A rising star in recovery

New Orleans —  THE Mississippi River, usually coursing with scores of ships carrying cargo and people, was nearly deserted. Coast Guard boats blockaded a half-mile stretch that runs alongside the city. But it had nothing to do with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. On this day, Hollywood needed to borrow the river -- director Tony Scott and producer Jerry Bruckheimer were in town shooting their upcoming action movie, “Deja Vu,” and it was time to blow up a passenger ferry.

And blow it up they did. Rigged with an array of pyrotechnics, the ferry was enveloped in a ball of fire. As demolished cars were launched off the ship’s deck into the water, flames exploded more than 200 feet into the air -- about as high as the Mississippi Bridge, which was also empty, rush-hour traffic having been diverted elsewhere.

It was the kind of spectacular special effect for which longtime collaborators Scott and Bruckheimer (their shared credits include “Top Gun” and “Crimson Tide”) are famous. At the same time, though, it was an anomaly: a big-budget movie in a state where the infrastructure remains in tatters from the devastation wrought by Katrina, the costliest hurricane in U.S. history. More than seven months later, the storm was still front-page news. Even as “Deja Vu” filmed in and around New Orleans, police found a decomposed body inside a ruined Lower 9th Ward house.

Before Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, Louisiana was enjoying one of the nation’s most remarkable booms in television and film production. Thanks to the state’s aggressive tax incentives, which can shave as much as 20% off a film’s budget, New Orleans was turning into the Hollywood of the South. In 2002, the state hosted but one feature, “Evil Remains.” By 2004, more than a dozen features and TV movies had been shot in Louisiana, including “Because of Winn-Dixie” and “The Skeleton Key.” More recent productions include “Failure to Launch” and “Glory Road.”

These productions pumped millions into an impoverished economy and helped build a new and much-needed job base.

But as soon as Katrina blew out of town, so did the movie business.

Some productions relocated to other parts of the state, principally Shreveport, while a few packed their bags and returned to Los Angeles. Local actors and crew, many of whom lost their homes, left the area. New production starts vanished.

Then, as the region wobbled back on its feet, producers reconsidered. The reports came back -- it’s not as bad as you think it is, and they really want us to return.

“A lot of people wanted to see that everything was going to be OK,” says Robert Vosbein, a New Orleans lawyer who specializes in the state’s tax credits. “But union membership is actually higher than it was pre-Katrina. Our crew base is back, but it didn’t happen in a day.”

Even with basic service providers such as schools and hospitals still closed and blue tarps covering more roofs than shingles, the pace of movie and TV production picked up. Before long, the first big studio production, “Deja Vu,” a time-traveling drama about an FBI agent trying to save a woman’s life and avert a terrorist attack, arrived in town. Just like that, the same local, state and federal agencies that struggled to coordinate their Katrina response were successfully joining forces to shut down the Mississippi for a movie.

“The real question was whether the services were there -- if there was water to drink, if hotels and restaurants were open,” says Bruckheimer, who says the state’s incentives will trim about $20 million from the initial budget. “We expected the worst. But it was easier than we expected. We’ve had very few serious problems.”

But some filmmaking problems remain. Housing is still tight, and one of the few local talent agencies didn’t reopen its New Orleans office. Equipment rentals are difficult, lumber is hard to come by, extras have to be brought in from Atlanta, and it’s nearly impossible to get production insurance for coastal shoots during hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30. Still, signs of progress abound, and these days the first-class cabin of United’s LAX-to-New Orleans nonstop is often filled with industry types.

“I think it’s symbolic, being the first studio film back,” “Deja Vu” star Denzel Washington said a day before the ferry was detonated. “I’m glad we’re here, spending money.” He has spent his downtime touring areas of Katrina’s devastation. “Every little bit helps.”

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A lingering surreal quality

LACOMBE is a small town of about 7,500 people on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain, the massive body of water that’s twice the size of New Orleans and just north of the city. During the hurricane, the churning lake surged 12 feet, wiping out dozens of homes along its shores, especially in the town of Slidell.

