Monday, November 22, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The Power of White « Steve Marsel Blog
The Power of White « Steve Marsel Blog
The Power of White
The Power of White by Terry J. Wheaton
White…is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black…God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. – G. K. Chesterton
White is the sum of all other colors in the spectrum. It reflects light. In this image white evokes thoughts of subtle church music, smells of incense, and the wonder and excitement of a new bride. It sets the mood; it encapsulates all that is white and pure. It transcends continents and transports one to a mindset and time when all things are possible. From the straight lines of the architecture, to the innocent almost timid expression of the model, one can almost forget time, space and reality getting lost in the beauty of what could be.
Tags: James Eves, Raquel Vidal, Steve Marsel, Steve Marsel Studio, Terry j. Wheaton
Friday, July 4, 2008
Hollywood East - Plymouth (Massachusetts) as the hub of Hollywood East?
Plymouth as the hub of Hollywood East?
That’s the vision being offered by Plymouth Rock Studios, a company led by a former Hollywood studio head that wants to build a massive complex of 14 soundstages, stores, restaurants and a movie-themed tourist attraction just a few miles from the Bourne Bridge.
Plymouth Rock Studios
- More than 1 million square feet of studio space and more than 400,000 square feet of space for an adjacent “village center”
- 14 soundstages, each 24,000 square feet n 20 acres for two back-lot areas for outdoor construction
- a 1,000-seat theater for movie screenings that also could be used for live performances
and as a conference center
- digital production studios for TV and film
- offices for the movie studio and Rock CGI, a computer-generated special effects studio
- a “New England village” of stores, restaurants, housing and possibly a hotel with an atmosphere “similar to the feel of Harvard Yard”
- classroom space for K-12 training in acting and moviemaking, as well as college classes in film-related jobs
- fields for football, soccer, baseball and other outdoor activities for the community as well as people working at the studio
David Kirkpatrick – a Hollywood player and producer for decades who formerly ran Paramount, Walt Disney and Touchstone studios – and a development team that includes other Hollywood veterans have been meeting regularly in the past few months with town leaders and citizens groups about the plan. They hope to get a vote of confidence through a May 10 special referendum on the project and convince Plymouth voters at a June 3 town meeting to sell a 1,000-acre tract of town land.
“There’s no question that if Plymouth Rock Studios and the soundstages are built, it would be a huge, a quantum leap for film and television production in Massachusetts,” says Nicholas Paleologos, executive director of the Massachusetts Film Office. “They’re talking about transformation. It’s not just production facilities, but retail companies, production offices, housing and tourist attraction. It’s quite a grand vision.”
Kirkpatrick, who spent part of his childhood in Plymouth and has family in the area, was the special guest Wednesday at a “meet and greet” with Cape Cod leaders set up by Cape Cod Community College president Kathleen Schatzberg and the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce because of the huge impact the project could have on this region. The session was held at the college, where Kirkpatrick will be graduation speaker in May.
“When I talk to people about this project, there’s almost universal enthusiasm for this,” says Schatzberg, citing the job, economic development and tourism potentials for Cape Cod and the Plymouth area. “I really think it’s going to happen, and I hope it’s going to happen.”
“These guys are very serious, and I think they’re taking a great approach,” says Wendy Northcross, chamber CEO, who first saw the plans Tuesday at a meeting for area chambers in Plymouth. “They seem to have the resources. I think it’s worth encouraging.”
Targeted to break ground next spring for an early 2011 opening, Plymouth Rock Studios promises to create as many as 2,000 well-paying, long-term jobs, most of those in “clean,” technology-oriented industry. Adding workers needed for construction, landscaping and related jobs like retail and hospitality, the project is due to become one of the area’s largest employers, local officials say.
The plans show a state-of-the-art, environmentally friendly studio – “the first green, smart studio in the world,” according to executive project coordinator Peter Fleury – that would be twice the size of Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles and include a village area of stores, restaurants and possibly a hotel. Plymouth Rock plans to offer on-site classroom training in acting and moviemaking for children and older students, and is working with area colleges and high schools on teaching skills that would be needed.
The nearly 1.5-million-square-foot complex, estimated to cost more than $500 million, would be built on the same land off Route 25, just over the Bourne town line, that was eyed by Dreamworld amusement park in the ’90s. But excited area proponents hope this plan could mean far more economic success – and cachet and “fun” – than that doomed enterprise.
The project, which would require a new exit ramp off Route 25, has been unanimously endorsed by the Plymouth Area Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors. A recent chamber survey of 400 businesses and residents found 84 percent favoring the plan.
“This tops the list for what the town would like to see there,” says Dennis Hanks, executive director of both the chamber and the Plymouth Regional Economic Development Foundation. “It certainly will be a best-in-class studio that the town of Plymouth and the whole region could be proud of.”
