Production Update - Scene Magazine [PDF]

September 10, 2010

Interview with

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Ashley Bell

Faith Hill

Production Update inside

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SCENE WEEKLY | September 10, 2010 | www.scenelouisiana.com

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kevin Barraco CREATIVE DIRECTOR Erin Theriot

SCENE. WEEKLY.

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EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT Danielle Tabary SALES Jon Bajon Drew Aizpurua Cyndi Wiseman Jessica Mason

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Erika Goldring The Deltree - Jeremiah Fry

Sincerely,

THE SCENE TEAM

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[email protected]

RAISING THE BAR

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by Chris Stelly, Director of Film & Television State of Louisiana, Office of Entertainment Industry Development

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SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Marcie Dickson

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ur idea behind Scene Weekly is simple: we want to give you more. Scene Magazine features the best of entertainment in Louisiana. Each issue, we give you the biggest things happening in our great state, and how Louisiana natives are making an impact throught the entertainment world. And yet there is still so much more happening that we want to be a part of. While film, music and fashion are at the core of who we are, entertainment is so much bigger. Scene Weekly will feature the most timely entertainment content: Louisiana films premiering this week, the best music events this weekend, and the best of what you missed last weekend. We’ll cover more of the emerging entertainment Scene, including theater and comedy. And at the end of every edition, we’ll feature a needed resource for entertainment professionals, Production Updates, so that crew members and talent will know where to find their next jobs. So, if you’re wondering what to expect, the answer is simple: more of the same great content. Weekly.

HEAD WRITER Micah Haley

he Green Lantern, The Twilight Saga, Battle: Los Angeles, The Gates, Billy the Exterminator, Swamp People, Imagination Movers, Treme, Battleship, The Lucky One, and the list continues to grow. For many this list may sound like the summer line up coming soon to a theater near you in 2011. Or the fall television schedule. Of course, both of those are right. These motion pictures also all have two things in common: they were filmed (or are currently filming) in our great state and are part of the long list of projects we have seen in 2010. In fact, for four consecutive weekends from August 13 to September 6, films shot in Louisiana held the top spots at the domestic box office. As Scene launches its new digital weekly publication today, I’d be remiss not to recall the great success that Louisiana Entertainment has experienced thus far in 2010. As of the end of August, our office received over 100 applications. This only includes the first three quarters of the year: we are on pace for another year that will set the bar of success even higher. This success is due to the hard work, dedication and commitment from everyone in Louisiana in both the public and private sectors. However, we recognize that there is a lot of work yet to be done. Louisiana Entertainment is committed to building a selfsustaining indigenous industry for our state and for the future. Look for more exciting news about Louisiana’s entertainment industry coming soon.

GRAPHIC ARTIST Burton Chatelain, Jr. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Chris Stelly Cyndi Wiseman Arthur Vandelay Scene Magazine at Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge 10000 Celtic Drive Suite 201 Baton Rouge, LA 70809 225-361-0701 at Second Line Stages 800 Richard St. Suite 222 New Orleans, LA 70130 504-224-2221 [email protected] www.scenelouisiana.com

Published By Louisiana Entertainment Publishers LLC Display Advertising: Call Louisiana Entertainment Publishers for a current rate card or visit www.scenelouisiana.com All submitted materials become the property of Louisiana Entertainment Publishers LLC. For subscriptions or more information visit our website www.scenelouisiana.com Copyright @ 2010 Louisiana Entertainment Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used for solicitation or copied by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher.

SCENE WEEKLY | September 10, 2010

gotta have faith

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by Cyndi Wiseman

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he five year anniversary of Katrina brought about a flurry of activity and attention to our city and the Gulf coast. While the blitz of media attention from twenty-four hour cable news networks was exhausting, the anniversary also brought celebration. Faith Hill, along with New Orleans’ own Dirty Dozen Brass Band, hosted a free concert sponsored by Tide’s Loads of Hope program. Free tickets were distributed to victims of Katrina throughout Louisiana and Mississippi, creating a small sea of people at the Mahalia Jackson Theatre that shared a not-so-common bond. Despite the circumstances, Faith, a Mississippi native, drew a very enthusiastic crowd and made a point to voice her support and optimism. The Dirty Dozen’s opening had everyone on their feet dancing throughout their entire opening even the ones with no rhythm (like the guy that sat in front of me dancing and clapping offbeat). It didn’t matter: he didn’t care. We didn’t care. Sometimes the sounds and spirit of New Orleans music just take over and all inhibitions are thrown aside. When Faith was introduced, she greeted the crowd with gracious, southern charm in words of encouragement. “We are here for you still and you are not forgotten,” she said. “My message is ‘come to New Orleans and experience this great city.’ Yes, there are places that are still rebuilding and are not quite back yet, but when they do come back, they’ll come back better.” After praising her new Dirty Dozen friends, she offered up a crowd-pleasing invitation, requesting that they return to the stage. The beautiful Faith Hill, laid back in her bedazzled Tide-tee, fired up the crowd by shouting, “This city inspires great music and sometimes when I get together with my band I never know what will happen. We want you to just sit back and forget about it all and just have a great time. Can you do that?!” The crowd answered by rising to their feet. She performed some of her own hits, while also covering “Piece of My Heart”

