Posted by: Editor on Nov 03, 2004 – 11:20 AM
exoticlocations With hefty financial advantages and a $75 million production facility in the works, the Bahamas is attracting filmmakers with more than its crystal-blue water.
Nothing that overstuffed awaited the cast and crew of MGM’s upcoming John Stockwell thriller “Into the Blue” this year during a three-month shoot in the Bahamas: Heading home after each of 81 long days filming miles offshore, a dozen people at a time piled into shuttle boats and watched the setting sun skip across the shimmering waves as they neared the dock.
“It sure beats taking the 405 (Freeway) home,” producer David Zelon says. “That 15-minute ride at the end of the day was gorgeous.”
If you consider that nice work if you can get it, then the Bahamas Film Commission wants to talk with you. The 18-year-old agency is courting big movie projects like “Blue,” with recent scores also including New Line’s planned November release “After the Sunset,” helmed by Brett Ratner, and smaller pictures like the upcoming “Three,” starring Billy Zane.
The BFC, which operates modestly with 11 staffers and an annual budget of less than $500,000, soon will receive a big boost when Toronto-based Gold Rock Creek Enterprises Ltd. opens a $75 million production studio and movie-based theme park on a decommissioned U.S. Air Force missile base on Grand Bahama Island.
“We’re a small country with big ambitions,” commission head Craig Woods says.
With only 300,000 residents and 700 islands, James Bond’s old stomping ground — and part-time resident Sean Connery’s current one — is small. Movies have been filmed there since 1914, when a British company made “Thirty Leagues Under the Sea” (to be trumped 40 years later by “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”), but the nation only recently has begun to appreciate the starring role that film can play in its economy.
Bahamas, a former British colony, has long buttered its bread with the tourism and banking industries. On its launch in 1986, the BFC was positioned as an arm of the Ministry of Tourism, where films still are seen as an uber-tourist brochure with great production values and extensive distribution.
The Bahamas remains eager to host feature films, but the commission’s wish list is topped by a TV series that could provide longer-term employment and exposure for the nation. ABC shot its next edition of “The Bachelor” in Kamalame Cay, and CBS might use the Bahamas for a private-eye series directed by Barry Sonnenfeld.
“We saw what (the 1968-80 crime drama) ‘Hawaii Five-0′ did for Hawaii and what (CBS’) ‘CSI: Miami’ and (the 1984-89 crime drama) ‘Miami Vice’ did for Miami,” Woods says. “We’ve been talking with television production houses, and we have a lot of calls and feelers out there. We’re trying to put together a film-incentive package to give filmmakers a reason, beyond the way we look, to shoot in the Bahamas.”
The nation touts its proximity to the U.S. mainland, including the West Coast. Woods notes that Los Angeles is 55 miles closer to the Bahamas than it is to Hawaii (though there are no nonstop flights). It also promotes things it doesn’t have — taxes, unions and location-permit fees — and the fact that U.S. dollars, equivalent to Bahamian dollars, can be used on the islands.
Woods declined to detail additional financial incentives under consideration, but Gold Rock Creek chief operating officer Paul Quigley says the government has discussed offering filmmakers a rebate on a percentage of goods and services purchased in the Bahamas.
Even a small fraction can translate into real money: By the end of the 105-day “Blue” shoot, MGM and Mandalay Pictures had dropped $15 million into the local economy for local hires, services, food, hotels and car rentals. The filmmakers had considered other locations, including the Cayman Islands, but decided that the Bahamas’ sophisticated film commission was one of its biggest selling points. The agency offers free police assistance, advice on location scouting and local hiring and is a one-stop-shop middleman for other government entities, hotels and local businesses.
“They’d hosted other movies there before, so they understood the process, whereas the Caymans had not hosted a movie for years (since 1993’s “The Firm”),” Zelon says. “Eighty% of our movie was shot on or underwater, so we needed all kinds of permits for boats — and we were sinking two planes. In dealing with all the commercial entities in general, we needed someone in local government to clear the way for us.
“When we went to the Cayman Islands, it was me, Stockwell, the production manager — there were seven or eight people in the room, (and) it was more of an education for them,” he adds. “When we went to the Bahamas, there were 30 people in the room — everyone was there, from people we’d need on customs to police to fire to water.”
Bahamas hotels also offer inducements to filmmakers. Ratner found Nassau’s Atlantis Paradise Island Resort a key ingredient in making “Sunset,” which centers on a master thief (Pierce Brosnan) who retires to an island paradise after his last score, only to be hunted down by an FBI agent (Woody Harrelson). Hotel-casino magnate Sol Kerzner gave Ratner free rein in filming on his property, even allowing the director to use the staff as extras.
“We had a lot of cooperation and love from the Atlantis,” Ratner says. “Do you know how much money it would have cost us to re-create a hotel like that?”
“Sunset” has been the big catch in the Atlantis’ concerted campaign to fish for Hollywood’s attention. The hotel baited its hook with the services of a full-time executive dedicated to working with production companies: Michele Wiltshire and her staff work with the BFC in dealing with local vendors and with customs and other government departments.
