By GARY PERILLOUX
Advocate business writer
Published: Feb 23, 2010 - Page: 4B

The Celtic Media Centre, which played host to “Battle: Los Angeles” last fall, is breaking ground on a soundstage building and a mill shop with a combined development budget of $3.5 million, company officials said Monday.

Later this year, a studio backlot simulating the French Quarter, New York, Boston, Chicago and other cities, with street scenes, is expected to be completed for $1.1 million on more than three acres.

The 31,000-square-foot soundstage — at $2.2 million — would be the sixth for Celtic, bringing total interior shooting space to more than 127,000 square feet. The $1.3 million mill shop, used to build sets, will add more than 23,000 square feet.

A prior mill shop was converted to soundstage use last fall when “Battle: Los Angeles” and growing demand dictated more filming space be put into place at the studios near Interstate 12 and Airline Highway.

Last month, Celtic narrowly missed winning the fourth installment of The Walt Disney Co.’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, which elected to film overseas. Disney established a Louisiana company — Stranger Tides Productions Inc. — in November, listing as its officers people at Disney’s Burbank, Calif., offices.

“It would have been fantastic to get it, but it’s amazing that Baton Rouge was in competition with London,” said Bob Bayham, chief financial officer of The Celtic Group. “It was a very near miss.”

Bayham said Celtic plans to complete its campus much as originally conceived in 2005 and 2006 by company founder Brendan O’Connor, who died last year. The mill shop and sixth soundstage will take total space beyond 200,000 square feet.

The new buildings should be completed by midsummer, said Patrick Mulhearn, who manages film production on site for Hollywood, Calif.-based Raleigh Studios in a partnership with Celtic.

“What we’re really excited about is the backlot,” which he said will be finished later in the year. “To shoot in the French Quarter, it’s extremely difficult because the people there have plenty of business from tourists and it’s almost more of an inconvenience to have productions camped out in front of your restaurants and shops.”

While still shooting street location scenes in New Orleans, a production could complete time-consuming scenes with no distractions or interruptions on the Celtic backlot, he said.

“I don’t think there’s anything else like that in the state,” Mulhearn said. “It’s more what you would see in Hollywood, and we think that will attract a lot of business.”

Success with “Battle: Los Angeles,” which is due for a February 2011 release, and the close call with the larger Disney production have coincided with a spate of new inquiries from filmmakers, Celtic officials said.

Mulhearn said a midsized film production is expected to take more than one soundstage in March. Other productions are expected in the summer, and Celtic has about 10 film-related tenant companies who provide services to filmmakers throughout the state.

“There were several projects that may have been looking before,” Mulhearn said. “We were able to go back to them and say, ‘This big project is not coming, and we do have availability.’”

Celtic also will be offering a free service to attract film producers. To encourage investment in the area, Celtic will match investors carrying Louisiana income tax liability with filmmakers.

Though the state offers an 85 percent redemption rate on film production tax credits, Celtic will aim for close to 90 percent, giving producers more money up front when they sell the credits and film in Baton Rouge, Mulhearn said.

“If you’re going to use our stages, we’re going to try to find you buyers in the area,” he said. “It makes it more appealing to (the producers) and we think it’s a thing that’s going to make our stages more marketable.”