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N.O. NOW 'HOLLYWOOD
SOUTH' The movie business is not just having a fling in New Orleans.
It's starting a full-fledged relationship with the local power elite. On a recent evening at the
River Ridge home of Kathleen and Michael Wilson, many of New Orleans'
professional elite gathered with L.A. entertainment types for a coming-out
party of sorts. At the center of it all was the guest of honor: Milena Rimassa-Merrill. The name is hardly as well-known locally as those of Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee, former New Orleans District Attorney Harry Connick and John Ochsner, the renowned heart surgeon and former Rex -- who were also among those at the party -- but Rimassa-Merrill had managed to attract a rarefied crowd to toast her and her new company, Isis Films LLC . Four months ago, Rimassa-Merrill hit town with little more than a handful of scripts, her life's savings and relationships with some Hollywood types. Since then, the producer and movie distributor has managed to build a powerful local network. It's another sign of New Orleans going Hollywood. Two and a half years after the Legislature passed a series of incentives to attract motion picture production to the state, Louisiana's relationship with the movie business has grown from a dalliance to a full-fledged romance. Producers announce a new movie practically every week. Politicians are hailing New Orleans as "Hollywood South" and touting the state's creative industries. Local bankers and lawyers are forging alliances with counterparts in Tinseltown. And monied New Orleanians are starting to pump equity into movies. In this atmosphere, Rimassa-Merrill has found a warm embrace. Her short experience in New Orleans illustrates how tinseltown is melding and merging with the Crescent City, how the local network of the powerful and monied is embracing this new industry. "If anyone has been accepted, it's been Milena," said Will French, president of Louisiana Production Capital LLC , a tax credit brokerage and consulting firm that is working with Isis. "People are just tripping all over themselves to help her." The business of movies Rimassa-Merrill was relatively unknown in New Orleans when she came to town in August. Although her husband Trey, a musician, is from Baton Rouge and worked in New Orleans for years, they were hardly part of the Uptown sequins-and-cocktails set. Still, Rimassa-Merrill had connections in Hollywood, where she worked for years as an executive selling global distribution rights for independent movies. She also produced some of the movies that she sold. Foreign distribution agreements hardly make for riveting Hollywood scripts, but they are crucial elements for motion pictures to get financed. Banks routinely lend money against the agreements, which are often entered before a movie is made. Major festivals, such as the Cannes Film Festival and American Film Market in Santa Monica, are prime marketplaces for doing such deals. Before coming to New Orleans, Rimassa-Merrill spent years attending these events, doing deals and learning the intricacies of film finance. So when Rimassa-Merrill came to New Orleans, she was bringing experience and contacts made in the trenches. Among those on her list of Los Angeles allies is Sheri Jeffrey, a senior partner in the Los Angeles office of the law firm of Kaye, Scholer LP , who most recently was lead entertainment and financing counsel for Miramax Films and Warner Bros. Pictures' $115 million picture "The Aviator." In fact, it was Jeffrey who encouraged Rimassa-Merrill to look into Louisiana, and its generous tax credit program, when Rimassa-Merrill was launching Isis, she said. Rimassa-Merrill has used such contacts to leverage other talented allies. In New Orleans, she has hired French to do tax credit work for her. Winnie Beuerman, former fund-raising director for Tulane Law School and a vice president with French's company, has signed on as Isis' vice president of business development. Suzette Toledano Becker, a New Orleans entertainment lawyer, is Isis' general counsel, and the firm of Jones Walker Waechter Poitevent Carrere & Denegre is transactional counsel. Isis has also scored a big coup by landing International Creative Management to represent it. That relationship will give Isis access to movie and TV stars and top-flight writers and directors also in ICM's stable. Agencies such as ICM routinely assemble talent for movies, a process known as "packaging" in industry parlance. The business principle behind packaging is that big-name talent will reel in audiences, virtually guaranteeing a certain amount of money from the box office or DVD sales, or both. This enables independent producers to raise money for projects without going to the big studios. The artistic notion is that an inspired package -- one that creates chemistry among the actors, director and material -- -- will create magic. Actors who normally earn seven figures routinely take big pay cuts to work on low-budget independent projects with artistic merit, and it's often the big talent agencies that package these projects. Shaun Redick, who packages