The 2,340-room Atlantis also offers accommodations for large crews and a theater for screening dailies. When “Sunset” came to town, a floor of its Beach Towers became the film’s production offices.
The release of “Sunset,” Wiltshire says, “very much (will be) our coming-out party because we’ve done a lot of productions over the years in many different spheres, but this speaks to our entrance into mainstream Hollywood productions.”
The Atlantis is in talks with the team behind “Ten Again,” Jeffrey Edwards’ upcoming remake of his father Blake’s movie that loosed Bo Derek on the world in 1979. The sequel, which includes scenes that take place at that hotel, is set to begin principal photography in the Bahamas in January.
For “Blue,” starring Jessica Alba, Ashley Scott and Paul Walker, natural beauty was the Bahamas’ main draw.
“Bahamas means shallow waters, and all the shallow water has white sand underneath so when the sun comes in — that’s what gives it that turquoise-y hue — you can see the ocean floor at 50 feet,” Zelon says. “It’s so clean — it’s crystal. It’s gorgeous; it looks like the best Jacques Cousteau cinematography.”
The “Blue” filmmakers wanted to avoid monotonous shots of endless ocean, and the Bahamas offered geographic diversity. Aside from the world’s third-largest barrier reef and a 110-foot freighter sunken offshore (and featured in 1983’s “Never Say Never Again”), the Bahamas boasts a buffet of land locations including a 14th century French cloister surrounded by a 35-acre garden on Nassau, early-19th century plantations on Crooked Island and a preserve for 50,000 flamingos on Inagua Island.
Not least among the Bahamas’ film-friendly assets are shark-feed areas, run by dive operators, that attract Caribbean reef sharks trained to come for chum rather than divers. Zelon notes that one location helped put the adventure in his action-adventure film; the site was developed by Stuart Cove, a top Nassau shark-dive expert with extensive film and TV experience (Cove’s Underwater Prods. also does production work for still-photo shoots).
“As soon as they brought out cut-up tuna, 15 sharks showed up,” Zelon says. “When we saw that, we put our plane down there at that spot. Paul, Jessica, Scottie (Caan) and Josh Brolin interacted with the sharks on a daily basis. In one scene, Jessica puts her hand on a shark’s face and pushes it away; (in another,) a bad guy shoots Scott in the hip, and he’s reeling him in; Paul has the spear gun and is shooting the bad guy, and just as he’s lining up his shot, a shark swims right in front of him — you couldn’t have planned it any better.”
A film featuring plenty of sharks does not necessarily alleviate the Ministry of Tourism’s workload, especially when the sharks chow down on stars as in Lions Gate’s recently released Chris Kentis-helmed thriller “Open Water.” Even scarier to potential tourists than crazed drug lords with spear guns is that film’s premise: a careless dive operator leaving scuba enthusiasts behind in the middle of the ocean.
The story that inspired the low-budget indie took place in Australian waters, and Kentis was fastidious in ensuring that “Water’s” location cannot be identified onscreen — precisely because he did not want to endanger the Bahamas’ tourism economy.
But while the filmmaker wanted his location to appear anonymous, he wanted to work with Cove. Picking the location “was a no-brainer in that the Bahamas has some of the best shark-diving in the world,” Kentis says. “We knew we wanted to work with real sharks, and to do that safely, you need to work with the best shark experts. Even though they’re used to divers, you don’t want to fool around when you’re working with wild animals.”
When Gold Rock Creek begins to open the Bahamas Film Studios in May, the nation will be even better-equipped to handle the big fish of moviemaking, including possibly the second and third installments in Buena Vista’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. The 3,500-acre facility at the east end of Grand Bahama Island boasts an extensive beach and an 8,000-foot runway that can accommodate a 747.
The first phase consists of two 44,400-square-foot facilities and a larger mainstage. The BFS also is set to include a music recording studio and hair, wardrobe, makeup and props facilities. Also planned is a large (500 feet by 500 feet) outdoor tank.
“The tank is a major undertaking and a huge engineering feat,” Quigley says. “We’re building it half in the ocean, so it will be unique in that sense. Most of the other outdoor tanks in the world are quite elevated, and we’re not that far above sea level so the horizon aspect of it works quite well with a panoramic view, which gives us a 180-degree possibility of ocean sightline.”
Later phases of the BFS include a 125-room hotel and a movie-based theme park featuring a tour of the production facility and attractions that demonstrate how sea animals are trained for films. The entire complex is scheduled to be up and running in three years.
Gold Rock Creek had planned to begin tearing down the site’s 39 buildings this month, but last month’s Hurricane Frances accelerated that schedule. The storm ravaged homes but was kind to the Bahamas’ film industry because nothing was in production at the time.
“The buildings that were tin-clad were wiped out, and they were already scheduled for demolition — so we were helped on that level,” Quigley says.
Published Oct. 12, 2004
Note: By Irene Lacher
The Hollywood Reporter