As you drive toward Lacombe on Interstate 10, all that remains of many Slidell homes are the stilts on which they once stood. Tree branches along the shore filled with flotsam and jetsam at the height of the storm surge, and the debris still flaps in the wind, like pennants commemorating a disaster.

Only a few blocks inland, the damage is dramatically less noticeable. Any number of limbs on the live oaks of J. Scott Chotin’s 26-acre estate were blown down, but his 150-year-old mansion, which he calls Lacombe House, survived Katrina pretty much intact.

With Spanish moss draping the trees, alligators skulking around in the bayou and gas lamps flickering above the front porch, Chotin’s place can feel more than a little spooky, which makes it the perfect setting for “Solstice,” whose cast and crew spent 10 days filming there in April.

Loosely based on the Danish film “Midsummer,” the movie is described by its independent producers as “a teen version of ‘What Lies Beneath’ ” and features a group of kids haunted by an unreported (and fatal) accident. The supernatural thriller, scheduled to come out next year, is directed by Dan Myrick (“The Blair Witch Project”).

“Solstice” was initially set to be produced in and around New Orleans last October, but Katrina, which arrived several weeks earlier, made that impossible. Financier Endgame Entertainment considered moving the production to Florida, Georgia or Texas but decided to wait, recast the film and make the movie as planned in Louisiana. Endgame had filmed this past spring’s horror movie “Stay Alive” in the state before Katrina and had loved the experience. Furthermore, Louisiana is an investor in Endgame’s movie production arm.

“You drive around, and it’s astonishing how much of it is not rebuilt,” Endgame’s Chief Executive Officer Jim Stern says of the New Orleans area. “But I wanted to stay in Louisiana because the state has been so good for production.”

Even though there are few material reminders of Katrina on this “Solstice” location, the storm affected many of the movie’s local hires and occasionally created production problems, especially because Bruckheimer’s massive movie strained the area’s already limited personal and physical assets; on some days, Scott used 15 cameras and had a crew call of as many as 700 people, compared with “Solstice’s” two cameras and 80 crew members.

“We’re competing with ‘Deja Vu.’ They are taking up a lot of resources,” says “Solstice” producer Adam Del Deo, swatting away a mosquito on the film’s set. “So instead of picking up the phone two or three times to get what you need, you may have to make seven or eight calls.” All the same, “Deja Vu’s” special effects coordinator Joe Pancake did loan “Solstice” much-needed help.

“Three of my costumers couldn’t come on the show because they were dealing with their homes,” said “Solstice” costume designer Caroline Eselin, whose New Orleans home wasn’t damaged but whose parents’ home in Pascagoula, Miss., a two-hour drive east along the coast, was a total loss. “A lot of the people I work with are dealing with contractors, repairing their homes,” Eselin says.

With no big-name stars (the “Solstice” cast is led by “X-Men’s” Shawn Ashmore and “Big Love’s” Amanda Seyfried) and a modest production budget, the film’s producers sometimes had to rely on the kindness of strangers, especially when getting permission to film in the city.

“It used to be pretty much unheard of that you could walk down a street, knock on a door, and have someone come to the door,” says Phil Seifert, a longtime Louisiana location scout who worked on “Solstice.” “It used to be very difficult to shoot in the Garden District. Now, it’s not. The hurricane changed people’s sense of values. Now they want to share. They want to help. They didn’t used to care about the movie business, but now they realize it brings in work.”

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The exodus elsewhere

WRITER-DIRECTOR Michael Caleo had spent several years trying to get his first feature film, “The Last Time,” rolling. Finally, last August, production commenced in New Orleans, with Michael Keaton and Brendan Fraser starring. Caleo was halfway through his 30-day shoot on Saturday, Aug. 27, a gorgeous, sunny day that called for an elaborate driving scene along New Orleans’ Canal Street. The production had some 20 police officers on hand to control traffic.

“I turned around,” Caleo says. “And they were all gone.”

