo by Alicia Antoinette
T
he 2011 Ezra Open charity gala celebrated ten years of giving back to Louisiana this year. Held at Harrah’s Theatre – located inside of Harrah’s Casino – the fundraiser again featured a celebrity bowling tournament and patron party. Celebs in attendance included New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton, actor Jonathan Silverman and actress Jennifer Finnigan (in town filming Wild Card) and Travis McNabb of Sugarland. Better Than Ezra’s concert included special guests Emerson Hart of Tonic, Daniel Powter and Jake Smith. For more info on the group’s charitable work in New Orleans, visit www.btefoundation.org. S
photo by Will Byington
32 | December 2011/January 2012
The Ezra open featured a live & silent auction
photo by Will Byington
extras
| SCENE
photo by Will Byington
photo by Alicia Antoinette
photo by Alicia Antoinette
R E A LT Y G R O U P
Direct contact: Patton Brantley PattonBrantley@gmail.com Mobile: 225-907-7778 Web: www.pattonbrantley.com
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TODAY’S SCENE
Opening night at The Prytania Theatre
New Orleans Film Festival by Jenny Bravo photos by Craig Mulcahy
A
highly anticipated fall film event, the 2011 New Orleans Film Festival brought large crowds of eager filmgoers and filmmakers alike to the Crescent City. At venues across the city, the festival displayed over 180 films, ranging from full-length features to shorts and documentaries, with both local subjects and foreign influences. Under the guidance of new executive director Jolene Pinder, whose leadership has garnered a substantial increase in Film Society membership, the people arrived in droves to find sold-out shows. The Oscarbuzzed performances of actresses such as Elizabeth Olsen and Jean Dujardin were among the highlights of the weeklong fest. Among the attendees were actors John Goodman and Kristy Swanson. Adopted New Orleanian Goodman has a featured role in The Artist, and Swanson recently appeared in Active Entertainment’s Swamp Shark. Both mingled with audiences and posed on the red carpet for photographs. The Big Fix directors Rebecca and Josh Tickell were in attendance for the premiere of their film. Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia director Jonathan Demme was in town for the screening of his documentary, I’m Carolyn Parker. The New Orleans Film Festival continues to grow, year after year, in proportion to the growth of Louisiana’s film industry. To join the New Orleans Film Society, visit www.neworleansfilmsociety.org. S 38 | December 2011/January 2012
2011
The Big Fix directors at the film’s premiere at The Prytania
TODAY’S SCENE
The Filmmaker’s Brunch sponsored by Cineworks
Kristy Swanson at the midnight screening of Swamp Shark
John Goodman at the Opening Night screening of The Artist
MORE FROM NEW ORLEANS FILM FEST 2011 www.scenelouisiana.com | 39
TODAY’S SCENE
New Orleans Film Festival
2011
An audience eagerly awaits the premiere of Brawler
Treme creator Eric Overmyer with Treme star Michiel Huisman at the Festival Awards Ceremony
Kristy Swanson at the midnight screening of Swamp Shark
40 | December 2011/January 2012
Carolyn Parker and director Jonathan Demme at the screening of I’m Carolyn Parker
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ABOVE THE LINE
Rose McGowan
The Beauty Queen of Quirk by Micah Haley McGowan with Marley Shelton in Planet Terror
photo by Rico Torres
N
ot one to be pigeonholed by her good looks, Rose McGowan’s resume is anything but boring. After the brunette beauty first burst onto the big screen in the early ‘90s, she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her role in the indie, The Doom Generation. She came to the attention of the masses in Wes Craven’s Scream with a memorable deathby-garage-door. After taking over the small screen with Charmed, McGowan returned to the big screen in 2007 with Grindhouse, a double dose of 1970s-style awesome. And after the late summer release of Conan the Barbarian, in which she starred as the halfwitch Marique, McGowan arrived in New Orleans to shoot The Tell-Tale Heart, a new take on the classic tale of psychological terror from Edgar Allan Poe. The beautiful queen of quirk spoke with Scene over the phone, just before flying back to New Orleans.
MH: Rose! What’s going on? RM: You’re going to laugh: I’m actually driving on the freeway to go to LAX to New Orleans.
MH: Oh, that always sounds like fun! What are you coming down for? RM: Just to visit some of the people on the crew and a couple friends
I made. There’s a girl on the set who was my stand in and I want to do a short film with her. I want to direct a short film.
