(It looks like it's going to be airing sooner than I thought - cool!)


STEALING THE SHOW

Louisiana turns the tables on Canada as producer moves movie project
to N.O.


Saturday January 31, 2004


By Stewart Yerton
Business writer


For years, motion picture industry workers in the United States
bemoaned the flow of projects to Canada, where tax incentives and a
favorable currency exchange rate have lured droves of movies,
television shows and commercials.


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But Louisiana may have found a way to beat Canada at its own game.
Calling Louisiana's new incentive program approximately equal with
Canada's, the nation's largest independent motion picture producer
has moved a television movie project from Montreal to New Orleans.

Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. is teaming with Cairo/Simpson
Entertainment Inc. and the Louisiana Institute of Film Technology of
New Orleans to produce "Infidelity," a made-for-TV movie to be
broadcast on The Walt Disney Co.'s cable Lifetime Network in April.

Lions Gate and Cairo/Simpson originally planned to make the picture
in Montreal but moved it to New Orleans after hearing about
Louisiana's film incentives. Shooting began Thursday.

"We felt we could come here and do just as well financially as if we
shot in Montreal," said Judy Cairo, the project's executive
producer. "Louisiana has pretty much matched Canada's tax incentives,
so that's a huge draw."

Louisiana has enjoyed a surge in production since the Legislature
adopted a package of tax incentives in 2002.

Enhancing the attractiveness of Louisiana, the U.S. dollar has
dropped against the Canadian dollar as the state incentive program
has come into effect, thus reducing another advantage Canada has had
over U.S. locales. As the playing field leveled, major studios such
as Disney and 20th Century Fox, as well as monied independent
producers, brought a string of projects to Louisiana in 2003.

But the Lions Gate project marks something new: It is the first time
Louisiana has snared a picture that originally was slated to be made
in Canada, whose ability to lure projects has been a source of
frustration for actors, technical workers and others employed by the
U.S. motion picture industry. Although one television movie stolen
from Canada hardly signifies the end of producers taking film and
television jobs to Canada, executives and public officials said the
development is nonetheless noteworthy.

"I hate to sound sarcastic, but (Canada) came after us and they got
us, and now we're getting them back," said Stephanie Dupuy, director
of the New Orleans Office of Film and Video. "Now we're returning the
favor."

Susan Levitas, an independent film producer and vice president of the
New Orleans Film Festival, agreed. "We're finally getting a reverse
trend out of Canada," she said.

Pamm Fair, deputy national executive director for the Screen Actors
Guild in Los Angeles, which has been lobbying for state and federal
policy initiatives to stop the migration of projects to Canada, said
the relocation of "Infidelity" is "great news."

"Louisiana has a great initiative," Fair said, "and it's drawing
filmmakers. That's exactly what we want to do."

Network television movies, with typical budgets in the $3 million to
$5 million range, have been particularly vulnerable to Canada's draw,
Fair said.

As recently as late last year, Lions Gate was planning to shoot in
Montreal, Cairo said. But that began to change during the holidays.
At a party in Los Angeles, Cairo said, Judith Polone, another
executive producer on the project, heard about Louisiana's incentives
from producer Richard Fischoff, who at the time was preparing to come
to New Orleans to shoot a television movie for The Disney Channel.

Intrigued, the Lions Gate producers called the state's former film
commissioner, Mark Smith, who put them in touch with the Louisiana
Institute of Film Technology, Cairo said. Founded in 2002 by John
Anderson and Malcolm Petal, LIFT provides production services and
equipment and links out-of-state producers with local tax-credit
investors.

By late December, Lions Gate had approved the project for New
Orleans, and Cairo was setting up offices at LIFT's studio in
Elmwood.

Lions Gate is the second out-of-town production company that LIFT has
inked a deal with. The local start-up also has embarked on a
multiproject venture with HSI Productions Inc. of Los Angeles, a
producer of television commercials and music videos that recently
launched a feature film division. One of HSI/LIFT's first New Orleans
projects, a teen comedy called "Home of Phobia," was screened earlier
this month at the Sundance Film Festival.

Lions Gate represents an even bigger partner for LIFT. Headquartered
in Vancouver with offices in Montreal, Toronto and Los Angeles, Lions
Gate is a leading independent production and distribution company,
considered a "mini-major" in industry parlance. In December, the
company acquired Artisan Entertainment, another major independent, to
form the nation's largest independent studio not owned by a large
media conglomerate. The company's slate for 2004 includes films
starring A-list actors such as Robert de Niro and Nicole Kidman.

Lions Gate Television, which accounted for about a fifth of the
company's $302 million in revenue in its latest fiscal year, produces
the USA Network series "The Dead Zone" and the Lifetime Network
series "1-800-Missing." The division also has a series of movie
projects in the pipeline for Lifetime, which could prove good news
for Louisiana.

"A Lions Gate executive told me, 'If this works, . . . get used to
seeing us a lot more,' " said Smith, the state's former film
commissioner, who is now general counsel for Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu.

Beyond financial benefits, Cairo said, New Orleans also offers
artistic ones.

Directors making movies in Canada often have to disguise Canadian
locales to look like U.S. cities. In "Infidelity," for instance,
Montreal would have posed for Manhattan. After moving the project,
writers edited the script, and the story is now set in New Orleans,
which can simply be shot as itself, Cairo said.

"The advantage of New Orleans is we can set the film in New Orleans,"
she said.

In addition, Louisiana's temperate climate means producers and actors
won't have to contend with "three feet of snow," as they would in
Montreal, she said.

In the movie, Kim Delaney plays a psychologist who explores the
psychological origins of her own philandering. The movie also stars
Kyle Secor and Cristian de la Fuente. Harry Winer will direct.

The project will employ an estimated 100 local cast and crew
personnel, said John Anderson, president of LIFT. In addition to
shooting, producers will do some postproduction work, including film
editing, in New Orleans, Anderson said.

Cairo said she's already gotten calls from three or four other Los
Angeles producers wanting to know more about Louisiana's system.
Cairo's only concern so far, she said, is that the other producers
will swoop in and tie up the region's limited crew and equipment for
their own projects in the future.

"The only thing I'm worried about is sharing the wealth," Cairo
said. "It's almost like you don't want to tell someone about your
favorite fishing hole."