Vicki Mayer - Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans: The Lure of the Local Film Economy

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Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the Fletcher Jones Foundation Humanities Endowment Fund of the University of California Press Foundation.

Almost Hollywood, Nearly New Orleans

The Lure of the Local Film Economy

Vicki Mayer

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

University of California Press

Oakland, California

2017 by Vicki Mayer

Suggested citation: Mayer, Vicki. Almost Hollywood, nearly New Orleans: the lure of the local film economy . Oakland: University of California Press, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.25

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-ND license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mayer, Vicki, 1971- author.

Title: Almost Hollywood, nearly New Orleans : the lure of the local film economy / Vicki Mayer.

Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016046883 (print) | LCCN 2016048419 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520293816 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520967175 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Motion picture industry LouisianaNew Orleans.

Classification: LCC PN1993.5.U744 M39 2017 (print) | LCC PN1993.5.U744 (ebook) | DDC 791.4309763/35--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046883

I didnt set out to write another book. After Katrina and amidst my own trauma, I took refuge in the archives of the Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane University. There I immersed myself in the local film economy of the 1900s, but when I emerged I confronted the film economy of today. Whether through loving or loathing, labor or leisure, everyone I knew was talking about the experiences of living in Hollywood South. This unexpected collision of my scholarly and personal worlds produced the story I tell here about film, creative economies, and the city I moved to in 2003.

Along the way, I have had funding and research support through many of Tulanes institutions and colleges. In particular, I would like to thank the School of Liberal Arts (SLA), the New Orleans Center for the Study of the Gulf South, the Murphy Institute, and the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Design Thinking, through which I received an endowment on behalf of the Louise and Leonard Riggio Professorship and the Carnegie Foundation. Together, SLA and the endowment via the Taylor Center allowed this project to be published as an open-access monograph.

I am forever grateful to the many people who have encouraged me along the way and contributed to this work. They have given me access to their knowledge about the numerous ways that the political economies of media impact and are impacted by the ways we feel about time, space, and place in cities. They have confided their own insights and emotions around the experiences of Hollywood South, from the episodic to the ephemeral. Although the argument in this project is my own, I hope I have rendered their inputs and voices faithfully.

Finally, this work is dedicated to all the creative people of New Orleans, including and especially Tor and Liina.

(In homage to the television educational series Schoolhouse Rock )

Oh, Im just a tax credit, only a tax credit, but certainly not sitting here alone. By 2012 my numbers had multiplied. Not only did I have a limitless number of siblings waiting to be chosen, but I was part of a family known as the Louisiana Entertainment Tax Credits and Incentives. Touring concerts and Broadway shows picked up the music and theatrical tax credits, while video-game and software studios brought back interactive-media tax credits. But Im just a film tax credit, and Im waiting here in Baton Rouge for my blockbuster to set me free. Chances are very good.

Two thousand miles away, theres a film-studio executive sitting in committee with a folder full of pitches, producers, and budget plans. Theyre all waiting too. Pitches and producers await the greenlight to start production, and the budget plans give the studio committee plenty of fodder for their decisions. Luckily, the executive already knows me and finds me quite attractive. After all, I was created to catch her eye. So Im introduced to the committee, along with product sponsorship and synergies, licensing and distribution deals, and a host of other offsets and incentives for films. Each film project is so expensive. The price of star personnel, from the headliner talent to the brand-name director, has driven up costswhile global success banks on sunk costs, such as showy special effects and massive media promotion. The studio needs a film that acts like a tentpole to fund the future productions and products captured in its field of vision. Turns out, Im the perfect match for a project set in Los Angeles when aliens attack. Its no big deal because Im what the studio needs right now: to cut costs in production next year. Plus, our pairing brings all other sorts of gifts, as I assure the lenders and insurance companies of upfront money. A quick rewrite of the script and off I go.

First to the production balance sheet: there Im on a fast track for state verification and approval. Along with the millions of fellow Louisiana tax credits, I may be California dreaming, but I stay in state, where I have the most value. You see, I may be leveraged for venture investment coming from Manhattan or Silicon Valley, but my value can only be claimed by a Louisiana citizen or corporation. The studio wants me, but not enough to move. Nor are they going to risk their future if my project is a flop. They are so fickle. So the studio leaves me in the hands of the producer, who forms a limited liability company (LLC) to meet me on location. The LLC is really agile, living fast and dying after the film is done and sold back to the studio. No matter. On location, Im really useful, giving discounts on everything from the hired hands to the executive hotel suites where we stay. This is the most high-profile time in my life. The newspapers and trade press celebrate me as the star behind Hollywood South. Its a whirlwind, though, as the production company is rushing to shoot and post-produce as quickly as possible. Im also nervous, because in order to go further, the project has to wrap. Luckily, we do it all in just a year. The state looks me over on the balance sheet again, where Ive already been approved by the LLCs handpicked auditor. Its time to go underground.