independent films for ICM in Los Angeles, said he was impressed by Beuerman
and Rimassa-Merrill's understanding of the movie business. Big-time stars, local money The notion that Isis will be able to produce high-quality independent films in New Orleans with big-name movie stars and local money is hardly a pipe dream. In fact, it's already being done, albeit by different players. On a recent evening, a small army of lighting, sound and camera crew gathered on Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny to shoot a scene for "Pool Hall Prophets," an independent film starring Freddie Prinze Jr., Ving Rhames and Roselyn Sanchez. In an ersatz pool hall hazy with faux cigarette smoke, muscular guys hovered around tables while women sauntered about showing plenty of leg and cleavage. Meanwhile, the camera followed Sanchez, the female lead, through the hall in a complicated, two-minute long shot that required the cameraman to make an acrobatic move from a crane to an indoor balcony. As the film's director, Keoni Waxman, choreographed the shot, New Orleans plaintiffs lawyer Morris Bart stood nearby, watching the scene on a monitor linked to the camera. Bart is famous in New Orleans for his television commercials promising easy money for people hurt in car accidents. Now Bart has joined New Orleans's Hollywood movement, investing in motion pictures. Officially, Bart is an executive producer on "Pool Hall Prophets," and he will have a cameo role as -- what else? -- a lawyer. Unofficially, Bart is a charismatic industry booster whose persuasive oratory powers are on full display when he waxes enthusiastic about show biz. "It's an exciting business," Bart said during a break. "It's not like any other. When it all comes together and everyone is doing their part . . . it's fantastic." Unlike many of the movies made here during the recent boom, "Pool Hall Prophets" is a largely local production. Other producers and financiers include John Anderson, the founder of Lift Productions and its spin-off, Andertainment LLC; seasoned Hollywood producer and part-time New Orleans resident Susan Hoffman and her husband, Peter, president of Seven Arts Pictures Inc., a Los Angeles-based production and distribution company; and Advantage Capital Partners, which is providing a portion of the financing. Michael Arata, a lawyer and actor, is counsel for the project. Anderson has several other
projects in development, including "Ginger & Jack," a
caper movie starring Tara Reid and Stephen Dorf, and "Hellbound,"
a teen horror movie. Real money The occasion for Isis Films' debut was Louisiana's inaugural Cultural Economy Conference. The event, which was sponsored by Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu and the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, brought together arts administrators, film executives, artists, agents and others involved in various creative industries. Gov. Kathleen Blanco spoke at the event, as did her economic development secretary, Mike Olivier. As the conference wrapped up on the afternoon of Dec. 10, Landrieu sat in an empty ballroom at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and discussed his goals for the conference. A central purpose, he said, was to begin an ongoing dialogue on how policymakers, business leaders and artists can build the creative industries. "Let me tell you something," Landrieu said. "This is not a B.S. deal. I'm not interested in having another conference just so we can say we had a conference." To illustrate how creative industries can create jobs, Landrieu left the convention center and traveled a few blocks to the Contemporary Arts Center. There, Jay Weigel, the CAC's executive director and an accomplished composer, was conducting a 30-piece orchestra playing pieces from a score that Weigel has written for "Posthumous," a film being developed by Lion's Gate Entertainment Corp. The piece, which was like
something from an Alfred Hitchcock chase scene, was full of tempo changes,
musical hiccups and other twists designed to test the musicians. There's real money to be earned, Weigel said. "If there are a dozen
films a year going here, if they all are low-budget films, there's gotta
be half a million to a million dollars allocated to music for those
films," he said. "And if you have a major feature film, you
may have $200,000 to $300,000 in that for music. They're going to spend
it somewhere, and the question we're looking into is if it's feasible