MH: Have you been to New Orleans before working on The Tell-Tale Heart? RM: I saved up my money when I was nineteen. And just took myself 42 | December 2011/January 2012
With director John La Tier on the set of The Tell-Tale Heart
there, just because I always felt this strong kinship to it and never knew exactly why. I went and I wandered around the city by myself for about four days. And then I went back later to do the Elvis miniseries that shot there. I played Ann-Margret in that and that was fantastic. It was me and Jonathan Rhys Meyers who just did such a tremendous job, as always.
MH: Were you able to meet Ann-Margret prior to playing her? RM: I wasn’t, and I was okay with that, ‘cause it was just daunting enough. The strangest thing was that the director said, “For more universal appeal I don’t want you to do the Ann-Margret voice.” I was like, “Well she was kind of known for her voice but okay.” Odd.
ABOVE THE LINE
www.scenelouisiana.com | 43
ABOVE THE LINE MH: I worked on a period piece with Ann-Margret in Louisiana a couple years ago and she was so elegant and just so… RM: Everybody that I’ve ever talked to, that said they had known her, said she was so lovely and so professional.
MH: So, you shot Elvis here, and now you’re back with The Tell-Tale Heart. Can you tell me how you came to be a part of the project? RM: I was in Venice, Italy having an amazing time in the most beautiful city on Earth, I do believe. And I got this kind of urgent message about The Tell-Tale Heart [shooting in New Orleans]. I was trying to figure out where a woman would fit into it because, well, there’s no girl in the story. I’d read the story when I was four years old in Italy. I was a very young reader and a precocious reader - and it did give me nightmares - but I’ve always loved Poe. I thought, “Gosh, what more perfect a place could there be than to shoot it there.” Just hanging Spanish moss, kind of Old South, just so beautiful. In any case, I read the script and basically I was just like, “Please don’t suck, please don’t suck, please don’t suck.” Because so many just suck! I literally think I repeated that in my head ten times. Then I cracked it open, trying to figure out how they were gonna put a woman in it and if it was just like one of those, “We just need a girl.” Then I would not be interested. And the script is so good, and so elegant and my character weaves in and out of it perfectly and seamlessly that it seems that she could have been in the original story, so there was no shock there. It was nice.
MH: Edgar Allan Poe and New Orleans are similar in that they are both American, but seem European in origin. RM: I agree and very much so. New Orleans definitely has that flavor, especially, because of its history and its origins and obviously Edgar Allen Poe does. He almost seems more like he should be British, doesn’t he?
MH: He does. Even as a child, I thought Poe made Baltimore sound like a European city. RM: I think in my head when I was little, I’d always assumed it was. That and I didn’t know where Baltimore was anyway!
MH: What were some of your thoughts on Poe’s The TellTale Heart as a child? RM: That story has stayed with me my whole life. When I was little I used to go around putting my ear to the floorboards of different houses, thinking I could hear hearts and I was freaking everybody out. But I was insistent that I could hear hearts under the floor. If everybody would just listen, they would see what I was talking about! So, basically as a child, I got infected with uh, “Poe brain.” 44 | December 2011/January 2012
MH: Can you tell me how the writers wove a lady into the iconic Poe story? RM: She might be real, she might not be real. That’s the interesting
part, and it’s kind of open a bit to debate. I’ve got such cool photos. The sets were so brilliant. And because I may or may not be real, everything around me got to be quite fantastical and doesn’t have to be typical set design, like normal rooms in a normal house. And I could be inside and it happens to be snowing on the inside. Such amazing things.
MH: Can you talk about working with Patrick John Flueger, who just had a hit with Footloose? RM: He’s great. He did a very good job.
I’m really sad I didn’t get to work with Peter Bogdanovich. Our scenes just weren’t together. And they frontloaded the film for me, meaning they shot all my stuff, they stuck it all together because I had to go away and do another movie. Which was awesome, but it meant that I didn’t get to hang out with the great Mr. Bogdanovich. I was lucky enough once to sit on a plane next to him on the way to Texas. I was going to film there and he was going to do something with the Austin Film Society. I had this show playing on TCM and he’d seen it. Obviously, he is like a fountain of knowledge and discussing classic film with him was such a treat.