As the police raced off to aid in the evacuation, some 40 members of Caleo’s filmmaking team piled into a bus and headed north to Natchez, Miss., to spend the night. When the storm veered toward Natchez on Sunday, they reversed course and headed west to Dallas.

Remarkably, Caleo, who didn’t even have time to grab his belongings before the evacuation, was able to resume filming in Los Angeles the following Friday. Two months later, the Intercontinental Hotel shipped Caleo everything from his hotel room. “It was every CD, every DVD. Everything,” he says, still astonished by the care.

Producer Holly Wiersma completed the New Orleans-based production “Bug,” a William Friedkin-directed drama with Ashley Judd and Harry Connick Jr. due in theaters Dec. 1, just 12 days before Katrina hit. The bad news was she was set to start “Factory Girl,” a Sienna Miller-starring biography of Edie Sedgwick, the first week of November in the city.

Abandoning Louisiana altogether was out of the question. “There’s a huge [financial] incentive to shoot there,” Wiersma said, even though most of the film is set in 1960s New York. “We couldn’t have made the movie without” the state’s incentives, she added.

So “Factory Girl” moved from New Orleans to Shreveport, a good five-hour drive away and light years less fancy. “There’s no Four Seasons,” Wiersma said. “It’s Residence Inn and Holiday Inn.” Even those hotels were full of refugees, so the production scrambled for housing when it wasn’t looking for filmmaking equipment. “There was nothing in Shreveport. You had to bring everything in,” said Wiersma. The costume designer had to travel to Texas to find the cast’s wardrobe.

But what might have been unacceptable conditions for A-listers turned the production into something resembling freshman year. Miller cooked dinners for the crew in her kitchenette, and the filmmakers would regularly hit the Rock ‘n Rodeo nightclub for line dancing and karaoke. “It was like a college dorm,” said Wiersma. “Factory Girl” has not announced a release date.

Director Andrew Davis’ “The Guardian,” a drama about Coast Guard rescue swimmers starring Kevin Costner, followed the filmmaking exodus from New Orleans to Shreveport but at a greater expense. The contents of the film’s production office suffered mold and water damage, and a nearly completed tank for water filming constructed in hard-hit Camp Villere had to be scrapped and rebuilt in Shreveport at an additional cost of more than $1 million. Moving the production itself cost another $1 million.

Originally scheduled to film last October, “The Guardian” began photography in December (it’s set for release Sept. 15). Since much of the film involves swimming, actors and stunt performers needed access to warm showers.

“But we couldn’t get a mobile shower unit because FEMA was drawing everything,” said location manager Virginia McCollam, who couldn’t locate her brother for four days after Katrina hit. The showers were finally found -- in Kentucky -- and her brother is fine. “It all worked out,” says “Guardian” producer Tripp Vinson. “I am kind of shocked that it did.”

Lionsgate just wrapped “Pride,” based on a true story about a Philadelphia swim team, in Shreveport, and has plans to film “The Punisher 2” in New Orleans this year; “Pride” is set to premiere Dec. 22. “The biggest issue I found there,” studio production chief Michael Paseornek said, “is they don’t want people to forget about them.”

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‘I love this city’

THE columns supporting the overpass under which “Deja Vu” was filming bore a telltale reminder of the flooding -- about 4 feet above the ground, the supports are encircled with a band of dried dirt. All over the movie’s set -- on telephone poles, streetlights, the walls of the Ace Cash Express check cashing store -- it’s essentially Katrina’s bathtub ring.

It will be nearly impossible to spot such evidence in the finished film, as it’s too far in the background. But director Scott says he will include more obvious signs of Katrina’s effects throughout the film. Defying Disney’s worries about mold and potential crew illness, he even shot one sequence in a ruined home inside the ravaged Lower 9th Ward. Other scenes of devastation might appear at other points in the film. “Deja Vu” opens Nov. 22.

After Katrina hit, Disney considered shutting down the movie entirely or relocating it to Miami, Virginia or Washington state. Scott, however, had fallen in love with New Orleans and wouldn’t entertain any other venue. “I spent one hour here on the first scout, and I said, ‘I want to do it here,’ ” the director said. “I love this city.”