to do it here." Later that night at the home of the Wilsons, the money people were mingling with the creative types, the Hollywood folks with the New Orleanians. Harold Sylvester, the Tulane University and St. Augustine High School basketball star turned actor, was talking about the class he plans to teach at Tulane in the spring. Los Angeles producer Joel Castleberg discussed some of his upcoming projects. And Peter Graham II, managing director of Imperial Capital Bank's ICB Entertainment Finance division, explained the relationship his bank has forged with Hibernia National Bank of New Orleans . Formerly known as the Lewis
Horwitz Organization, ICB Entertainment Finance is one of the premier
Hollywood banks. In New Orleans, Kyle Waters, Hibernia's executive vice
president for consumer and business banking, has taken the lead in providing
local bank financing for independent films made in Louisiana. To that
end, Hibernia recently signed on Horwitz, who is considered the grandfather
of modern motion picture finance, as a consultant. As part of the deal,
ICB Entertainment Finance will also work closely with Hibernia, Graham
said. In fact, Graham said, ICB Entertainment Finance might refer some
work to Hibernia that has no Louisiana connection, simply to give Hibernia
more experience in complex transactions, Graham said. For all of the hubbub surrounding it, Isis Films has still yet to make a movie. Still, the company has several projects in development. A feature called "It's About Love" has generated interest from some stars, including Carrie Fisher, Beau Bridges and his son, Jordan. A more ambitious project called "The Midnight Hour" has attracted the director Charles Burnett and actors Kris Kristofferson, Kip Pardue and Mehcad Brooks, who was recently in New Orleans shooting "Glory Road." In another sign that New
Orleans is going Hollywood, even the Wilsons have written a script,
"Black's Gaslight Village," a 1960s slice of life movie set
in a bohemian enclave in Iowa City, Iowa. "It'll happen statistically,"
she said. "If I do seven of them, if I do 10 of them, one will
break out in a major, major, major way. If I do good work, things will
turn out well." Tax
incentives take starring role in luring film company Isis Films founder Milena Rimassa-Merrill is scouting locations in the New Orleans area for the company's offices. The company's move should be complete this week. Rimassa-Merrill is bringing an art director and a production assistant from Los Angeles but plans to recruit and hire additional staff in New Orleans, she said. Initially, she said, the company will seek to hire between seven and 12 people. "The company is going to start small, and after that things will grow as they grow naturally," Rimassa-Merrill said. "I believe in growing things organically. I can't start with any less than seven people, but to try to grow too quickly wouldn't make sense either." Isis Films has two films set to begin shooting in Louisiana within the next several months. The first, "It's About Love," has a budget of $3 million and is set to begin production in November. The second, "The Midnight Hour," has a budget of $10.7 million and is scheduled to begin in February 2005. Rimassa-Merrill's credits include a drama, "Mel," playing on HBO, and the film "Other Voices," which appeared at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. She was formerly an executive with Los-Angeles-based Omega Entertainment where she oversaw acquisition, business affairs, production and distribution. She plans to use that experience to distribute her own films as well as those by other Louisiana filmmakers. "I approached the standard business model backwards," Rimassa-Merrill said. "What I've done is secured the distribution aspect before I went and financed the films to get them made." Louisiana's tax incentives were instrumental in luring the company from California, Rimassa-Merrill said. The Louisiana Motion Picture Tax Incentive Act, passed in 2002, provides tax credits for investors as well as tax breaks for production companies that employ Louisiana residents and buy Louisiana goods and services. "When tax incentives are yielding up to 17 percent of a film's budget, that definitely is a factor," Rimassa-Merrill said. The Louisiana Motion Picture Tax Incentive Act consists of three main tax credits. The employment tax credit provides a credit applied to Louisiana income taxes ranging from 10 percent of aggregate payroll for films with budgets of $300,000 to $1 million to a credit of 20 percent of aggregate payroll for films with budgets of $1 million or more. Salaries of people making $1 million or more are excluded. The sales and use tax provides for a credit of 4 percent if expenditures in Louisiana exceed $250,000. The investor tax credit provides a credit of 10 percent for investments between $300,000 and $8 million, and a credit of 15 percent for investments exceeding $8 million. "I think it's definitely a good sign for the Louisiana film industry that we are not only getting people concerned