Real to Reel; We Ought to be in Pictures: Selling Las Vegas to TV/Movies

The economy of Nevada is based on the dual industry of gaming entire resume. But economists warn that the state must diversify its financial base. Many alternatives are being explored and some suggest that movie and television production could provide an important second or third industry for the state. Right. But you realize that the history of production even for the.

Time. Why support Las Vegas.

Just. Last. Year several people worked for years in the business. But we need an official agency to state what television production and any story that it was the only Western commission I feel that in production we are in a position similar to that in which we found ourselves in 1957 with conventions and tourism. There were those people who assume that as soon as we were ready to take conventions they would flock in. We found out that wasn't true. Likewise we can't take the posture that people are going to come in if they're not accommodated. Rowland's has made several efforts to organize a group to meet the production needs of visiting companies. Seven years ago when we first organized a production service

Contractors Association we brought together competitors in many cases who hadn't spoken to each other for years who finally learned that it's possible to disagree without being disagreeable. That association brought together members of the production and electronic media audio video lighting sound scenery and set design companies. One product of the group was a 20 minute video tape demonstrating the versatility of the Las Vegas area for location shooting. Rob's not so well. The fact that just a few minutes out of your bag within a 50 mile radius of Las Vegas among the most forcefully one of their locations simulating virtually any background in the universe. Here's a typical part of the 20s and 30s for us. College campus or city hall complex that most small town. There are villages like this all over the world Korea Vietnam

South Africa South America. And of course throughout the American West. There are numerous dry lakes that provide just that. Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles of the great desert the Sahara desert the Gobi desert or for that matter the most. A prehistoric scene on the Nile River. An Indian watering hole in a black area of the U.S. 7th Cavalry. Roman legion. Cuba. The Philippines. Lol America I strongly suggested by the neighboring mo Apple Valley. Winter seen anywhere from some ballet to St. Louis. Certainly that's well. You're just 45 minutes from Las Vegas. Given up on the idea of a State Film Commission he now feels that the city or county organization is more feasible which took a big step. About six months ago for the first time a standing committee

for the purpose of promoting and helping coordinate the reduction. Right now we're working on that after seven years of getting a little of that together. Could you discuss the single is that. You don't talk to each other. We go with that. And they would rather work together.

Scott was the only Screen Actors Guild agent in Las Vegas until 1977. And as a leading advocate Film Commission. What is it. You are. Oh. We. More than a decade of working with television production in Las Vegas has created

situations and problems. They were. I know. Yeah. To. You. One aspect of the growing maturity of Las Vegas in the movie industry was the creation of a Screen Actors Guild branch here in the mid 1970s. It now has nearly 300 members of the Guild president Perry Sheehan Adair was an MGM contract player in the

1950s. She believes local talent will also attract more productions have a wealth of talent here both in the big name bracket and also a supporting players are local Screen Actors Guild membership hasn't even been tapped yet so to speak. And I feel that the directors of finding that that they can depend on the people here to deliver what I really would like to see is a commission where one of the few cities states that does not have a film commission in the Hollywood Reporter every day there are ads for Atlanta Georgia. To see when you look we were about four years and that is the extent of our right to encourage motion picture production here even without an organized Film Commission Nevada has been a very desirable filming location. A partial list of movies shot here in the past 30 years includes the ballad of cable home

the professionals old Santos raid Fort Apache bite the bullet Damnation Alley The Stalking Moon CC and company. The Gauntlet Diamonds Are Forever Knight wings the legend of the Lone Ranger the day the earth moved stir crazy Melvin and Howard. The players and Cannonball Run. You won you good. Grades. Well then you're one of the largest movie production budgets spent last Vegas was an estimated 23 million dollars for electric horseman shot in late one thousand seventy eight mainly at Caesar's Palace. The film starred Robert Redford Jane Fonda and Willie Nelson. When movie or television

producers want to shoot here they usually contact someone in a local production company or one of the half dozen casting agents in Los Vegas for help with location scouting and these local business people work hard to bring production here. I spend a considerable money in the company with helicopters to show scouting locations. When you go to another state like Texas like we're doing it you're there right now with rebels. All The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. When you go down to the Texas Commission they have people on the side from the state you know making sure that. It's they promote their state and the economy is really prosperous. Texas pitcher a pitcher after pitcher there is only has two or three going right now. I have a fulltime girl in Los Angels that read scripts and tries to incorporate Clark County mainly into the scripts. We're doing. Three possibly four pitchers in the first quarter of next year and it's

going to be great for the state. It's great for everybody is great for me. Great for you. One recent movie production Megaforce budgeted more than 9 million dollars to be spent on the Las Vegas area. It's estimated that in several weeks of production more than twenty seven million dollars was pumped into the local economy. And it was Director hell need a third location shooting for a movie in southern Nevada. Well there's a number of reasons why I would come back alive. Come back. I think the real reason is that we get great cooperation from all of them and especially Chris who. Helps us get permits and helps us to get this done. I mean he's a tremendous asset to us that we get nice cooperation from everybody and including not all of them but the other thing is that you can find

different. You can find you can find mountain obviously Las Vegas it's. A variety of the corporation. And that means money. So that's why we come back to work. There's a difference. But. After a couple of days it really mattered. Television production and its economic times get tough and do for the people.

