While Baton Rouge and New Orleans may be the hub of Hollywood South, our neighbor to the north, Shreveport, is a vital spoke.
In recent years, movies including Oliver Stone's 2008 "W.," starring Josh Brolin as George W. Bush, and TV series such as "Salem," with Baton Rouge native Shane West as one of its leads, have been filmed there.
And another production gets underway in the city Oct. 24 — Bespoke Works LLC's horror flick, "Hangman."
Filmmaker Alexander Jeffery has shot at various U.S. locations as well as abroad. 'A Chance Encounter, due for release Oct. 28, was filmed in Italy.
The feature-length film is directed by Colby Doler, written by Doler and Paul Petersen, and produced by Alexander Jeffery. Petersen and Jeffery are co-partners in Bespoke.
Director/writer/producer Jeffery, 34, sets the plot as follows:
"An artist faces a tragedy in his family and through his grief and depression, he tries to hang himself and is unsuccessful and through the act of doing so his 'fetch,' his doppleganger, appears. The fetch, it sort of spawns from Irish folklore, basically haunts him and tries to get him to complete that hanging through the course of the movie."
Robert Longstreet ("Midnight Mass" and "Haunting of Hill House") plays Beaumont, the psychiatrist treating Nicholas, portrayed by Logan Donovan, who's also a producer on the project.
It's a small cast of three main characters with a few others, and a crew of 30, Jeffery said. Shooting is set to run through Nov. 19 at Rhino Coffee and other spots in the city, as well as at an old country house in nearby Belcher.
"It's just this really cool old country house that definitely has horror movie kind of vibes to it," Jeffery said.
Getting "Hangman" off the ground was Jeffery's impetus for moving to Shreveport in from El Dorado, Arkansas, in 2018. He's also lived and worked in Los Angeles and Nebraska.
Cast and crew take a break on the set of 'Days of Daisy' in Shreveport in 2020.
"It was a great fit. And the tax credits were definitely a draw as well, the 40% for Louisiana screenwriters and creators was definitely an incentive for us to be here," he said.
Bespoke focuses on indie films, short films, narrative feature films and documentaries, one of which just screened at the Hot Springs (Arkansas) Documentary Film Festival.
"You Have No Idea" follows one family's journey with autism through the lens of community, according to Jeffery.
"We couldn't have asked for a better audience. Everyone was in tears at the end. I think it really gave us confidence that the message of the film is going to touch a lot of people, which is the best-case scenario for us," he said.
Although mostly filmed in El Dorado (where the family lives), post-production work and some interviews were done in Shreveport.
But why might a film or TV series choose Shreveport over say, Baton Rouge or New Orleans?
"It may not necessarily be a scouting reason that they choose Shreveport. I think Shreveport does have a very diverse landscape around it. You, of course, have forests and trees. You have sand where they filmed 'Year One,' the movie," he explained.
Jeffery said he wonders if Baton Rouge and New Orleans may be a bit more jaded by the film industry because of so much activity through the years, but in Shreveport, he says, the small-town feel is alive and well and that people still get excited about the movie industry showing up locally.
"Not that they don't have that down there, and I'm not trying to paint Baton Rouge and New Orleans in any kind of bad light, but I think there's really that excitement here about things being shot and people are willing to go out of their way to help and that's just really cool," he said.
Look for another Bespoke project, the feature film "A Chance Encounter," due out Friday, Oct. 28.
