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163 Pages·2017·11.05 MB·English

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The Lure of the Local Film Economy
vickI mayer
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Almost Hollywood,
Nearly New Orleans
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the
Fletcher Jones Foundation Humanities Endowment Fund of the
University of California Press Foundation.
Almost Hollywood,
Nearly New Orleans
The Lure of the Local Film Economy
Vicki Mayer
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university
presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advanc-
ing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its
activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic
contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information,
visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2017 by Vicki Mayer
Suggested citation: Mayer, Vicki. Almost Hollywood, nearly New Orleans:
the lure of the local film economy. Oakland: University of California Press,
2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.25
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY-ND license. To
view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mayer, Vicki, 1971- author.
Title: Almost Hollywood, nearly New Orleans : the lure of the local film
economy / Vicki Mayer.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2017] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016046883 (print) | LCCN 2016048419 (ebook) | ISBN
9780520293816 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520967175 (ebook)
Subjects:  LCSH: Motion picture industry—Louisiana—New Orleans.
Classification: LCC PN1993.5.U744 M39 2017 (print) | LCC PN1993.5.U744
(ebook) | DDC 791.4309763/35--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016046883
26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Prologue: I’m Just a Film Tax Credit ix
Introduction: Presenting Hollywood South 1
1. The Making of Regional Film Economies: Why La. Is Not L.A. 17
2. Hollywood South: Structural to Visceral Reorganizations of Space 43
3. The Place of Treme in the Film Economy:
Love and Labor for Hollywood South 69
(Almost a) Conclusion 97
Appendix: A Guide to Decoding Film Economy Claims and
Press Coverage 111
Notes 115
Index 139

Acknowledgments
I didn’t set out to write another book. After Katrina and amidst my own trauma,
I took refuge in the archives of the Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane Uni-
versity. There I immersed myself in the local film economy of the 1900s, but when
I emerged I confronted the film economy of today. Whether through loving or
loathing, labor or leisure, everyone I knew was talking about the experiences of
living in Hollywood South. This unexpected collision of my scholarly and personal
worlds produced the story I tell here about film, creative economies, and the city
I moved to in 2003.
Along the way, I have had funding and research support through many of Tu-
lane’s institutions and colleges. In particular, I would like to thank the School of
Liberal Arts (SLA), the New Orleans Center for the Study of the Gulf South, the
Murphy Institute, and the Phyllis M. Taylor Center for Design Thinking, through
which I received an endowment on behalf of the Louise and Leonard Riggio Pro-
fessorship and the Carnegie Foundation. Together, SLA and the endowment via the
Taylor Center allowed this project to be published as an open-access monograph.
I am forever grateful to the many people who have encouraged me along the
way and contributed to this work. They have given me access to their knowledge
about the numerous ways that the political economies of media impact and are
impacted by the ways we feel about time, space, and place in cities. They have
confided their own insights and emotions around the experiences of Hollywood
South, from the episodic to the ephemeral. Although the argument in this project
is my own, I hope I have rendered their inputs and voices faithfully.
Finally, this work is dedicated to all the creative people of New Orleans, includ-
ing and especially Tor and Liina.
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