THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 16, 1996 TAG: 9610160037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: 107 lines
THE NEWS that actors Tim and Daphne Maxwell Reid are going to build a state-of-the-art movie studio in Petersburg is a welcome, and long overdue, notice that Virginia is itching to get into the big-bucks movie industry in a serious way.
For too long, the regional movie scene centered toward the south, where North Carolina has netted an estimated $500 million in movie money last year alone.
Tim Reid is a Norfolk native and 1968 Norfolk State University grad who has pumped millions into his alma mater through a yearly celebrity tennis tourney.
The Reids' New Millenium Studios will be located in western Petersburg on what is now 65 acres of farm land. The $11 million facility will include a back lot (complete with a New York Street set to be used for urban dramas) and, upon completion in spring of 1998, five soundstages.
An excited Tim Reid, speaking from his California office Monday, said, ``The goal is to develop a movie-savvy local work force so that, in time, we will be able to hire Virginians. It's going to be a long developmental program but, eventually, we'll be able to use predominately local people. We plan to make four movies in the first year. Eventually, we want to turn out as many as 50 a year.''
The facility will allow Virginia Film Office to at last be competitive in attracting productions to the state. Heretofore, the state could offer excellent location sites, from the mountains to the seashore, but its greatest weakness was that there were no soundstages to film interior shots. Reid said that the new studio would be capable of completing all but the final phase of movie production (sound mixing and recording) and that he hoped, eventually, to even be able to do that.
Local actors and technicians, in search of film jobs, will now be on the road to Petersburg rather than Wilmington, N.C., where many have found jobs in the recent past.
The immediate question among many was ``Why not Norfolk? Why not Virginia Beach? Why not Suffolk?''
The answer, according to Reid, is primarily that ``Petersburg fought for the studio. The city let us know immediately that they wanted it - and they backed it up with help. I looked all over the state. I looked at the facility in Suffolk (the defunct Atlantic Film Studio). I looked in Williamsburg. In each case, acquiring land became complicated. Upon hearing of interest, talk of competing land development popped up.''
In contrast, Petersburg offered to buy the 65 acres suggested, at a cost of $560,000, and donate it to the Reids. The state also got involved to a tune of a $275,000 grant from the Governer's Opportunity Fund. ``It's important that the state have an input,'' Reid said. ``Petersburg, once one of the state's richest cities, has had economic problems in the past year. They looked toward Wilmington, N.C., where movie production has literally turned the city around. It is estimated that movie jobs, and expenditures, poured over $57 million directly into the economy of Wilmington last year. Petersburg wanted that, and they let us know they wanted it.''
On top of Petersburg's input came a study conducted by the University of Virginia suggesting that any proposed studio should be located in ``central Virginia'' and ``within a 30 mile radius of Richmond.''
Reid said ``the studio will be on the edge of the freeway and 30 minutes from both the airport and Richmond hotels. The central location means we can reach locations in both the mountains and the beach. The study was made independent of my plans but it needed them.''
Reid will be president of the company but production at New Millenium Studios will by no means be limited to his own productions. ``I will hire someone to run the studio and our soundstages will be open for rental to all producers. We'll, naturally, be attractive to independent producers who want to work outside the Hollywood mainstream but we'll also be available to major studio producers.'' He pointed out that the average cost of a Hollywood production has risen to $25 million a picture (with the average being pushed up by a number of $70 million plus productions).
Petersburg Economic Development Manager Vandy V. Jones III said the studio would mean some 100 jobs initially but ``more than that, it will mean a great deal to the image of the city. This will be the place where movies are made in Virginia.''
The participation of the Reids immediately suggests a concern for worthwhile, quality product. His directorial debut, ``Once Upon a Time When...When We Were Colored'' drew critical raves and was filmed, in Wilmington, for a cost of $2.5 million. It was initially turned down, though, by every Hollywood studio as being ``too soft.'' ``That meant,'' he explained, ``that it was too human. I wanted to make a film about family, not about pimps and drug pushers. I found that is surprisingly difficult to do in the Hollywood system.''
Reid, who won an Emmy for his role as Venus Flytrap in the '70s TV series ``WKRP in Cincinnati,'' now says ``I would be content to eventually work entirely behind the cameras. The business side of things, to me, is more exciting than acting. Getting projects made is the real challenge.''
He has a ranch-home near Fork Union, Va. and plans to live there more often as the studio develops.
He pointed out that 51 movies were shot in North Carolina last year and ``there is no reason why we can't eventually compete with that.''
``We need,'' he pointed out, ``to develop movie-savvy people in the state. We have the craftsmen and the workers here now. They just have to be oriented toward movie production. For example, a hairdresser in a beauty salon could just as easily become a movie hairdresser. She just needs a few hints at the time restrictions. We hope to train lighting technicians, makeup people - everyone from top to bottom so that eventually producers can hire locally. Producers like that. It saves them travel money and hotel bills.''
In the studio's first year, he plans two productions of his own - one for theatrical release and one for television.
Petersburg's zoning commission met Monday night and was expected to approve zoning the former farm land for the new studio. Reid plans for groundbreaking ceremonies to take place ``slightly after Thanksgiving'' and for construction to movie rapidly after that. ``I want to have cameras turning at the studio by March,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Tim Reid by CNB