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Hollywood South: The Rise

Sue Lincoln

Just 3 years ago, Louisiana was crowned “the filmmaking capital of the world”, with more movies originating here than anywhere else. For the past year, though, soundstages have been empty. Over the next three days, we’ll explore the rise and fall of Hollywood South – and whether it can rise again.

“The film program is a subsidy program. Louisiana taxpayers have paid more than a billion and a half dollars to have the movie industry here in our midst,” says Jan Moller, director of the Louisiana Budget Project and a frequent critic of the film tax incentives.

“The reason people came here to make movies – and made a lot of movies over the past decade – is because Louisiana taxpayers paid them to come.”

Patrick Mulhearn, executive director of Celtic Studios, disagrees.

“When people say, ’It’s all people who came in from California,’ it’s certainly not. I think that people don’t realize just how big of a workforce we had grown here.”

The movie incentives started as – primarily -- a jobs program.  Authored in 2002 by then-state lawmakers Jay Dardenne and Steve Scalise, the initial version gave up to 15% credit on a production, but another 20% credit for every Louisiana resident on the payroll.

It didn’t grow the income tax base as quickly as many expected. Mulhearn explains why.

“Everybody, I think, in the film industry -- for the most part – starts off at the bottom. You learn by doing. You learn by on-the-job-training. You learn by working, you know.”

Meanwhile, legislators learned they could lure ever-larger productions here by tweaking the program, ultimately giving a 30% credit to the total production, while cutting the Louisiana payroll credit down to just five percent, and making the credits transferrable.

Boom! went the business.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the corruption that led to the fall.