MH: You also had Conan the Barbarian release this year. I’m a huge fan of the original that launched Schwarzenegger’s career, so it was a film that I was awaiting with great anticipation. And I just loved you in it! RM: I’m so glad! I thought it was such a fun popcorn movie and I have to say: I don’t often love 3-D, but what I liked about… Well for one, it was my first time in 3-D so that was kind of exciting. But it was shot in 3-D, so it looked really good and I liked that instead of having things come out at you in the audience, they used it to kind of get layers into the film.
MH: A lot of the post-production work was actually done in Shreveport at Millennium Studios. The visuals were amazing! RM: I loved it. I had a great time shooting it. I had taken a break for
about three years and it was my first thing back. That was like a year and a couple months ago and I just had a blast. My character was so operatically evil, it was making me laugh! I would literally laugh when they would cut…
MH: Have you worked in make up that was that heavy before? RM: Nothing to that extent. I mean, he did a tremendous job - Scott Wheeler, the guy that did the makeup - and the prosthetics! I have really sensitive skin. I did a movie called Monkeybone with Brendan
ABOVE THE LINE
Rose McGowan with Patrick John Flueger in The Tell-Tale Heart
Frasier for Fox and I played this character called Miss Kitty. It was for Henry Selick. He’s such a cool director. Unfortunately, the studio took it away from him and it kind of became a fiasco. They didn’t trust him to be the genius that he really was. He later did James and the Giant Peach and Coraline. So amazing. Things were going strange at the studio then. So, they put this little kitten nose on me but it wouldn’t fade into my skin because it’s so fair. To blend it in, it takes a lot. And I think they hurt me during the removal process. And for a year, the skin in between my nose and my face did not grow together. It was brutally painful besides not looking good. I was just terrified that my whole forehead was going to wind up that way but they did a terrific job. I never had to sit that still, which is never my forte, sitting still. Ever.
MH: How long was the make up process for your character, Marique? RM: About six hours. Toward the end, we got it down to about four-
and-a-half or five. And then an hour for removal. They were very long days, but basically my thing is: I’m here to work, I might as well work. Especially in Bulgaria! What else am I gonna do? I would far rather be on the set than sitting around. Movies in general are fairly inefficient but that’s because I think it might be the only art form where you have about a hundred fingers trying to paint what they think is the correct painting, each finger has an ego that’s all involved in it, separately. It’s a tough way to work.
MH: Was there anything freeing or different about working under all that make up? RM: Completely. And the costumes were also terrific. Completely
constructed on me. Cost so much money, and the detail! Even the detail in that film with what the extras were wearing was so intense and so well done. Even the horses…each horse had its own handmade leather armor. Each horse has four dressers for it. It was a pretty huge undertaking. And I felt that character completely the second that whole rigmarole went on. I was definitely transformed into her. And it kind of frees you up to be, again, as operatically evil as one wants
to be. You’re not going to go in and do normal acting! (laughs) But I thoroughly enjoyed it and I thought it was just a terrific popcorn film.
MH: Of course, one of the biggest questions going into the making of the film was…who would play Conan? RM: He looked just like a Frazetta painting come to life, Jason Momoa. Freakishly so.
MH: When he was cast, I knew there would be controversy, but wow did he clear the way for Conan with his gangbusters performance as Khal Drogo on Game of Thrones. RM: How amazing is he in that?! And literally, could not be a nicer
guy. So family-oriented, so in love with his wife, so cool. And so it was a joy getting to hang out with him and act with him. And then there’s Stephen Lang, who’s terrific. He’s on Terra Nova now and he was the evil colonel in Avatar. I think I’m the only person in the world who has not seen Avatar. But when it came out, I was out of the country and then I just somehow missed it. I didn’t want to see it on a small screen, so someday I’m sure they’ll re-release it and I’ll go. But in any case, he plays my dad in Conan. He’s such a strong, amazing actor, and working with him was great fun, too.
MH: For those familiar with Avatar and Conan, they may find him unrecognizable in Michael Mann’s Manhunter, the first film to feature the character of Hannibal Lecktor. He plays the slimy, out of shape reporter. RM: I’ve seen Manhunter but I never made a connection of him being in it. Now I have to go watch it again. I love Manhunter. He’s so buff now! His body’s insane. He’s fifty-seven, and he’s going toe-totoe with Jason, who’s 6’5” and twenty-eight years old. It was pretty bananas to see them. But that’s what’s great about what I do. I can go from that world to a more esoteric, intellectual world with Tell-Tale Heart. I mean, that’s great. Not many people get to do that
www.scenelouisiana.com | 45
ABOVE THE LINE kind of stuff. It’s actually good for me to talk about that, and remember that, because a lot of times I loathe the business with a kind of startling intensity. Sometimes it startles me how much I loathe it. It’s good for me to actually remind myself of the simple joys which are getting to go from character to character and place to place.
