New Orleans Is The New Hollywood
While tax incentives have lured bottom-line-obsessed studios to far-off lands like New Orleans, the newly Hollywoodized locations are also reaping the (perhaps) unexpected consequences of the money-bringing industry invasion: local alcohol shortages induced by thirsty underage starlets, caddish foreigners making a mockery of the Seventh Commandment, and the crushing guilt of realizing that your tax breaks have made abominations like Big Momma's House 2 possible. From the LAT:
Inside a converted Kelly warehouse in New Orleans' Elmwood Industrial Park portable air conditioners burn through $1,500 of fuel a day, pumping additional frigid air across the sets for the "Big Momma's House" sequel, trying to keep pace with Louisiana's oppressive summer weather.
"We shed about 17% on our budget" by coming to Louisiana, said the film's producer, David T. Friendly. "And that was the difference between development hell and a green light. That's amazing."
How can Louisiana's legislators sleep at night knowing what they've wrought? An outbreak of Percocet addictions is sure to follow. And adding insult to injury, the Big Easy's increase in movie production threatens to siphon not only cash from the Los Angeles economy, but our most precious resource as well: desperate actors and actresses.
Adrian Staton is following the money. The actress just moved to New Orleans, convinced it was the best place to establish her career. A USC graduate, Staton had been living in South Carolina, making mostly TV commercials for local businesses such as King's Grant Golf Course in Fayetteville, N.C.
"I was thinking about moving to Los Angeles," Staton said. "But when my agent told me she was going to open a New Orleans branch, I thought it would really help me build my resume. And it's much cheaper to live here than in Los Angeles."
Since moving to Louisiana this year, Staton still has to take jobs on the side to make ends meet but has been cast in one feature film and one TV movie — work that she previously couldn't get in Los Angeles and South Carolina. The very day she returned to New Orleans from a summer vacation, she was back on the audition circuit.
You can have our money, our jobs, and our shitty sequels, New Orleans, but we're not going to give up our pretty, borderline incompetent waiters and waitresses without a bloody fight.