New Mexico, Film & Entertainment in ©Sindication

“Primose Everdeen” talks The Hunger Games on New Mexico Style

The Hunger Games’ Willow Shields: kasa.com

Tags: Elias Gallegos, Hunger Games Cast, Kasa Fox 2, Kristen Van Dyke, New Mexico Style, Nikki Stanzione, Primrose Everdeen, The Hunger Games, Willow Shields

New Mexico lost out on ‘The Hunger Games’

UPDATE 3/26/12: North Carolina strikes gold with Hunger Games where New Mexico struck-out on film jobs, economy AND tourism…

The impact of the film could be far-reaching. The books, by Suzanne Collins, have sold millions of copies. Syrett said Lionsgate Films has an “incredible” marketing campaign behind the film.

“You can’t buy a billboard this large,” Syrett said Wednesday. “It will have a tremendous tourism impact for years to come.”
-MSNBC

Having a film shoot in your area is certainly a profitable venture. The North Carolina film commission has revealed that preliminary figures show that The Hunger Games brought nearly $62 million into the local economy.

The following Charlotte Observer story extracts that scenery among other accolades N.C. has to offer are what landed the state this and more upcoming major productions, including Iron Man 3, which also considered New Mexico during the particularly embattled period of time when our own state film futures were highly contested by the then incoming administration.

“…When “The Hunger Games” was scouting locations, Canada and New Mexico were also considered, Jacobson says. But, in addition to the tax-incentive program, “North Carolina really had it all visually for us.

…The Hunger Games” is the biggest film project to land in North Carolina, which has seen increased interest from filmmakers and TV producers thanks to one of the most robust tax-incentive programs in the country: Filmmakers can get a refund on 25 percent of salaries and money they spend on taxable items in North Carolina, worth up to $20 million per project.

…Currently, the state is hosting 10 productions (feature films including Marvel Studios’ “Iron Man 3” and TV series including Cinemax’s “Banshee”).

From a state whose Governor embraces and works to build film as a job creating priority, Theoden Janes of the Charlotte Observer reports from Los Angeles with the kind of journalistic prose that paints a romantic and beautiful picture of the film making, destined to cast a flattering spotlight on North Carolina for the rest of the world to see.

By Theoden Janes
Charlotte Observer

LOS ANGELES – The five-star Four Seasons Hotel seems to have everything a movie star could desire, but Lenny Kravitz is fantasizing about something that’s 2,400 miles away: Price’s Chicken Coop.

Charlotte’s renowned fried-chicken joint is one of the things the rocker-actor misses most about North Carolina, where “The Hunger Games” was shot over four months last year.

“That’s my joint,” says Kravitz, as he sinks into a sofa in a suite. “Normally, I eat very healthy and organic, so people are probably saying, ‘He eats that?’ But I gotta get country every now and again.”

Kravitz, several other “Hunger Games” cast members, and filmmakers jumped at the chance to talk about the Tar Heel State, toward the end of a recent weekend they spent fielding many of the same questions over and over again from journalists about the $90 million production, which was filmed between May and September 2011.

“It’ll be nice to talk about Charlotte, which I loved,” says director Gary Ross as he greets a visitor to another Four Seasons suite.

The release of the film is a huge deal to Ross and Kravitz and the fellow cast and crew. It’s an equally big deal for North Carolina.

‘N.C. really had it all visually’

“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” from 2006 is the highest-grossing film shot in the state; the NASCAR sendup topped out at $148 million. “The Hunger Games” – in theaters on Friday – could surpass that in two weekends.

Analysts believe it could become one of the biggest blockbusters ever, with good reason: It is based on a 2008 young-adult novel by Suzanne Collins that has sold 23.5 million copies; it stars a Hollywood It Girl-slash-Oscar-nominated actress (Jennifer Lawrence); and unlike “Twilight,” boys and men freely admit they like it.

The story is set in a bleak, dystopian future in which a postwar North America has been renamed Panem and divided into 12 districts, which surround a wealthy seat of government known as the Capitol. As punishment for a decades-ago rebellion, the Capitol annually selects one boy and one girl from each district to compete in a televised battle to the death.

Nina Jacobson, the film’s primary producer, says North Carolina provided ideal locations for each of the tale’s main settings – District 12 (home of Lawrence’s character, Katniss Everdeen), the Capitol, and the Arena (where the Games take place).

