CENTER FOR COMPUTATION & TECHNOLOGY

The Advocate By: Ned Randolph A Pixar studio executive will discuss the making of the animated superhero comedy 'The Incredibles' during the three-day Red Stick International Animation Festival. Organizers of this week's Red Stick International Animation Festival hope that the representatives from Pixar Studios, Sony Imageworks and other animation companies attending the three-day event will generate enough excitement for policy-makers to get serious about capturing a slice of the multibillion-dollar animation entertainment industry. Louisiana already has earned a considerable amount of street credit among entertainment executives through its motion picture tax credit program that has made it a top destination for filming movies. That has helped open the door for other industries that operate under the big tent of Hollywood studios, economic development officials say. The state's current movie business, which is mostly filming and pre-production, is a narrow slice of the vast entertainment production and distribution industry. The state has traded considerable revenues -- $95 million since 2002 -- in order to attract $555 million in total spending on movie production, said Greg Albrecht, chief economist for the Legislative Fiscal Office. Unless policy-makers take the next step to establish roots to develop that industry, it will be swept away, said Stacy Simmons, organizer of the Red Stick festival. "As soon as 15 other states copy the tax credit legislation, we're back at zero again," she said. "We have the upper hand now if we empower people who are working for others to make their own films. "The money made in feature film and television is not in production. It's in selling the rights to what you create." Having writers, directors and animators based in Louisiana means that royalties, contracts and networking contacts remain in the state, said Simmons, who is also a faculty member at LSU's Center for Computation and Technology. "Pixar is based in Emeryville, Calif.," she said referring to one of the most successful animation companies in the world. "You don't have to be in Los Angeles to do this, but you need vision and a talented work force and incentives to keep them here." The state is building the infrastructure, officials say, with computer animation programs at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Southeastern Louisiana University, digital film classes at the University of New Orleans and LSU's supercomputing technology that can animate colliding black holes. "If you want to look at stars of a super nova, you're watching animation; or gene-splicing and science visualization, that's animation," Simmons said. "You need the same skill set to make really great scientific visualizations as you need to make entertainment animation like The Incredibles," the superhero action comedy that won this year's Oscar award for animated-feature prize. "That's what we wanted to get across to people in the community that all the pieces are in Louisiana. We have everything to tie it together," she said. The state will get a better opportunity to recruit companies with the addition of LONI, the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative that will link a half-dozen Louisiana university campuses to a global network of supercomputers and the $18 million, state-funded Acadiana Technology Immersion Center, a virtual reality cave under construction in Lafayette, said Gordon Brooks, dean of ULL's College of the Arts. "In order for (our students) to stay in Louisiana, we need infrastructure: studio space, computing power and projects for them to work on," Brooks said. "With LONI now, we're all so digitally close it doesn't matter where you locate, we just want them in the state because they will draw other companies," Brooks said. The clock is in fact ticking for Louisiana to come up with a new competitive advantage to build an entertainment industry beyond the movie-making taking place under the movie tax credit. "Other states are introducing their own tax incentive programs," said Mark Smith, entertainment director for the state's Department of Economic Development. Smith said his home state of Rhode Island has introduced a bill that's lifted verbatim from Louisiana's statutes. And countries from Australia to Fiji are offering tax credits to film companies that are competitive to Louisiana. Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore and Canada all have incentive programs, he said. "There's always a sense of urgency," he said. "The industry is so mobile, we need to be able to respond … and grow where we need to grow." Smith has been organizing regional entertainment summits with university and economic development representatives to strategically plan how they can develop a niche in the industry. In Lafayette, the summit identified digital music, animation and video games as their niche, Brooks said. The local arts community is already digitally archiving much of the Cajun and Creole music played on Acadian porches over the last three decades, Brooks said. Summit attendees discussed creating a digital business incubator for individual freelancers and startups. "It will be some kind of enterprise where we can provide infrastructure, machinery and a place for technical support for these animators to continue doing their work in Louisiana," he said. "All of these big production houses out-source a lot of their work." The state also lacks an online stock footage house that can provide Louisiana music and stock footage either free or a per-fee basis. "If you want a video clip of Mardi Gras in New Orleans for a 30-second commercial, you either have to go to Mardi Gras and get it or buy it from a house in New York or Los Angles," Brooks said. "We need a film house that becomes a cooperative for digital assets -- sound assets, video assets, still image assets -- so that people who belong to this cooperative can share these things freely." In the simplest terms, the goal is to create an industry that returns profits from the finished products back to the state, Simmons said. ULL animation professor Yeon Choi said the state may have to first attract the companies here in order to create an animation industry. "We have to let other people in the field know we have the capability in technology, laboratories and people," said Choi, who has taught at ULL seven years. "Even though they are good, it's hard for (my students) to find jobs mainly because of a lack of companies in the state. That has to go first, then there will be more of a need for animators and then the schools can launch the programs." Technology and chamber of commerce officials in Baton Rouge have commissioned a study to find what incentives and equipment is needed for the region to attract established video game companies to the region. Eddie Ashworth, president of the Louisiana Technology Park on Florida Boulevard, has about 4,000 square feet of available space for a possible video game incubator if the state gets serious about developing the industry. "If the state decided it wanted to put in a program of incentives to help develop that industry, we would be very, very interested in developing an incubator for those companies coming out," said Ashworth, who estimates it would cost about $500,000 to buy the hardware and software platforms and licensing for about six small video game companies. "I think if we're going to try to develop a gaming industry here, it's going to require state incentives -- not incentives aimed at an incubator-type program, but more mature companies," he said. An incubator program requires the support of an industry to give newly trained game developers jobs and a market to buy their projects. In terms of total sales, the $9 billion video gaming industry has eclipsed the movie industry, and it's still growing. "It hasn't found a home like the movie industry, which is sited in either the West Coast or East Coast," Ashworth said. "The state has been successful in attracting movie production with its incentive program, but those jobs tend to be temporary. They shoot the movie, but go back to Los Angeles to edit it. "With video games, these are permanent jobs -- they're located where they're located." he said. "You build and sell to market, and you don't have to be located at the east or west coast. There's nothing to prevent us or others in attracting this industry."