May 27, 2004, 12:43 AM

HOUSTONWOOD: Houston’s connection to Hollywood and the Film Industry

By Bob Willems

For twenty- five years a little known office within the Houston Visitors and Convention Bureau has touted Houston to producers from Hollywood to use our city as a location for their upcoming film project.

The office known to Hollywood as “The Houston Film Commission” has lobbied the insiders within the film industry to come to Houston and save money. And for the most part they do an admirable job. They compete for film production dollars against other cities, whose climate is great, scenery wonderful and their film infrastructure is superb.

But the reality is that Houston may have some great things “a can do spirit,” but a great place for outsiders to make films it is not.

Now I’m not trying to say that films don’t come here to be made, but letting people think that this is a great movie making town is wrong. What happens when a film comes to town is the major crew that the producer or director brings in is from out of town and the only work our actors and others get is what is referred to as ‘below the line” technicians.

Rather than tell people to come to Houston to film in our city, we should be spending our time and resources on developing our own Houston film industry.

It’s great to say we have brought this movie to town and such and such star is in town, but the real benefit is to produce our own films and get them distributed worldwide. It is the same approach that Vancouver used to lure many productions away from Los Angeles. Now Vancouver is considered a major player in film and television production.

With the advent of new technology, HDTV for example, Houston could finally find itself as a player when it comes to filmmaking. We are strategically located between both coasts, have good actors here, we are a “right to work state” and the personnel that work as camera-person’s, grips etc. are as good as anywhere in the world.

If we can develop a film and television industry infrastructure and produce our own films and programs, the world will beat a path to our door. We may never be a Los Angeles, but who knows, with the right people behind the effort, we may make a difference in the way we are perceived by the rest of the film and television world.

Next time we will discuss some of the things that can be done to make it happen.

Bob Willems is a local producer/director and owns RW Productions and Champion Entertainment.

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