For the past four months, camera operator/second unit DP Andy Sparaco has been working non-stop in bustling, booming New Orleans, now ranked as the third biggest film center in the U.S., after Los Angeles and New York.
The features he’s shot haven’t been blockbuster-big name-epics, but small-budget pictures that have provided him with back-to-back work.
Sparaco is back home in Chicago for a few weeks taking care of business for his Meta4 production company. “My clients are ad agencies and for them I work as producer/director/DP on commercials,” he says.
“New Orleans was absolutely bonkers with work,” he reports. “Everybody’s working. Even a person with no experience is being sucked into the machine.”
“Hollywood South’s” trailblazing tax credit ? 25% investment credit and 10% credit on labor ? has been attracting features and TV shows to the state like flies to honey with no end in sight.
The film credits have catapulted Louisiana’s economic gains to an estimated $1.5 billion this year from a scanty $12 million in 2002 when the incentives were enacted.
Crew members are constantly being imported from Los Angeles, Texas and Florida to fill a labor shortage that’s so acute that training centers for crew and entry level jobs have sprouted in New Orleans and Shreveport.
Currently in production are five features and a pilot and seven other features are in various stages of preproduction. The Fox Television pilot, “K-Ville,” could only be shot in the Crescent City as its storyline is about police who patrol the streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Immediately after shooting a short based on Shirley Jackson’s scary short story, “The Lottery,” in New York state, Sparaco packed up and headed for New Orleans to work on two movies.
He handled B camera on “Girl Positive,” a $1.5 million Lifetime movie starring Andrea Bowen and Jenny Garth, that’s currently airing.
This was followed by the $500,000-budget “Nonfiction,” originally planned for HD but shot in Super 16. The debut movie written and directed by Darren Marshall, revolves about a lonely New Orleans writer who falls in love with his friend’s fianc?e.
In late 2006, Sparaco worked on “Until Death,” as second unit director and camera operator. The $16 million feature starring Jean Claude van Damme and Stephen Rhea premiered last April.
To make life easier to work in Louisiana and New Mexico, Sparaco is listed as a resident of both right-to-work states.
He keeps a year-round apartment in New Orleans’ and owns a 130-acre ranch near Albuquerque purchased a few years ago because of his love of the western state. “The people there call it ?Big Hat Small Ranch,'” Sparaco says with a chuckle, “since I wear a big hat and my ranch is small by comparison.”
Although he’s been called for jobs in New Mexico, they have either conflicted with other commitments or are horror/slashers “and I’m not interested in those,” he says.
After Labor Day, Sparaco goes back to New Orleans for what could be another non-stop round of work, starting as a B camera operator on the comedy-drama “Middle of Nowhere,” starring Susan Sarandon and directed by John Stockwell.
Sparaco can be reached at 800/741-4289. Email asparaco@meta4.tv.
