There are three reasons why county Film Commissioner Judy Drosd knows this year won’t see a repeat of 2001’s $11.4 million in filming with over 60 projects shot on Kaua’i. And, before you even go there, the reasons aren’t money,
There are three reasons why county Film Commissioner Judy Drosd knows this year won’t see a repeat of 2001’s $11.4 million in filming with over 60 projects shot on Kaua’i.
And, before you even go there, the reasons aren’t money, money and money.
Well, at least they aren’t all three reasons.
Last year was a banner year not only because our buddy Steven Spielberg brought cast and crew here for “Jurassic Park 3,” or that Kevin Costner continued his love affair with the islands with “Dragonfly,” though the four feature films (“The Time Machine” and “Tarzan II” were the others) shot at least partially on the island brought in over $6 million in direct revenues to Kaua’i.
The three reasons, according to Drosd theories, are that last year the threat of actors’ and screen writers’ strikes put studios into “hyper-drive” to complete projects before the projected late-summer strikes that were eventually averted.
Sept. 11 in itself wasn’t that traumatic as far as Hollywood’s economic and production pictures were concerned, because there was a lot of completed “product” in the can, she said. The events did, however, make studios and others take long, hard looks at both the kinds and budgets of productions planned after that world-altering catastrophe, Drosd continued.
OK, the last reason has everything to do with money, as Hollywood’s dollar-conscience mindset still sees Hawai’i and Kaua’i as places where it costs a lot of money to film.
“The competition has become so ferocious worldwide that, if you don’t have significant incentives to offer that lower the producers’ budgets, they cannot justify coming to your location,” she said.
Just within the last two years, “competition has just accelerated enormously,” with Canada, Mexico, Australia, Puerto Rico, Thailand and other locales, most of which have a built-in incentive of a lower currency exchange rate, are adding other production incentives to lure filmmakers, leaving Hawai’i and Kaua’i, well, in the middle of the Pacific.
“So, Hawai’i is really having a difficult time competing. And I do think that that is affecting us right now, severely.”
Kaua’i recently lost a Bruce Willis film to O’ahu, as Kaua’i was viewed as too expensive, she continued. Even “Lilo & Stitch” abandoned their home island, opting for O’ahu as the location for various promotional venues for the Disney summertime cartoon feature, for various reasons including green ones, Drosd said.
Kaua’i isn’t alone in having a difficult time enticing filmmakers to visit. “It seems to me that this is ubiquitous; it’s all over the world. It’s a slow period for production,” she said.
“Basically, they haven’t kicked back into gear yet big-time. Production is trickling in, but nothing really large-scale,” she said.
A German documentary, “Aloha Paradise Calling,” wrapped up on Kaua’i recently, and a Public Broadcasting System production, “Passport to Adventure,” was slated to roll beginning this month.
While Drosd doesn’t think this year will mirror 2001’s very good year for filming on Kaua’i, she hasn’t totally given up hope. And the county film office, under the Office of Economic Development, isn’t standing pat, either.
The county’s state-of-the-art film Web site, originally launched as a promotional tool, has become a “work horse” that allows Drosd to custom-design Web pages to allow producers to view Kaua’i sites to meet their location needs.
A feature film planning on shooting this summer, for example, is searching for jungle locations. Under the snail-mail scenario, Drosd would have had to manually search through piles of photographs showing Kaua’i as a jungle, send them to Hollywood, wait a few days for a response, then continuing the negotiations in that manner.
Now, a digital photo library allows Drosd to create a special Web site for the decision-makers, allowing them to print photos from that Web site.
“So, it’s really quite quick. We can give them immediate satisfaction.”
Business Editor Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