We spend a tremendous amount of money. So it's a good thing. As I said. It's great.

Everything looks good and the one thing I'm I must say is that the fastest way to run a picture coming out of him is to have your unions think that they can come in because it's a picture of me. Molly Wood The thing I mean it in a way through a demand if you do this and demand it you do that that's it passes away in a world get rid of me. And if they push me to go to another places we have problem with here. You know they just keep that a secret OK. During the filming of Megaforce Needham was injured. Bad news for the production schedule but an additional 1.5 million dollars was budgeted for Las Vegas and crews and equipment extended their stay by two weeks. One advantage of location shooting in Las Vegas is the attraction our area has for production crews an actors like metaphor star. I think it's a fabulous place to work. Much too much of life. That's a lot of people who come to us. But I do have a great time because working so

much entertainment in the helicopter you can find. Kind of a project called. Really primal Megaforce is the first of a three picture series and Bostwick thinks it has all the elements of a box office bonanza. I play the Strikeforce called Make a fool element group and we. Are put

together by a tight group. We are a secret fighting force which goes out from. Our production like Megaforce also employs local residents as actors and extras tonight. Where I started. It. Is called.

A. Oh you work here. Why do you think you know you're in Southern. The comedy duo will joke about working here but hundreds of Southern Nevada residents will do their laughing on the way to the bank. Extras earn about $75 a day plus

overtime and they're served catered meals while on the set at one of many casting calls for this movie extras were being sought to play a newly married Mexican couple and several conservative type couples to appear in a French gay restaurant scene that will degenerate into a food fight. One. How many local people will be using as extras. I'd say anywhere between five and seven hundred people locally. Now how much money do you think that will bring into the economy just in the extras. I'd say between twenty and forty thousand dollars in Extras. Do you get a lot of cooperation out here. These people are great. The producer Howard Brown Cheech and Chong they're all. Everybody works with each other which is really important and they work together and they get the job done everybody makes money everybody leaves happy and they bring more movies back in

about a year. Was Vegas is not just a location for movie production. Numerous segments of television series like Jack Quincy The Rockford Files Starsky and Hutch switch and Charlie's Angels have also been shot here. But in 1978 we entered the big leagues when the series Vegas was based here. What you have here with the least of which are a two hour special that we shot at Red Rock. At that time he was interested in doing a series and was that us. It was. You know like you know we talked with Rose and he was very susceptible to having this series come to Las Vegas. There was Billings. And motivation we had. Thanks. To do these crazy things. I mean.

It's terrific for me because there's so much energy right here concentrated. 24 hours a day. There's a lot of fun just to come here because I mean there's a lot of things to do here. When you're working in Hollywood you're working with a hundred other companies and you get the feeling that you're just another I mean Another show another actor when you come to a place like Las Vegas. Or. San Francisco in San Francisco and we were like you know the darling of the town. How do you feel about working here in Las Vegas. This is the most exciting because. It's just like. It's a big city. And it's. OK so this is a good Jan. they've had good facilities of course everything everything's worked just right. I'm like. Oh my God. They treated me so good I didn't know that.

It's always fun to come to Vegas. I used to do Hollywood Squares here a lot and so I said to come to the river area I react with the air and I am in a circus so it was wonderful to look at the across the street to Circus Circus and I must have read it. Oh I love it. Yes. One night at a time. So the stories like to work here. But what is the state doing to encourage even more movie and television production. The Nevada Department of Economic Development has one individual who spend some time on the project but has no real funding for the effort. More now. Fortune. Production. Right.

But second. Different some don't. There is a great deal of optimism in the local community for the future of movie and television production. But all concerned realise that it will take a great deal of work. I think it's a great opportunity for Nevada and especially southern Nevada because it does bring in a lot of extra people and it's a clean industry and I think it's fantastic. It's about time that we put things together. We have to support to help me with that because everyone should know about us. I like Vegas. It's 45 minutes away. We get our actors up and back we get our film up and back.

And it's it's very good. Five or six movies in the last couple years been very beneficial to myself. And we look forward to next year a lot more here and there's a lot of people that are interested in Hollywood to bring the movie industry to Las Vegas. I'll let you go on it first. Oh there we are out there. Or should we go for Roman Romans while you're at it. And it was very fruitful. Oh I think it's limited only by the imagination of those people I love. Six years ago I was giving two hundred twenty six million dollars a year and I'll stand by that figure.

I hear ya. We just have to keep doing a good job. Everyone is going to come back and gather round and other producers and see what happens. It seems we have everything here in southern Nevada to offer a movie on television production and unlimited variety of locations. Nearly Perfect shooting weather and abundance of hotel rooms and facilities to base cruise. And besides the actors love to work here. Increasing production and much of this competition is coming from states that have allocated budgets to us as movie and television production expands many Southern Nevadans are concerned that other communities will cash in on a booming film industry. A business that could bypass a virtual goldmine here in the desert.