MH: Are you enjoying feature work as opposed to working the demanding grind of a television show, like Charmed? RM: I called it the golden handcuffs. Golden because your job’s secure,
which you never have as an actor in general. It was tough, though. I’d never been around the same people for that length of time in my whole life, as I was with them. And I love that crew so much, but it was time to go back to features. Although, I just did a television movie that just came out and we got huge ratings. Gerry Abrams produced it. He’s JJ Abrams’ dad. JJ had a big screening of it at Bad Robot, his production office, and I got to see it on the big screen, which was cool. It was like a true crime story. This woman was on the cover of People Magazine - her name was Mary Winkler and as strong as most of my female roles, she was weak and invisible. So, being somebody who has always been noticed for one reason or another, positively or negatively. I have lived in places, like in Oregon, where they’re like, “You’re the ugliest thing I ever seen.” Or then I would go to Colorado and they would tell me how beautiful I was, which basically cancels it all out. But I always had some Rose McGowan with Django reaction. So to play somebody who was Tarantino in Planet Terror the epitome of invisible was really kind of amazing. I would go into a store on a lunch break and nobody would offer any help, it was so interesting. You get to be your own social experiment, and likewise with “crazy forehead” in Conan with a lot of the Bulgarians. Before I would put on the wardrobe, I would walk around looking like [Marique] in the morning, because by the time they got there at seven, I had already been there since 2:00am. A lot of them thought that was really what I looked like (laughs). And I never really bothered to set them straight. I thought it was hilarious. They were a little frightened of me and I thought it was pretty funny.
MH: It sounds like it was Halloween every day for three months. RM: Pretty much, yeah. And I think she was actually quite majestically beautiful. I think she was kind of amazing looking.
MH: Oh yeah, definitely. I’m really in love with Conan. I felt the whole build up was worth it. It had the tremendous scope that I really wanted. It was great. RM: That’s the thing. I think a lot of people hold a lot of affection
for the Arnold Schwarzenegger one because they saw it when they were little and it was campy and it was nuts but it wasn’t really true to [Conan author] Robert E. Howard. And I think it’s cool to remake things that have the nut of a really good idea but which didn’t quite
46 | December 2011/January 2012
come off in execution. ‘Cause again, there’s that hundred people making the painting. The movies…it’s just such a crap shoot if they turn out well. And yeah, as goofy as it sounds to say I’m really proud of Conan the Barbarian, I really quite am.
MH: I don’t think that sounds goofy, I think that sounds awesome. RM: Thank you!
MH: Are there any iconic roles you would like to remake? RM: God, I mean the iconic ones are the ones that shouldn’t be! But I
would love to do, I would love to play Barbara Stanwyck’s character in The Lady Eve. I love screwball comedies and I love Preston Sturges. When I went to do Planet Terror and Grindhouse, I wanted to do screwball comedy and Robert [Rodriguez] wanted to do kind of a zombie film. So if you ever watch it again, look at it with those eyes, ‘cause it’s half and half. And then there’s sadness and crying in it as well, but a lot of it is screwball comedy than a life and death situation.
MH: I loved the Grindhouse movies, Planet Terror and Death Proof. Everyone on the film I was working on at the time in Baton Rouge went to go see it on opening night. RM: Isn’t it awesome? It’s such an
awesome theatrical experience, too. And for me again to get to play the arc from being Cherry - who’s so strong - to being Pam who’s like, I wanted Pam to be really innocent and angelic which is why I had this really amazing flaxen, platinum hair, and then super pale skin. I wanted the audience to be so sad when she gets her face munched in so that’s what I achieved. And with Cherry, I had myself physically like made darker. I wanted to look more Italian.
Unchained director Quentin photo by Rico Torres
MH: And I love that you were in both. When you watch Roger Corman movies, they all use the same actors. RM: Right, I know. And it was so tongue and cheek, but so smart and unique at the same time. They really hit a home run, I thought.
