ON LOCATION for August 2004


Have our films gone to New Mexico? Study looks at how to keep projects


By Joe O'Connell

Is the heart of the Texas film industry still beating? Yes, but you may
detect a
faint murmur that has Austin and state officials stocking the medicine
cabinet.

City leaders are expected to release their study of the local film
industry on
Aug. 16, and the state is mulling incentives to pull in more big studio
projects.

First the hot news: Matt Damon is set to portray Lance Armstrong in a
biopic
expected to shoot in 2005. Meanwhile, the Platinum Dunes folks behind
the
Austin-shot remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" plan to make a
prequel. New Line recently bought more rights for the 1974 original from
Tobe
Hooper, Kim Henkel and attorney Robert Kuhn and set "The Longest Yard"
scripter Sheldon Turner to work on a story.

Tommy Lee Jones has opened preproduction offices at Austin Studios for
"The Three Burials of Malquiades Estrada," a western that will shoot on
Jones'
Van Horn ranch, in Odessa and in the Big Bend this fall. The production
office
originally opened in San Antonio but moved to the Capital City to be
nearer to
the state's main crew base. Jones will direct, star in and produce the
story by
Guillermo Arriaga ("Amores Perros") about a ranch hand trying to fulfill
a
promise to bury an old friend in his Mexican hometown.

Plus, Robert Rodriguez is gearing up an Austin shoot this fall for "The
Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl," about which few details have
been
released except that it is a family film and potentially a return to
3-D.

Actor and former pro skateboarder Jason Lee is turning director and
currently
casting "Seymour Sycamore, Margaret Orange" for a Texas shoot this fall
(no
word on which city). Lee, of Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy" and "Mallrats,"

apparently has Smith on board as an executive producer for the quirky
tale of
two 12-year-olds.

And there remains an outside shot that Richard Linklater will bring to
Austin
his next directing effort: "The Smoker," starring Natalie Portman as a
young
woman with designs on wedding her teacher, Owen Wilson. But, surprise,
Canada is a better bet.

What do three of these four projects have in common? Texas homeboys. San

Saba resident Jones recently threw his weight to move the comedy "Cheer
Up" here, and Linklater and Rodriguez have long shown a preference for
staying home with the armadillos.

But money talks, and Louisiana and New Mexico are waving a wad of cash
toward Hollywood and getting takers. Disney's "Glory Road," the story of
how
in 1966 Don Haskins of Texas Western (now the University of Texas at El
Paso) led the first all-black college basketball team to an NCAA
championship, will be in El Paso briefly. But most filming will be in
New
Orleans, with plenty of Austin crew folk crossing the border as well. By
the
way, Ben Affleck is out and Josh Lucas is on board to portray Haskins.

Over in New Mexico, former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin and University of

Oklahoma alumnus Brian Bosworth have joined Adam Sandler and Chris
Rock in "The Longest Yard" cast. About 35 percent of the comedy remake
about a prison football team is being shot at a former penitentiary near
Santa
Fe, N.M., with the rest in Los Angeles.

"Both of these states are really trying to buy their way into this
business that
we've spent some 30 years to grow," said Tom Copeland, head of the Texas

Film Commission.

They're doing it through incentives. New Mexico offers loans and
actually
invests state funds in films, while Louisiana gives state income tax
credits.
Copeland says 12 states currently offer some form of incentive, and the
Texas
Legislature will likely consider joining that group during the next
regular
session. A similar effort failed last session in light of an ultra-tight
budget
forecast. Texas currently offers sales tax exemptions to filmmakers.

"We've got to get in there and start participating or we're going to
lose this,"
Copeland said.

The Austin City Council commissioned a 100-day study of what it can do
to
promote the local film industry and is poised to release its findings.

"Now I'm confident with the results of the gap analysis study the
council
commissioned four months ago we'll have the facts we need to determine
how local government can further develop its partnership with this
dynamic
local industry," Mayor Will Wynn said.

Why the local interest? Perhaps a realization that Austin is now the
home of
Texas film. The state estimates 2003 Texas film and television projects
had a
combined budget of about $229 million. Austin claimed just less than
$200
million of that figure, almost half of that from "The Alamo." It's
conservatively
estimated that 50 percent of a film's budget goes directly into the
local
economy.

Copeland's biggest concerns are the mobility and fickleness of the film
business, and the possibility that Texas crews will start migrating to
our
neighboring states to follow the work. Or when Texas crews are, in a
sense,
training newcomers to the field, our neighbors could soon boast their
own film
pros.

And don't forget Canada, which has used its weak dollar and financial
incentives to lasso a big chunk of the U.S. film industry. Terry
Gilliam's
"Tideland" tells of the bizarre world of an 11-year-old girl who talks
to her
Barbie doll heads in rural Texas. It'll lens in Saskatchewan. Howe about
a
television film titled "Miss Texas"? It'll shoot in Vancouver.

So when Damon stars in the Armstrong biopic next year, will he bicycle
the
streets of Montreal or Albuquerque, N.M., instead of Austin? When the
"Chainsaw" sequel gears up, will Bourbon Street fill in for Sixth
Street?

Let's hope not.

ON LOCATION appears the first Friday of each month in the Austin
American-
Statesman. Got a tip about the Texas film industry? Send it to
Joeonlocation@...