Faith Hill

photos by Erika Goldring

and “Maybe I’m Amazed.” Janice and Paul would’ve been pleased. After the warm and fuzzy emotionally charged showcase of talent, I left with multiple thoughts. New Orleans will come back stronger. I really need to go on the Faith Hill cardio plan. I must pick up an instrument or take voice lessons. And I need to start buying Tide with the yellow cap so that $1 of every bottle can keep the Loads of Hope convoy moving. If you’d like more information on Tide’s Loads of Hope program, turn on some Faith Hill and pay a visit to www.tide.com. S


LIL WAYNE’S REBIRTH

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photo by Erika Goldring

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Lil’ Wayne

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hile serving a year long sentence at Rikers Island, Lil Wayne will continue his prolific career pace by releasing his second EP, I’m Not A Human Being. The album will be release on September 27, which also happens to be the New Orleans artist’s twenty eighth birthday. The ten track EP will only be released digitally on platforms such as iTunes. Released on August 17, the album’s first single “Right Above It” quickly jumped to number one on iTunes. Lil Wayne is expected to be released from Rikers in November, several months shy of his full sentence. S

AMANDA SHAW & IRVIN MAYFIELD PARTNER WITH PJ’S COFFEE

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ast Tuesday, the Poorman Mayfield Music Group announced a new collaboration with PJ’s Coffee Company, where the label’s artists will perform at the New Orleansbased coffee house’s assorted locations. To jump start the new partnership, fiddle phenom Amanda Shaw Amanda Shaw was on hand to perform at the Canal Street location of PJ’s Coffee. “PJ’s Coffee has been a market leader for a long time,” says Grammywinning trumpter and Poorman Mayfield partner Irvin Mayfield. “Whether you are drinking your PJ’s coffee or listening to Amanda Shaw, you are getting the same thing: the greatness of New Orleans.” Mayfield founded the label along with attorney Kevin Poorman. The announcement was timed with the release of Shaw’s fourth studio album Good Southern Girl, which is her debut on the Poorman Mayfield label. Shaw is currently planning a national tour to accompany the release with dates in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago already secured. S


THE SAINTS KICK OFF

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LEGENDARY PREMIERES ON DVD

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ur New Orleans Saints kicked off the regular season last night with a win at home in New Orleans against the Minnesota Vikings. Before the coin-toss last night, an NFL Kick Off Parade led locals through the French Quarter to a free concert, featuring Dave Matthews Band and Scene’s May cover girl Taylor Swift, who performed at Jackson Square. S

tarring Oscar nominee and New Orleans native Patricia Clarkson, Danny Glover, and WWE superstar John Cena, Legendary is an inspirational story reminiscient of The Blind Side and Rudy. Long considered one of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood, Legendary represents the commitment to quality that the newly formed WWE Studios is showing, not content to simply produced action Patricia Clarkson courtesy of WWE vehicles for its brawny stars. Clarkson is currently in New Orleans for the film’s premiere, and will also be attending Le Petit’s Encore!, the theater’s annual fundraiser, and a screening of Cairo Time for a Q&A tonight at the Prytania Theatre, where the film will enjoy a weeklong run. Legendary premieres on DVD this week. S

Saints Super Bowl Championship Ring Ceremony After Party at Le Phare photos by Deltree - Jeremiah Fry


THE LAST EXORCISM’s by Micah Haley

ASHLEY BELL

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hot just outside of New Orleans in St. Bernard Parish, the lowbudget thriller Cotton quietly filmed under the radar in late spring of 2009. Twenty-four year old Ashley Bell was a relative unknown when cast as a troubled girl named Nell Sweetzer. In terms of name recognition, the small film boasted little more than producer Eli Roth’s blessing. Fourteen months later, the film, now known as The Last Exorcism, has far exceeded expectations in its first weeks of release at the box office, and has even garnered early Oscar buzz for Bell’s performance. MH: Can you tell me a little about how you first heard of the project and how you came to be a part of it?