The movie studio plan first surfaced in August, with Kirkpatrick announcing that Good News Holdings wanted to make faith-based films here. Kirkpatrick split from Good News in the fall and formed another company targeted to a wider variety of movies, documentaries and short series. He temporarily dubbed the new company Project Julia, to represent the Julia Roberts-caliber of talent it hopes to attract, then it became Plymouth Rock Studios in January to emphasize its location and sell the Plymouth brand worldwide.
Plymouth Rock has offices now in Cordage Park, where work has already begun on a local documentary and where Rock CGI, a computerized special effects company, is due to open by summer. Officials have said Rock CGI, which could employ 150 people, will stay in Plymouth no matter what happens with the larger plan.
Explosion of interest
The studio project comes at a time when eastern Massachusetts is already building strong ties with Hollywood. In 2005, one movie filmed here for a couple of weeks; in 2006, two movies filmed here for a couple of months each. But last year, that number rose to eight movies – the most ever in one year – and this year, there already are seven movies being filmed or about to be filmed here. Recent or upcoming movies involve such luminaries as Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bruce Willis, Meg Ryan, Cameron Diaz, Morgan Freeman, Kate Hudson and Denzel Washington.
“It’s fair to say that, even without soundstages, we’ve gone from one movie a year to one movie a month,” says Paleologos, who provided those statistics. “Do I feel that there will be enough work (for that large a complex)? Yes. And that’s not just because it’s my job to say yes.”
The reason for the filmmaker interest? New tax credits that give productions a 25 percent rebate on spending, making Massachusetts one of the most movie-friendly states in the country. A public hearing was held this week on proposed legislation to give that high a tax credit on studio construction costs, too.
Plymouth Rock isn’t the only company that could benefit. There’s also a proposal to build soundstages at the former military base in South Weymouth. In addition, a plan for a movie studio was announced earlier this year for Hopkinton, R.I., in a state that is also considering tax credits for moviemakers.
Paleologos hopes all the plans won’t mean over-saturation, worrying that it could be like putting a Home Depot store down the street from a Lowe’s. But Fleury says they are supportive of the other plans.
“Rather than see them as competition, we support anything that brings film to the area,” Fleury says. “We want to see film take off. ... We want everything to work out for everybody.”
Filming options
Building soundstages is key to filming movies here because projects now use abandoned stores, warehouses and other sites for indoor shots and are at the mercy of the mercurial New England weather for outdoor filming. (“The soundstages would level the playing field” versus Los Angeles, Paleologos notes.) The Plymouth Rock plan offers 14 indoor areas that can be converted to any use, as well as two back lots of outdoor set construction and access to many more landscapes – ocean, city, mountain, forest, lakes, small towns – and seasons than Los Angeles.
The soundstages “would not only provide the kind of space (directors) are used to having when they shoot in Los Angeles, but it would open the opportunity to do television series or situation comedies,” Paleologos says. “We haven’t had a series since the mid-’80s when ‘Spenser: For Hire’ was here spending $1 million a week, and those were 1985 dollars.”
A big reason for trying to establish a Hollywood East? “Los Angeles is out of space, and Plymouth has it,” Fleury says. Main L.A. studios have a few soundstages each, and those are booked more than a year ahead with movie and TV projects, he says, with filmmakers often losing time moving between locations.
“We’ll have double the capacity and everything right on one site,” he says. “We’ll have two back lots for outdoor set construction. Everything will be right there.”
Although Fleury emphasizes that Plymouth Rock is not trying to get everyone from Los Angeles to move here, he notes there are many filmmakers who don’t, or don’t want to, live in California, so would welcome the chance to work on the East Coast. Fleury is in charge of gathering feedback on the plan from directors, producers and actors, but doesn’t yet have word on who might be interested in making movies here.
Meanwhile, Plymouth Rock officials have been working hard to make sure local residents are interested in having the filmmakers here, Fleury says, with several meetings and more than $1 million in planning to try to make the plan as attractive and unobtrusive for Plymouth neighbors as it can be. To limit the impact on Bourne Road and other area roads, a new exit would need to be built from Route 25.
Hanks says that proposal is on a fast track with state and federal officials, and an exit ramp could be built simultaneously with the studio, with construction equipment using a temporary access road.
Five options will be presented to the public at a meeting later this month or early next month, according to Ed Starzec, project manager for MassDevelopment, a quasi-public development and finance agency working with the town. Some options use Bourne Road to get across Route 25 at an “initial cost estimate” of $10 million to $12 million; others require a new bridge in another area, for an estimated $20 million.
How the changes would be financed and a timetable for approvals has not yet been set, Starzec says. The date for the public hearing, once set, will be available on the town Web site at www.plymouth-ma.gov, which also features some of the site plans.
Plymouth Rock officials are touting changes affecting their project as good for the town as a whole. Besides giving an economic boost to the area, the company also aims to up the town’s profile.
“We want to bring people in to experience Plymouth, not just see a soundstage,” Fleury says. “People have heard of Plymouth all over the country (from Pilgrim history) but nobody knows what Plymouth is.”
Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll can be reached at kdriscoll@capecodoneline.com.
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