EDC hopes to gain attention with revamped CineVegas

Tuesday, May 7, 2002 | 11:13 a.m.

The Entertainment Development Corp. of Las Vegas, frustrated by not achieving its goal of enticing Hollywood to build a soundstage to support Southern Nevada movie production, now hopes to attract attention to the city by boosting the CineVegas International Film Festival.

"I'm not discouraged, just re-evaluating the process we have to take to get to where we want to be," said Mimosa Jones, chief executive of the EDC, a nonprofit corporation that is working to boost Las Vegas as a center for film, television, new media and live production shows.

Part of that new process, Jones said, is making CineVegas, scheduled for June 8-15, one of the premiere film festivals of the country. She discussed the festival and how it fits in the company's efforts to woo Hollywood in a recent appearance before the Las Vegas chapter of the American Marketing Association.

Since the EDC's inception in 1998, the company has made the development of infrastructure a high priority. Jones is convinced once a major studio is built in Southern Nevada, filmmakers will discover the other advantages the city has for the industry -- diverse locations, cheap labor and favorable weather -- and will consider bringing more work to Las Vegas.

"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," one of CBS' most popular television shows, is set in Las Vegas, but most of the filming and production work is done in Southern California. Jones is convinced "CSI" would be totally produced in Las Vegas if it had the soundstages the film company needs.

"Production hasn't dropped off," Jones said. "We're still getting work here. Getting 'Real World' was a big boost and we'll be getting 'Charlie's Angels II' in a few weeks."

"Real World" is an MTV reality series that focuses on the lives of ordinary people living in a house together. The series that debuts in the fall will be set in Las Vegas. "Charlie's Angels II" is a sequel to the 2000 feature film starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu.

" 'Real World' was a real coup for us," Jones said. "It's almost like an infomercial for Las Vegas because the characters work and live in Las Vegas."

The "Real World" crew began investigating Las Vegas as a location last year, began shooting the series in February and will have it on the air as part of the series' 12th season in September. Previous seasons have been filmed in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Hawaii, Seattle and London.

Now the EDC's focus is on CineVegas. The film festival was founded in 1999, but the EDC took over its direction in March 2001 when the two groups merged. The upcoming festival will be the first since the merger and the event has been moved from the late fall to the late spring.

In 2000 about 24,800 people attended the festival. This year's event will be headquartered at the Palms hotel-casino. The 14-screen Brenden Theatres will show about 40 films at CineVegas 2002.

The event will include premiere screenings and a series of receptions with filmmakers. Jones hopes the event can develop a following on par with Utah's famed Sundance Film Festival, created by actor Robert Redford.

But Jones knows that will take time, just as the effort to develop studios is taking time. Some of her critics, she said, expected immediate results for what she considers to be at least a 10-year project. The EDC, meanwhile, is continuing to educate Hollywood about the benefits of setting up in Las Vegas and will use the film festival to demonstrate the local community's interest in the industry.

Nicole Sperling, business editor of the Hollywood Reporter, a trade publication that follows the film industry, said getting Hollywood's attention can be a lengthy process and there are dozens of competitors using a variety of tactics to lure production.

Canada is one of the leaders in attracting the film industry away from Hollywood and has a key advantage that can't be duplicated by any state -- a favorable currency exchange rate. Film producers can make movies cheaper because the reduced value of the Canadian dollar goes farther, especially in labor costs.

Sperling said some states have countered with tax incentives, a move Nevada has not duplicated.

Members of the Greenspun family, owner of the Las Vegas Sun, have been prominent backers of both the EDC and CineVegas.com