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AB: My agent submitted me for the project and only when I first read about Nell and first read the character breakdown, it just struck me. She’s such a complex character and I fought for her from the first audition on. She’s so complex. Getting a chance to prepare for her and research for her, both before possession and after possession, was so exciting for me. It’s just a dream role for an actress.

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MH: What was it like shooting in Louisiana in May? Had it gotten really hot by then?

AB: It had! But I don’t think it could have been shot in any other place. It has such that Southern gothic feel, and Zoltan Honti, the cinematographer, caught that hot, humid feeling. It was probably, already at about 100% humidity out there, and so much of the Sweetzer family is based on that rural plantation house thirty minutes outside of New Orleans. That isolation and that claustrophobia were so helped by the humidity. If it was shot in L.A. or shot on a soundstage where a plantation had been built, I don’t think you’d get that energy, that Southern gothic energy. On all of our faces there was this ‘film’ of Louisiana! [Director] Daniel Stamm didn’t want any hair and make-up to be used. I think that helped so much to achieve that whole look and feel, that documentary nature of it. Also, something that was cool was part of the sound mix I heard when I first saw the film at the L.A. Film Festival was the, ummm…those bugs! MH: Oh, you mean the cicadas? AB: Yes, the cicadas. I was going to say sequoias! The cicadas would just come alive at six o’clock every night, and they used that sound in the film. Every single day at around six or seven there was this huge symphony of bugs that would come out, and it was so loud! I couldn’t believe it! That was my first time in Louisiana or pretty much anywhere in the South and I just fell in love with it.

Ashley Bell

I can’t tell you how much I loved it in Louisiana and New Orleans. MH:In preparation for the role as the “possessed girl” did you do any research of similar roles in The Exorcist or The Exorcism of Emily Rose, etc? AB: Yes. Actually, Daniel Stamm the director wanted us to watch all of the exorcism films…and then “Don’t do that!!” And when I was preparing for it, I lucked out: I had about a month of time to prepare, and that was so much fun. I really got the chance to prepare for two different characters: Nell as Nell, and then Nell when she’s either possessed or insane. She could just be going through a mental breakdown or some other kind of mental disorder, so I started researching mania and hysteria and I had a book called The Invention of Hysteria, where they had induced hysterical panics at the turn of the century, and there were these photos that were taken of women contorted out of human form. I wanted to try to keep a lot of those images in my head for physical gestures for the character. I also researched the religious aspect. Patrick [Fabian] and I went

SCENE WEEKLY | September 10, 2010 to several extremist churches in the Valley in L.A. and I read every book I could find on exorcists that hadn’t been banned, listened to tapes and some of the Vatican lectures on exorcism. I was so happy to have the time because it was such a wide field, there was always another turn and always another clue, always something else to discover to help build the character. MH: What was it like working with Daniel Stamm as a director? AB: He’s an incredible director. Because he cast me [laughing]. MH:Haha…hey, look, that counts for a lot!

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AB:He had such a vision, even from the auditions, it could be felt that he knew exactly what he wanted. He shoots about twenty or thirty takes a scene. This is my first big role in a film and it was very liberating to work in that many takes…he included so many times that if we had any ideas or wanted to try something or ask questions, we had that freedom. But he always knew what he wanted. That night before the second exorcism, he asked me what I wanted to do the next day. And that’s a question, I mean, I would never in a million years dream I would get asked something that huge! I told him I was working on a back bend and some other physical things, and I showed him, and he said “Great! Let’s do it, let’s use it!” That was just so exciting. Now I feel like I’m stuck though, because everytime I go into a casting office, I have to do a back bend.

would have been really cool. When we first drove up, there was a machete in the fence. A rusted machete in the fence. We all turned to each other and were like, “We’re here! We’re home!!!” [laughter]

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MH: Well, it’s certainly a very physical performance! Did you sustain any injuries or was there any preparation you had to go through?

AB: I got bruises and I was so proud of them! I felt like they were war wounds. I just wore them so proudly. But that’s it!

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MH: What was it like to work with Louis Herthum, who’s from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where the film is partially set?