Remote portions of DuPont State Forest near Asheville were perfect for the artificial landscape the Capitol creates for the Arena; the insides of newer, clean-line uptown Charlotte buildings stood in nicely for the Capitol.

Multiple shooting locations were convenient because of economic struggles in North Carolina. An abandoned mill village outside of Hildebran (Henry River) and an old warehouse in Shelby (Royster P&M) were used to bring to life District 12, a poverty-stricken, rural Appalachia. The former Philip Morris cigarette manufacturing plant in Concord also got plenty of use.

“For District 12, when we found the areas around Shelby and in Henry River, we were blown away by how much that felt like we were reading the book and imagining it in our mind’s eye,” Jacobson says. “Having such great specificity to the Appalachian roots of Katniss’s character felt really right to us.

“Asheville and the woods had a sense of a wilderness so beautiful it could feel artificial. And Charlotte is an incredibly modern city. We were able to take advantage of some of your local architecture. Then we also had Philip Morris, which was this ominous concrete compound that worked great for the Capitol interiors.”

When “The Hunger Games” was scouting locations, Canada and New Mexico were also considered, Jacobson says. But, in addition to the tax-incentive program, “North Carolina really had it all visually for us.”

Where they lived, hung out

Because the shoot lasted all summer, the cast and crew became well-acquainted with the area.

Lawrence, the star, rented a house in the NoDa area of Charlotte. Ross, the director, rented one in Myers Park. The adult cast members took up residence at the Ritz-Carlton in uptown. Kravitz, who plays Katniss’s stylist in the film, rented out Bojangles’ Coliseum for a month to rehearse for his “Black and White America” world tour (currently making the rounds in Australia).

And they didn’t hide from view. Male lead Josh Hutcherson – who plays Katniss’s fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta Mellark – enjoyed a zipline tour in Asheville so much, he went back two more times. Ross was a repeat diner at the Customshop restaurant on Elizabeth Avenue. (“I ordered the pork belly a lot and I garnered that nickname.”)

Many cast members went to see Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow perform at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in late August, says actress Elizabeth Banks, who plays Effie Trinket, escort for the District 12 tributes.

“I thought Charlotte was beautiful. It’s so clean. Really walkable,” says Banks, who has another trilogy on her resume – “Spider-Man” 1, 2 and 3 – and has been featured as a frequent guest on the NBC sitcom “30 Rock.” “I had my son there, so it was nice to be able to go out every day and just kind of walk around, and I thought the downtown was really cool.”

Asheville was even more popular, though. The production was based there for almost two months, while the actors and filmmakers shot the Arena scenes in the DuPont forest, the Coleman Boundary in Barnardsville and the North Fork Reservoir in Black Mountain.

“Asheville’s one of the greatest places you can spend a summer, it really is,” says Ross, who has received Oscar nominations for writing “Seabiscuit,” “Dave” and “Big.” “It’s very transforming in a lot of ways. It’s this little jewel of a city off in the mountains.”

Among the favorite hangouts? The Battery Park Book Exchange and Champagne Bar. “The stacks go on and on and on and on,” Ross says, “and it just became a wonderful environment where you would wander by the Book Exchange and find a bunch of crew or people from the movie sitting there and reading and having a coffee during the day.”

Says Hutcherson, who is also currently starring in “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson: “Shooting in Asheville was incredible. It was cool to go somewhere and get away from it all and shoot this movie. Especially with all the hype surrounding it, it was nice to be where there weren’t cameras and there weren’t people getting in your head.”

‘It was just so hot’ on the set

The production didn’t go off without a hitch, though.

One of the first segments filmed was the Reaping Ceremony, when Banks’ character selects the names of the two teenagers who will represent District 12 in the Games. These scenes were shot outside an old warehouse in Shelby in May – as the area was going through a heat wave.

Throughout the film, Banks appears in a costume that took half an hour to put on and in makeup that took 21/2 hours to apply. With temperatures soaring into the triple digits, the get-up became unbearable.

“I got heat exhaustion for the first time in my life while I was there. It was crazy,” she says. “The only thing that was keeping me going was the adrenaline of shooting, because the minute they called wrap, I literally collapsed. I could barely form words.”

After that, producers gave her a personal air-conditioner. “It was blowing directly on me. It (showed) the temperature on it, and it never got below 87. So even with a full air-conditioning unit blowing on me, it still was almost 90 degrees the entire time we were there.”

