Hollywood South - Out to Lunch - It's Baton Rouge

When the State created the tax incentive program in the early 2000s
to attract movie and TV producers to Louisiana, the hope was to
turn Louisiana into Hollywood South. 15 years later, more movie and
TV shows are shot in Louisiana than in almost any other state in
the country. A big chunk of those productions have been filmed in
Baton Rouge, at the Celtic Media Centre. Celtic is the largest
studio in the state, with seven sound stages totaling more than 150
thousand square feet over forty acres. Blockbuster hits like
Twilight Breaking Dawn were shot there. Patrick Mulhearn is
Director of Celtic Studios. Celtic leases office space to movie
productions businesses, among them Red Entertainment Group, the
company behind 2014 s sleeper hit God s Not Dead, which has grossed
over 60m. Jarred Coates is the founding partner of Red
Entertainment and co producer of God s Not Dead. Amy Mitchel Smith
left behind a career at industry leader Miramax in New York to head
up the Baton Rouge Film Commission, a gig she walked away from
recently after 7 years at the helm, to found her own production
company, Cienega Motion Picture Group. Stephanie Riegel takes us
behind the scenes of the Baton Rouge film business in this episode
of Out to Lunch. Photos by Ken Stewart at Mansur s on the
Boulevard.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.