Hollywood-style complex to occupy 25-acre La. site

HARAHAN—A collection of blighted office buildings and warehouse space on a 25-acre site in this New Orleans suburb is being transformed into a Hollywood-style film studio complex that is expected to become one of the largest outside Hollywood.
Louisiana Film Studios, a former Winn-Dixie grocery distribution center that stood vacant for years, is in the early stages of renovation. Already the privately financed project has landed two big-budget movies that are expected to begin filming in coming weeks.
Once complete, the complex will provide more than 500,000 square feet of space for movie sets, soundstages and other film production work. But unlike studios in California, or even the cutting-edge Albuquerque Studios in New Mexico, this one is far from glamorous.
“It’s not fancy,” said Daniel Forman, a New Orleans native and Louisiana Film Studios president. “But what we’ve learned is that production companies don’t want fancy. What they want is functional space.”
The site is emerging from little more than shells of buildings. Plans call for creation of six adjustable soundstages and work space for wardrobe, among other functions.
The facility opened in March, months ahead of its projected fall 2009 start, to accommodate the independent thriller “Dead of Night” and the action flick “The Expendables.” Both were seeking production space in the New Orleans area this spring.
Crews have already begun moving in, building props and sets such as a military plane with an approximate 60-foot wingspan and a Brazilian palace and fortress. Plans also call for a ship to be built on a parking lot.
“You have to have room to do stuff like this,” said Forman, standing in a warehouse with ceilings lofting 30 feet overhead.
The New Orleans area already has several smaller production studios, including the Nims Center in Harahan and Louisiana Soundstage in LaPlace. Studios also have popped up in recent years in Baton Rouge.
But exactly how many studios Louisiana needs — and where they should be located — remains to be seen, said Amber Havens, spokeswoman for the state film office.
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, when much of the state’s filming industry was driven to northern Louisiana, the Shreveport area burgeoned with at least four production studios and dozens of films. One studio has plans to expand its operation there to include visual effects work.
Still, the fate of most studios depends on production traffic through the state, Havens said. “Production drives the train,” she said, and when warehouse-style studios aren’t being used, they sit idle like “big empty elephants.”
While hundreds of film and TV projects have come to Louisiana since the state began offering tax incentives for in-state filming in 2002 — last year Louisiana had a record filming year with more than 70 film and TV projects — 2009 is shaping up to be a slower year.
Louisiana Film Studios is a bit of a gamble considering the project won’t come cheap. Forman said the first phase, including acquisition outlays, will cost more than $20 million. Renovations such as soundproofing will raise the total to about $45 million, he said.
Forman maintains the size and business model for Louisiana Film Studios makes the project worth the investment. Besides movie sets, the facility will house industry vendors, such as Cinelease, a lighting and grip equipment rental company that is now moving its Louisiana base of operations into the facility.
The idea is one-stop shopping, “to make it as easy as possible” for companies to make film and TV projects in Louisiana, Forman said.
Forman said the site lent itself to film production because it’s only minutes from New Orleans and comes with plenty of acreage and parking. There’s already a laundry area for washing, dyeing and aging costumes, and some of the rows of tall metal racks once used for storing Winn-Dixie merchandise can hold movie props and equipment.