MH: And though your scenes were deleted, you had a role in Machete, which was based on one of the faux trailers included in Grindhouse. RM: I don’t know. I’ve never seen the film or the deleted scenes. By the
way, every way that I kill somebody [in Grindhouse], I came up with! Not kidding. I was sitting in a restaurant and he was saying, “How do we kill the Jessica Alba character? We’ve come up behind her…we’ve already done kind of a garrote, if you will.’ I said, I had a parking slip in front of me and I stuck it in my mouth and just casually exited it from my mouth and said, ‘Look this is the size of a straight razor, I’ll just come from behind, grab her neck, take it out of my mouth and cut her.’ And that’s exactly what I did.
ABOVE THE LINE
McGowan with Kurt Russell in Death Proof
MH: I was fortunate to interview Danny Trejo in the last issue of Scene. RM: He’s such a character and his kids are so funny, they’re so straightlaced. It’s so cute. And then he’s the one who’s kind of this overgrown twelve-year-old. It’s so cute. The way he dresses and everything. And he’s just got that face. For his sake, I’m glad they made Machete. I just never saw it. A lot of the movies I do, I don’t wind up seeing. Like in my head, I’ve already done them. So, unless I go to the premiere or the situation forces me to, I don’t.
MH: That’s a comment that I hear a lot from below the line people. The film crewmembers. RM: It’s interesting because, while I’m friends with everybody, those
are always my tightest friends, they are always the crew. Always. I’ve been told numerous times that I’m much more like a crew personality, in terms of getting it done. Whatever it takes to get it done and pull up your bootstraps and march on. No matter how tired you are, suck it up. So I’ve got that kind of attitude, just naturally as a worker and it works well. There’s a thing I do on set a lot of times where the first or second day, each crewmember I see, they put a clothespin on you and I have a collection of clothespins. It’s really cute!
MH: Can you tell me about the status of Napa, a project that you’re set to star in? Is that something you’ve shot already?
photo by Andrew Cooper
RM: No, it keeps getting delayed and right now I’m trying to see if I can still do it. Like, every week they’ll be like, “Oh we’re doing it next week.” And I just don’t know if I can stay in limbo anymore. We’re in the process of hopefully in the next week nailing it down. It’s strange to not know if, like in one week, you’re gonna be off somewhere else. MH: I read that in it, you’ll play an Afghanistan vet who comes back and becomes a sheriff. That sounds amazing. RM: I know! Which is badass. She’s a sheriff with a drinking problem. She didn’t want to be the sheriff but wound up sheriff because of a strange confluence of events in a small town. The cool thing about it is I’ve been to Afghanistan and I’ve hung a lot with military people so it would certainly be cool to play somebody who was actually there.
MH: Tell me about your work with Daughters of Pulmonary Fibrosis. RM: I just joined forces with the Daughters of Pulmonary Fibrosis
because my father died of pulmonary fibrosis, which is a horrible disease that kills more people than breast cancer each year, but people really don’t know that much about it. If anyone looks up pulmonary fibrosis, they can find Daughters of Pulmonary Fibrosis. They’re lobbying for some sort of recognition in medical circles. There’s almost no attention being paid to it now and a lot of people are dying from it. It’s a shame and it’s a horrible death. It’s not fair. S www.scenelouisiana.com | 47
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NOLAFW WRAP-UP by Kasey Emas
photos by Robby Klein
N
OLA Fashion Week closed out its first groundbreaking year as October came to an end. Both local and national designers were given the honor of showcasing their unique collections during the highly acclaimed fashion event, celebrating great fashion, while also benefitting the fashion marketplace by “giving these artisans an opportunity to tell the story of their brand,” cofounder and creative director Andi Eaton explains. “The addition of the fashion market this fall is a great way to connect design with retail,” as sales results dramatically increased. “We’d love to see the market grow from fifteen vendors to thirty by next season while continuing to curate an amazing mix of local talent,” Eaton points out. “We’ve had great feedback from those who’ve participated this year and we’ll take their feedback to get bigger and better next season.” Professional hairstylist Joseph Dimaggio facilitated an editorial hairdressing workshop for the Paris Parker team, as well as a model workshop in partnership with Dev of Fenton Moon Agency, who trained local models on how to perform a highly choreographed walk for each show. “The team unity behind the scenes was unreal! The energy was high and the level of professionalism was at a level you would see in New York,” Eaton dishes. “The designers that have showed with us in both seasons have been so incredibly talented and inspiring,” she continues. “If you came to one of the shows, you had to be touched by how much time and vision goes into each piece of clothing that goes down that runway.” It can take months of planning for a seven-to-ten minute show. “It’s so magical to see the whole thing come together. If you didn’t come then you missed the opportunity to participate in something that is really going to change the creative landscape of New Orleans and this region.” “The challenge is ultimately to educate people about what we are doing and trying to accomplish with the Fashion Council and Fashion Week,” Eaton explains. The small staff is comprised of two core people and a group of highly committed volunteers that correspond with up to twenty designers, work with local schools, and meet with government officials and economic development groups about the
