Filmmaking in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
When I moved home from LA to Baton Rouge in 2008, it was because the film industry here in Louisiana was really booming. Who would think that Baton Rouge would be a place where you could purse your dreams as a filmmaker or actor? But BR has a history of many great films being filmed here in our beautiful locations and featuring our massive oak trees with their mysterious moss. When my mom was growing up she was in film called Hurry Sundown directed by Otto Primonger. Many of the scenes were filmed at Adelia Planation, which is literally four blocks from where I live. My mom was one of the extras in the a movie.
So Hurry Sundown is one of many films that were shot here over the years and that helped us establish as a Hollywood South and as a place for directors to come and enjoy the scenery. When Baton Rouge had its big film boom, Celtic Studios was built to support the big films that were coming to shoot here— two being the Twilight series and Battle of Los Angeles. Celtic studios is still used for production in BR and is a great meet-up place for filmmakers and creatives.
The film industry in America is relatively slow right now but we hope that as soon as production picks up, Baton Rouge will be booming again. New Orleans get the overflow of projects that come from Los Angeles and we get the overflow from New Orleans. So when the movie tax credits were redesigned to benefit the local filmmakers in Louisiana, one of the tax credits they added was a five percent bump for shooting outside of New Orleans, so that has driven many productions to choose to shoot in Baton Rouge— and the hotels, restaurants, and accommodations are much more affordable here.
Economically, the state of Louisiana is greatly affected by the film industry because it provides so many jobs for people in Baton Rouge who are cooking food for film crews, building sets, drivers driving the film crew around. So they may bring in people from Los Angeles, but they still highly utilize the resources and people that Louisiana has to offer. One of the reasons I started Love Acting, my film acting school in Baton Rouge, was so we could build up the Louisiana film actor pool and when productions came from out of town they’d have great actors to use for the smaller parts on their projects. Baton Rouge gets excited about having a film in the city and really celebrates when filmmakers come to highlight their city, so they cover it in the news and celebrate when it happens, and the city gets excited to embrace such creative ventures. And there’s just a coolness factor that comes with having movies made locally in our city.
Here’s some productions that have been shot here in BR from Film Baton Rouge’s site. If you’re interested in keeping up with what’s been filmed in BR, you can keep up with @filmbatonrouge on social media.