By KEVIN CHIRI

Editor and Publisher

LAPLACE – Three days in Santa Monica, Cal. should reap some big rewards for St. John Parish, said River Parishes Tourism Commission Director Jesse Lambert.

That was the consensus from Lambert’s three-day appearance at the American Film Commissioner’s International conference, a show which promoted studios and film locations.

Lambert attended the conference on behalf of St. John Parish, and their new campaign to bring more movies to the parish, and use the St. John Community Center soundstage for filming segments from upcoming Hollywood productions.

She said the response was extremely positive, and she expects to see some rewards reaped from the work there.

“The response to our Community Center was very good,” she said. “And the thing that was so interesting is that word has already gotten out about it, since we had some groups come up to us and specifically ask about it. They are hearing about it from groups which have already used it to film.”

St. John Parish just signed a deal for a three to four month lease of the center on a $20 million film, and a new push from Parish President Bill Hubbard is to aggressively seek movie companies to use the center.

The reason is because of a lack of use since the center was open for business over a year ago. With rent costs too high for most local groups, the Community Center has sat very idle for the most part since being completed. Some people have suggested putting it on the market.

However Hubbard believes the center can become a big plus for the parish as a movie set, something that has been proven already with several movie companies using the soundstage.

“The fact that we have a beautiful, air-conditioned stage already here is more important than you think,” Lambert noted. “There is apparently a lack of stage space to be used in the New Orleans area. From what I hear, most of what is for rent is old, dirty buildings that don’t have air conditioning. So you can see we have an advantage with what we have.”

Lambert said she worked the Louisiana booth for three days, and got an extraordinary amount of traffic, partly due to the Louisiana tax incentives for movie companies who work here.

“Some other states are now putting in tax incentives, but ours are still better than anyone else,” she said.

Lambert had brand new media kits which had just been completed for the California trip, and said she handed out over 100 of them to prospective companies.

“I completely expect to be getting a lot of response from these groups we met with,” she said. “The trip there will be well worth the time and effort we spent.”