60 | December 2011/January 2012
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Clint Mock outside of his office at Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge
CLINT MOCK ENTERTAINMENT CPA
by Elizabeth Glauser
T
he explosion of entertainment in Louisiana over the last decade hasn’t been happenstance. “While our state has so much to offer the world of entertainment - culture, infrastructure, talent, food, etcetera - the fact of the matter is that our film industry is thriving because of these tax incentives,” says Clint Mock, CPA and owner of Louisiana’s only “entertainment exclusive” CPA firm. The Louisiana native has become a crucial part of the state’s success with the film and entertainment industry. “We are a non-traditional CPA firm in that we do not prepare tax returns and we don’t conduct audits of annual financial statements,” says Mock. “All we do is conduct the State-required audits for Louisiana’s entertainment industry to earn their tax credits.” Born in Baton Rouge, Clint Mock attended the prestigious Parkview Baptist High School. After graduating, he continued his studies at Southeastern Louisiana University. “I started my career in traditional public accounting, then went into the chemical industry working for a Fortune 500 company,” says Mock. “One of my responsibilities there was to handle the industrial tax exemption, an incentive for manufacturers to lower property taxes.” Through extensive research, Mock was able to save the company millions of dollars by advising how to efficiently utilize the tax credit program. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, if I could help other
66 | December 2011/January 2012
photo by Caitlin Barry
companies do this, there might really be a market for a service like this,’” says Mock. “I just knew that the chemical, oil and gas industries were going to be my bread and butter. This is Louisiana, after all. After looking into it, I found that the State offered around fifteen different incentives, for virtually all genres of businesses.” Included on this list of incentive programs were those that target film and entertainment. Mock looked into the industry after speaking with producer and fellow Parkview Baptist High School grad Daniel Lewis. “We chatted for a while and he told me, ‘If you’re a CPA, you need to get into the movie business,’” says Mock. “I remember thinking something to the effect of, Yeah, yeah, sure. Shortly after that, I met Patrick Mulhearn, studio head of Celtic Media Centre, and he expressed the same. I gave out my contact info, and not long after that, I was contacted by another local producer, then another, then another.” Now, after two years of catering to the film industry, Mock has conducted approximately 200 audits. “I’m blown away and pleased to say that my client base is comprised 100% of film and entertainment professionals,” says Mock. While he has worked on high profile projects, most notably consulting for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, he’s enjoyed seeing all the smaller productions set up here. “It’s the local, independent films that are my favorites though,” says Mock. “These are the people who are setting up shop here in Louisiana, investing in infrastructure and equipment, hiring people, and really bringing what the incentive was put in place for to fruition.” Mock is currently working in the music world on a concert tour featuring crooner Josh Groban. For more information on Clint Mock and Louisiana entertainment tax incentives, visit www.lbic-llc.com. S
To experience the Baton Rouge Marriott contact: Danielle Doss Corporate Sales Manager 225-615-3858 Danielle641@marriottsales.com
FILM CREDITS: -Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -Loss of a Teardrop Diamond -The Reaping
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Serving the Motion Picture Industry Coast to Coast Frederic “Frenchy” Perrin and his service team cater exclusively to the motion picture and TV industry from coast to coast. His amazing food and service team have been providing experienced, reliable service to the industry for over twenty years.
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ON THE SCENE
Scene presents a Film / Fashion Affair photos by Chad M. West
With the fall ushering in NOLA FASHION WEEK and the 2011 NEW ORLEANS FILM FESTIVAL, Scene Magazine hosted an exclusive soirée at Second Line Stages to celebrate. Tucked away in New Orleans’ Lower Garden District, the invitation-only affair gave a special crowd of nearly 2000 guests a sneak peek behind the walls of the Crescent City’s only built-for-purpose soundstage facility, where sets for Quentin Tarantino’s new film Django Unchained are under construction.
