A growing film industry in New Orleans earned the city the nickname, Hollywood South. However, after the state ended some tax credits, productions left the area.
Some of those credits came back last year and now things look like they’re picking up.
Over the last couple decades or so, Lawrence Barattini has been the guy in the film industry for props.
However, the business owner wasn’t smiling when the local film industry took a hit after a first set of revisions to the motion picture tax credit.
“Business was tremendously busy up until July of 2015 when the legislation put a cap on the tax credits,” he said.
It wasn’t just Barattini’s business, film production across the state dropped by 90 percent, but new revisions to the law were made and now productions are coming back.
Just this week, The Purge TV series started heating up and this year there have been a total of 30 productions with another 15 coming.
In 2016, there were only 22 productions.
“Now that we've gotten the incentives right we’re seeing other states copy the incentives that've made but more importantly we are seeing our members back to work,” Dawn Arevalo, secretary of The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, said.
Barattini has seen the change as he is back about 40 percent since the newest revisions. He says he hopes things keep moving in the right direction.
“It's the caterer around the corner. It's the guy who owns the lumber shop. The guy who does hair a makeup...when they are filming in our community everyone benefits,” he said.