AB: I think we met on my first day of filming. Those eyes, he has the most crystal, sharp blue eyes and we instantly connected. There was an instant bond of the Sweetzer family. Throughout filming, there was this very close bond between him and me and Caleb [Landry Jones], who plays my brother. Louis is so generous and unbelievably talented. Just watching him work was such a lesson. When I saw the final performance, I was blown away. MH: How was working with Patrick Fabian, who played Cotton Marcus? Patrick and I sat for hours on end in the interview scenes, and he was so kind and listened, and made the environment so safe for me to open up and talk to him as my character. He does an incredible job in the film. He’s so funny while playing that “perfect preacher” character so…perfectly. MH: Can you talk about the location, Creedmoor Plantation, which ends up being such a big part of the film? What was it like to work there day in and day out? Daniel actually wanted us to stay there, to sleep there at night! Which

The plantation had just been redone before Katrina hit, I believe. Everything was polished, but warped. The stairs were warped and crooked. That whole house was a gift for everyone in the cast to walk into. There was a lot of set design, but a lot of what is in the shots was there. All of the antique furniture and all of the history was there. When you walked in the, smell of the house and the heat it kept inside, it was so helpful to this film. The first day I walked into Nell’s bedroom, that bed was there. It was just so creepy and perfect for her. It was an incredible location. You could still see the waterlines [from Katrina flooding], and that was just so haunting. MH: Did you get to have any fun when you were staying in New Orleans? I had a couple days off when I wasn’t filming, and drove around to explore the city and just fell in love with it. It was my first time in New Orleans, and I just love the Southern gothic feel to it. Everything is so beautiful. Those houses are just so gorgeous. I would go down there in a second to film again. MH: This movie has given you tons of exposure, which I’m so happy about because your performance really impresses. Can you talk about the transition from working on this little film with a micro-budget to something that is becoming very big? AB: Every single day from filming was so exiting, and every single day since then the excitement has been building. Both of my parents are actors. You can sometimes spend your whole life acting, and never get to do the publicity on a film with this kind of a release. S

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Production Updates

Alexandria

Baton Rouge

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THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN

Baton Rouge

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Feature Film – NBC Universal Starring Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Rihanna Director: Peter Berg Phone: 555.555.5555 Fax: 555.555.5555 Crew Resumes: [email protected], [email protected] Casting: 555.555.5555 - Casting Company (www.castingcompany. com) Status: Now filming in XXX, starts Oct XX in Baton Rouge Location: Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge, Hawaii Line Producer: Todd Arnow, Prod. Coordinator: Karla Torres - One of the largest films ever to come to Louisiana. Based on the Hasbro boardgame (“You sunk my battleship!”), Tayor Kitsch stars as a young naval officer named Alex Hopper, whose ship encounters an alien force over the ocean. Sets are currently under construction at Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge at the Celtic Media Centre.

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Feature Film – Summit Entertainment Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Kellen Lutz, Elizabeth Reaser, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene, Lee Pace, Rami Malek Director: Bill Condon Crew Resumes: [email protected] Casting: 555.555.5555 - Casting Company (www.castingcompany. com) Status: Shooting Month 55 through Month 55 Location: Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge, Vancouver Line Producer: Bill Banner UPM: David Price Security is a very serious concern for this production. Scene Magazine is withholding the physical address and production offices numbers at the request of the producers. When extras casting begins, we will make available the information to submit for consideration.

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Feature Film – NBC Universal Starring Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Rihanna Director: Peter Berg Phone: 555.555.5555 Fax: 555.555.5555 Crew Resumes: [email protected], [email protected] Casting: 555.555.5555 - Casting Company (www.castingcompany. com) Status: Now filming in XXX, starts Oct XX in Baton Rouge Location: Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge, Hawaii Line Producer: Todd Arnow, Prod. Coordinator: Karla Torres - One of the largest films ever to come to Louisiana.



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Production Updates

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Production Updates

Lafayette

Shreveport

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN

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Feature Film – NBC Universal Starring Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgard, Rihanna Director: Peter Berg Phone: 555.555.5555 Fax: 555.555.5555 Crew Resumes: [email protected], [email protected] Casting: 555.555.5555 - Casting Company (www.castingcompany. com) Status: Now filming in XXX, starts Oct XX in Baton Rouge Location: Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge, Hawaii

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Shreveport

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Feature Film – Summit Entertainment Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Kellen Lutz, Elizabeth Reaser, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene, Lee Pace, Rami Malek Director: Bill Condon Crew Resumes: [email protected] Casting: 555.555.5555 - Casting Company (www.castingcompany. com) Status: Shooting Month 55 through Month 55 Location: Raleigh Studios Baton Rouge, Vancouver Line Producer: Bill Banner UPM: David Price Security is a very serious concern for this production. Scene Magazine is withholding the physical address and production offices numbers

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Rumored

THE GODFATHER PART IV(details next week) GILLIGAN’S ISLAND 3-D

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If you are in the film industry and have information or corrections for Production Updates, we welcome your emails at: [email protected]