As Bruckheimer put it: “The studio wanted the incentives. Tony wanted it artistically.”

Actress Paula Patton, who plays Washington’s love interest in the film, volunteered to help clean up the city, bagging garbage with a Kleen Up Krew.

“The city is a character, and you really care what happens to the people in it,” she said, explaining why preventing the plot’s terrorist attack is even more critical when the backdrop is a city whose people are struggling to rebuild their homes and their lives. “You don’t want something else horrible happening to them.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

After the storm, staying the course

Not rain, not floods, not dampened spirits can keep these Katrina survivors from their showbiz calling.

DANNY RETZ, FILM EDITOR

IN a contest of bad timing, Retz wins. Discouraged by infrequent work in Los Angeles and excited by Louisiana’s production boom, the 58-year-old film editor packed up his family, sold his Northridge home and moved to the New Orleans suburb of Slidell.

He had just hooked up his TV when Mayor Ray Nagin announced he was contemplating a mandatory Katrina evacuation.

“Right then, I decided to evacuate,” says Retz, who grew up in New Orleans. With his wife, two daughters, one son, two 60-pound dogs and two cats crammed into their Honda Accord, Retz ultimately found shelter in a Baptist church in Chopin, La. When the family returned to Slidell, its home had been spared major damage, save for a few holes in the roof.

Steady work followed. Since Katrina hit, Retz edited the independent film “The Last Adam” and served as an assistant editor on two studio films, Hilary Swank’s “The Reaping” and Denzel Washington’s “Deja Vu.”

But memories of Katrina survive. A 6-week-old kitten wandering near the highway was scooped up by the family. He’s called Hurricane.

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ADRIAN STATON, ACTRESS

ACTRESS Staton survived Katrina. Now if she can only manage Hollywood.

Having moved to New Orleans from South Carolina early last year, Staton, 28, was beginning to find work. She had a small part in “Big Momma’s House 2” (although her scenes were cut out of the finished film) and was cast in another small role in the TV film “Locusts.”

Then the storm hit. Staton got out safely, but her talent agent closed her New Orleans office, and Louisiana’s first post-Katrina movies were relocating to Shreveport, 343 miles away.

“I didn’t want to move to Shreveport, and if I moved back to New Orleans, I didn’t want to sit there, paying rent, wondering if there were going to be movies or not,” Staton says.

So Staton decided to move to L.A. She found an apartment (which didn’t have air conditioning) and landed a commercial agent. She’s still looking for a manager and a theatrical agent.

In the meantime, the actress is working at a Pasadena golf course, selling drinks and snacks from a cart. She’s found a new (air-conditioned) place to live and is as optimistic as anyone you’ll meet. “It was great to get out of there,” Staton says after auditioning for a dietary supplement commercial (she wasn’t cast). “It’s all going to work out.”

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LISA DEPASQUALE, ACTRESS

DePASQUALE had little time to pack before Katrina hit. “I grabbed my jewelry box and my master’s degree,” the 25-year-old actress says of evacuating her New Orleans apartment.

The storm blew apart her building’s roof, ruining almost all of DePasquale’s possessions. When she tried to retrieve some mold-infested clothes, she came down with a respiratory infection. Her landlord eventually evicted her for unpaid rent and didn’t return her $975 security deposit.

DePasquale, originally from Atlanta, decided it might all be a sign it was time to move to Hollywood and give this acting thing a push.

No matter how much time she spent in the lab as a graduate student in Tulane’s school of public health, DePasquale was always more energized on a movie set, even working as an extra or as Hilary Swank’s stand-in for “The Reaping.” “I was working full time in the business the Monday after I graduated,” she says.

Swank invited DePasquale to L.A. to be her stand-in for “Freedom Writers.” During that job, DePasquale was in a car accident, and a studio driver sent to get her helped DePasquale find a job as a stand-in on “Entourage.” She returned to Louisiana for the horror movie “Shadow Grove.”

“God gives me affirmations every day,” DePasquale says, “that this must be the place to be.”

-- John Horn