72 | December 2011/January 2012
ON THE SCENE
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: BRIAN HARRIS MINI SILVER SCREEN SUPPLY EVENT RENTAL CENTER STAGING CORT FURNITURE RZI LIGHTING CRESCENT SOUND & LIGHTING PELICAN ICE
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ROTOLO’S THE LAKEHOUSE RALPH & KACOO’S REPUBLIC INTERNATIONAL LIFESTYLE REVOLUTION GROUP MAYAN IMPORT CIGAR COMPANY CREOLE PUBCRAWL ROYAL VALET www.scenelouisiana.com | 73
ON THE SCENE
Scene presents a Film / Fashion Affair photos by Chad M. West
Guests pulled up to the entrance, their cars taken by complimentary valet. Before long, a line wrapped around the sidewalk just to reach the red carpet that led behind the guarded gates. Among them were NOLA Fashion Week patrons, film festival goers and the film industry elite.
After a lead-in by DJ SALAMANDER, indie pop rockers ROYAL TEETH took to the CINEWORKS STAGE. With the Mississippi River and the cool night air as a backdrop, the sextet reminded the audience that Louisianan music is more than brass bands, zydeco and rap. DJ THE REAL STEVEN rocked the night after Royal Teeth left the stage.
74 | December 2011/January 2012
ON THE SCENE
Scene presents a Film / Fashion Affair photos by Chad M. West
A surprise dance number from THE SIRENS OF NEW ORLEANS helped explain why women with blue hair in multi-colored corsets kept hitting on Scene’s editor-inchief, Micah Haley. Rumor has it that they also smoked most of the gratis cigars in the VIP Room, provided courtesy of MAYAN IMPORT CIGAR COMPANY.
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WHERE THE GULF OF MEXICO MEETS OLD NEW ORLEANS Chef Ryan André formerly of Commander’s Palace
$2 Mojito Mondays Smoked Prime Rib/ Lobster Wednesdays Sunday Piano Brunch $9.99 Weekday Lunch Specials and $1 Martinis
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18135 E. Petroleum Dr. Suites F&G Baton Rouge, LA 70810
ON THE SCENE
Scene presents a Film / Fashion Affair photos by Chad M. West
Food and drink were plentiful throughout the night, with mussels from THE LAKEHOUSE and the best sweet tea in the South: FIREFLY SWEET TEA VODKA, that is. And a strange green mystery beverage was the talk of the evening. It was later revealed as the HAPPY’S Hooligan, a potent Irish brew so strong that unfinished glasses still half full lined the VIP Room.
78 | December 2011/January 2012
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THE UNSCENE Vertical Limits Though electric lights were prevalent, none burned bright enough to satisfy the eyes of early 20th century directors of photography. They simply didn’t make enough light. So early filmmakers in New Jersey and New York moved West, out to the sunny coastal city of Los Angeles, where natural light was one natural resource in year-round abundance. The first film stages were built, and by the 1920s, eight production companies had bloomed into the first film studios. These weren’t merely groups of creatives: they were full-blown revenue generating entities that owned major assets, including soundstages (to utilize the newly commercialized phenomenon of talking pictures), camera equipment - and even the movie theaters themselves. Out of the need for sunlight, an entire entertainment ecosystem was born that still fuels California’s economy today. This was an economic event that was born out of necessity: it was not cost-effective to only shoot on New York’s sunny days, and many companies felt captive by Edison’s government-issued patents. Louisiana has welcomed the same industry with gusto. Films, then producers, then production companies have made their way down, from both New York and Los Angeles. Buying almost everything out-of-state has become buying almost everything in-state. The fledgling handful of entertainment companies has bloomed into an ecosystem: parties inter-related by professional purpose and financial interest. Louisiana’s investor class has recognized that this is an industry to be embraced, and that is a great thing. Whether a major film studio emerges in Louisiana, or one in Los Angeles relocates, vertical integration is an unavoidable part of growing an indigenous industry. As with the early studio system, there are pitfalls that need to be avoided. Too much centralized control can be selfdefeating, but industry should still be allowed to grow unfettered by fear. In the final analysis, whether in the public or private sector, all backroom dealing should be brought outside. It’s been one hundred years since the entertainment exodus to California, but the film industry still needs sunlight. - The UnScene Writer Submit tips to unscene@scenelouisiana.com. Anonymity guaranteed.
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