Sarasota is no stranger to movies. It was the setting for a Cecil B. DeMille epic, "The Greatest Show on Earth," which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1952.
And who can forget the 1984 Victor Nuñez period piece, "A Flash of Green," as reporter Jimmy Wing (played by Ed Harris) pondered the morality of rapine development (aka the creation of Bird Key).
This week a new story begins to unfold that could thrust the city and county deeper into movie limelight. The Ringling College of Art and Design wants to turn an iconic city building into a soundstage for digital film production.
The concept was laid out in a March 5 letter from college President Larry Thompson to City Manager Robert Bartolotta. "This opportunity will do two things: (1) benefit the academic program and the continued development of the Ringling College of Art and Design as one of the very top art and design colleges worldwide; and (2) help transform the City of Sarasota, Sarasota County and the entire Tampa Bay region into a place where filmmaking can take place and flourish," he wrote.
Thompson is scheduled to meet with Bartolotta and County Administrator Jim Ley on Friday morning to talk about the idea. Ley spent the earlier part of the week in Washington, D.C., attending the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference.
The municipal auditorium is a civic gem, built in part by the Works Projects Administration during the Great Depression. Designed in the Art Deco style, it opened on the bayfront in 1938. In 1995 it was recognized on the National Register of Historic Places. A five-year restoration was completed in 1997.
THOMPSON’S PLAN
Three years ago Ringling College began a new academic track that leads to the award of a Bachelor of Arts in digital filmmaking. Digital technology is quickly supplanting chemical film as the medium of choice for making movies.
Last year the Sarasota County Economic Development Corporation brought eight movie producers to town. "The producers fell in love with our region and thought it would be an excellent place to shoot a film," Thompson wrote. "But – and this is a big but – the producers unanimously agreed that Sarasota had to provide a soundstage in order for filmmakers to seriously consider working on a project of size in Sarasota."
A soundstage is a wide-open building without internal walls or supports. Inside sets are created, technicians erect lights for the cameras and directors can put actors through their paces – all without worrying about weather, extraneous noise or other complications. Normally a soundstage is a minimum of 10,000 square feet, exactly the size of the Municipal Auditorium.
Thompson proposes the city lease the building to the college at a nominal rate. The college already has a similar deal (with the Sarasota County School Board) for the historic Sarasota High School Building, which the college is converting into a museum of modern art.
Thompson says the college would be responsible for all the interior modifications necessary to create a soundstage.
"Because the college would not be using the facility full-time, there would definitely be available excess capacity for use of the soundstage by private productions, attracting revenue and jobs to Sarasota," Thompson’s letter says. "This is an enormous potential win-win for the college and the community."
"By combining the world renowned education with funds for script development and a high-end soundstage, the City of Sarasota will have a mixture of economic incentives that simply will not be replicable by anyone else," the letter concludes. "Those projects will not only infuse substantial revenue into a community, drive economic growth and provide press, publicity and drive tourism, they will also attract high skill, high wage people to relocate to our area as well, bringing families, buying homes and much more."
THE PUSH-BACK
The Municipal Auditorium is a busy place, as a glance at the monthly schedule shows. City Public Works Director Todd Kucharski says it is used for everything from a monthly flea market to reunions of Sarasota High School alums.
"Family events, training seminars, stamp and coin shows – the auditorium provides a venue for people," he said. "It’s a hidden jewel for the city."
Unlike its neighbor the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, the Municipal Auditorium does not require an enormous subsidy. Kucharski says year-after-year, the auditorium breaks even, though sometimes it has a $1,000 deficit and sometimes a $1,000 profit. "This year, it’s running at a zero deficit," he said.
The auditorium is unique in Sarasota. The Payne Park Auditorium is much smaller, and the Van Wezel is much different. The Municipal Auditorium is "a community space," said Kucharski. "We have nothing else like it."
Thompson was asked to present the soundstage idea to the Sarasota City Commission on March 15. Commissioners are already preparing questions for him.
March 11th 2010 - 8:56AM