The Reaping scenes involved scores of extras, many of whom were children; Banks and Lawrence both say they saw girls who had fainted due to the heat. They helped distribute water and tried to keep the extras’ spirits up.

“There was nothing we could really do, because we were outside – there was really nowhere people could go to cool down,” says Lawrence, an Academy Award nominee for 2010’s “Winter’s Bone.” “We tried to make as much shade as possible … making everybody drink a lot of water, but it was just so hot.”

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Tags: New Mexico Connections, New Mexico Film Incentives, North Carolina Film, The Hunger Games

Before Hunger Games: NM’s Own Willow Shields

That’s Revenge star Emily VanCamp in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, Beyond the Blackboard – shot right here in Albuquerque in 2010.

Catch it for a glimpse of many talented New Mexico faces, including The Hunger Games star, Willow Shields.

Before landing the role of Primrose Everdeen, Shields also worked in NM productions like In Plain Sight and Ihale.

3/12/12 On the red carpet at the world premiere of The Hunger Games:

Red Carpet photo gallery here. Including, Miley Cyrus, Kelly Osborne, Miranda Lambert, Elizabeth Banks, Peter Facinelli, Jennifer Lawrence, Leven Rambin, Liam Hemsworth, Jacqueline Emerson…

Tags: Beyond the Blackboard, Emily VanCamp, Primrose Everdeen, The Hunger Games, Video of the Day, Willow Shields

Big Stuff

From NM to NC – These two New Mexikids who were cast mates in the locally filmed Hallmark Hall of Fame movie Beyond the Blackboard are hitting the books big screen style!

Both New Mexico actors were cast in two critically acclaimed, highly anticipated novels turned films due out next year.

Odd Thomas starring Fright Night’s Anton Yelchin and Addison Timlin, currently in post production – shot right here in NM and features OHI fave Jack Justice.

The Hunger Games filming in North Carolina boasts one of New Mexico’s Own in up & comer, Willow Shields who created a buzz for landing the coveted role of Primrose Everdeen in the film as a relative unknown alongside bigger hitters like Liam Hemsworth (brother of Thor, boyfriend to Miley) Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) and Josh Hutcherson (The Kids Are All Right).

Look for both films and these rising New Mexico stars in 2012.

Tags: Addison Timlin, Anton Yelchin, Famous New Mexicans, Jack Justice, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, New Mexico Set, North Carolina, Odd Thomas, The Hunger Games, Willow Shields

New Mexikids!

As we told you here Albuquerque’s own Willow Shields is making national, nay world news as the young talent who has been cast as Primrose Everdeen in the highly anticipated big screen adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ bestseller The Hunger Games.

OHI fave Jack Justice Brown is also making news that swells our hearts with joy, as the Albuquerque native too is cast in a rabid fan followed, bestselling novel adaptation – Odd Thomas is currently in production locally and NM’s beloved Jack Justice has landed the role of young Odd.

Both young actors were recently featured in the NM production of the Hallmark Hall of Fame original movie Beyond the Blackboard as premiered Easter Sunday on CBS – find it to see many of NM’s Own!

Major congratulations to these two New Mexicans for making great strides in their field and being true artists that we can all be proud of!

Tags: A&M Agency, Beyond the Blackboard, Jack Justice, Jack Justice Brown, NM Talent Pool, Odd Thomas, The Hunger Games, Willow Shields

Beyond the Blackboard

UPDATE 4/24/11: One of the Albuquerque natives who star in tonight’s premiere of Beyond the Blackboard has recently been cast in the upcoming major motion picture The Hunger Games. CONGRATULATIONS to New Mexico’s Own Willow Shields!

The Hallmark Hall of Fame original movie originally titled Let Them Shine, shot right here in NM last summer has a new name and an official air-date.

The newly titled, Beyond the Blackboard will debut on April 24th on CBS. Several locals worked on the film including OHI faves Erik Hausmanis, Lora Cunningham and many more local kids & crew…including up & coming cutie Jack Justice Brown…tune-in Easter Sunday night!

Thanks Marty

Tags: Beyond the Blackboard, Emily VanCamp, Erik Hausmanis, Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie, Jack Justice, Jack Justice Brown, Let Them Shine, Lora Cunningham, The Hunger Games, Timothy Busfield, Treat Williams, Willow Shields