Far behind the scenes
The Hostess: Stacy Simon
Director of Projects, Baton Rouge Area Convention and Visitor’s Bureau
One of the greatest economic impacts of the local film industry has been in the hospitality sector. According to Stacy Simon, who coordinates lodging for film productions and even helps the commission scout locations with CVB colleague Kristen Maurel, the film industry was responsible for the city-parish booking an additional 22,000 hotel room nights in 2009 alone.
As the preliminary location scout for any production that shoots in the nine-parish Greater Baton Rouge region, Simon photographs a catalog of locations for the Baton Rouge Film Commission’s online database. Fields, banks, hospitals, warehouses, dirt roads, courtrooms and jail cells are the most common requests, she says, and Simon has documented them all.
“This is a great service we’re able to provide, rather than the productions paying a third party to do it,” Simon says. “It’s another benefit productions receive for filming here. So we see companies like Universal and Summit work here and enjoy what Baton Rouge has to offer. To watch the industry come so far from where we were in 2005 has been so rewarding.”
The Closer: Teresa Beauregard
Traffic Engineer, East Baton Rouge Parish
As the right hand of lead traffic engineer Ingolf Partenheimer, Teresa Beauregard has spent six years coordinating all street closures for events and parades within the parish. Now, she handles the same for film productions.
Closures for state roads are processed through DOTD, but for local roads, Beauregard meets with a film’s production team as soon as locations are established to look at the film’s every street need. It is the film crew’s responsibility to notify each business affected by a street closure and have each agree to it—often for a premium—but it is Beauregard’s job to inform the public.
Closing a large section of Florida Boulevard—a main artery in the city—for 24 hours during the shooting of Battle: Los Angeles proved to be the greatest challenge Beauregard has faced yet.
“The closures are getting bigger and bigger, it seems like, but it all flows real smoothly,” Beauregard says. “We basically tell the films what is feasible, and they plan accordingly. I’m very protective of my permits.”
The Watchman: Sgt. Kyle Garrison
Baton Rouge Police Department
Working out of the city’s traffic office, Sgt. Kyle Garrison spends much of his time coordinating with Beauregard, overseeing the bicycle officers serving downtown and handling hit-and-runs and vehicular homicides. Some nights he spends long, off-duty hours on film sets. Actors hire their own drivers, and productions use private security to protect cast trailers, but often Garrison is called in to watch over expensive equipment—“millions of dollars of stuff they don’t want turning up missing,” he says.
Garrison has become a go-to guy for location scouting, too. If a film needs a long stretch of quiet road or a certain type of building, chances are Garrison knows several options to fit the bill. He’s a Baton Rouge native whose 25 years in a patrol car have helped him memorize the geography and architecture of his city like the details on his badge.
“I’ve learned a lot in three years doing it,” says Garrison, who has met stars only when they approach him—actors like Liv Tyler and Seann William Scott. “People watch movies and don’t understand the work that goes into it. I have a new appreciation for moviemaking from start to finish. Grips, these electricians, are amazing. They are the real unsung heroes.”
The Healer: Chad Guillot
Asst. Administrator, Emergency Medical Services of Baton Rouge
Typically, Chad Guillot has a week’s notice to plan medical services for film productions—a paramedic and equipment for smaller productions and an ambulance and two medics for large special effects shoots like Battleship—but that doesn’t mean he always sleeps tight. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn was so secretive about its locations and shooting schedule that even the paramedics did not always get word about a shoot until the middle of the night. “We’ll get calls at two or three in the morning saying that they are shooting somewhere and need EMS,” Guillot says. “We’re on standby for them, gladly. Getting our crews to the location on time is the key.”
Guillot’s crews have not had to treat anything other than minor burns or cuts on set, but they have been drafted into roles in recent movies like The Ledge and Ticking Clock to lend credibility to scenes depicting emergencies. “When that happens you feel a real connection with it, and those medics get a kick out of being in the movie,” Guillot says.
After 19 years at EMS and training as a paramedic on the streets, Guillot has only seen one job that remotely resembles his everyday call of duty: filmmaking.
“It’s like managing organized chaos,” Guillot says. “You have so many different people having to get so many different things done at once, and everyone is depending on each other. That’s what we do at EMS, and that’s what a film shoot is like.”
The Sage: Kyle Morris
Inspector, Baton Rouge Fire Prevention Bureau
Kyle Morris knows when things will go right and when they can go horribly wrong. The veteran fire prevention inspector works side-by-side with special effects and pyrotechnic experts who test and rig explosions for on-screen action scenes.
“I never thought I would encounter what’s been the most eye-opening thing in my entire life,” Morris says. “I can’t watch movies the same way now.”
As effects specialists test fire elements and explosions—often 10 times or more to achieve just the right look—Morris checks for three red flags: the location of the pyrotechnics, how many actors are in the shot close to the explosion or crew nearby, and what other potential combustibles are in the vicinity. Everything must be safe and up to code before he issues permits for specific explosives at specific locations and times. Larger productions with repeated effects shots can receive a one-month permit after inspections.
Some shifts on set last two hours; some stretch on for 16, Morris says.
“It is a totally different industry from what we normally do,” he says. “We’re in the fire prevention and safety business, and these creative guys are coming up with so many outlandish things for movie effects. But they are perfectionists and very good at their jobs. I never watched movie credits before, but now I do, though, looking for people I know.”