about saving a little bit of money on a production, but we are actually having a production company move to Louisiana," said William French, president of Louisiana Production Capital LLC, a New Orleans-based company that brokers tax credits for film companies. When Isis Films' projects begin production, Rimassa-Merrill said the company could employ 30 to 70 people. The growth of Louisiana's film industry has created a need for training programs for film crew workers, she said, and several companies involved in a production at once could put a strain on the supply of qualified workers. "There are qualified people there, but production has grown a lot faster than the supply of manpower," Rimassa-Merrill said. "Some of us coming in are in a position of dealing with less experienced crews." Efforts are under way to address the challenges of work force development, said Ernest Collins, executive director of Arts and Entertainment in the Mayor's Office of Economic Development in New Orleans. It will be up to local community colleges, film workers unions and the production companies themselves to address those challenges, he said. "The tax credits are really the lure, but it's going to be up to us to create a sustainable industry," Collins said. "The test will be the ability to create an environment that's really going to support a viable film industry over time." More action coming
to La. A Los Angeles-based motion picture producer and distribution executive is setting up shop in New Orleans, hoping to fill a vacant niche in the city's budding film industry. Milena Rimassa-Merrill plans to launch her firm, Isis Films LLC, in New Orleans next month. Rimassa-Merrill's film credits include 2000's "Other Voices," which competed in the Sundance Film Festival, and "Mel," a family drama about a giant turtle now airing on premium cable television. Rimassa-Merrill also has worked as a distribution sales executive with Redwood Communications and Omega Entertainment of Los Angeles. Rimassa-Merrill has two independent feature films in development, which she intends to shoot in Louisiana: "It's About Love," a lower-budget feature starring Ed Asner, which she plans to begin work on in November; and "The Midnight Hour," a drama about race and music in the South during the civil rights era, which Rimassa-Merrill said she plans to begin work on after Mardi Gras, with a cast that includes Mehcad Brooks, Kip Pardue and Kris Kristofferson. Although Rimassa-Merrill's company will be small, initially consisting of little more than her and her husband, it could fill an important role in the city's film community, said Mark Smith, director of the Louisiana Governor's Office of Film and Television Development. As someone with what appears to be substantive credentials in overseas film distribution, Smith said, Rimassa-Merrill could help fill a void in the city's community of film professionals. Independent filmmakers typically rely on independent distribution sales agents to get their projects into theaters and onto DVD store shelves. Furthermore, producers often finance pictures based on sales of distribution rights that take place before movies are even made. In such instances, the distribution agreement becomes the equivalent of equity against which lenders make loans. At the very least, Smith said, Rimassa-Merrill may be able to help indigenous producers evaluate scripts to see whether the projects would be marketable overseas, where her experience as a distribution agent lies. "Now you'll have someone who has that expertise in our own back yard," he said. Rimassa-Merrill said she was lured to Louisiana by the state's tax incentive program for the motion picture industry. The program, which offers tax credits for producers making feature films and television movies in the state, has attracted major studios such as Disney, Twentieth Century Fox and Universal, as well as independent producers. Rimassa-Merrill said she was initially encouraged to look into Louisiana's incentive program by her attorney, Sheri Jeffrey, a partner in the Los Angeles office of New York's Kaye Scholer law firm. A key question, Rimassa-Merrill said, was whether it would be easy to turn Louisiana tax credits obtained through the program into cash that could be used to finance a picture. After talks with several new companies that do just that -- including Stonehenge Capital, Louisiana Production Capital LLC and an offshoot of the Adams & Reese law firm -- Rimassa-Merrill said she believed it would make sense to set up shop in New Orleans. "Once I did my own research on that, then I recognized that this was definitely worth doing," she said. Rimassa-Merrill said she intends to build her staff with local hires, although it is unknown how many she may hire. Several film crew workers she has worked with in the past also intend to relocate to New Orleans and become residents, she said. |
