Triangle movie industry group formed

DURHAM -- Two Durham video producers are out to lure more movie business to the Triangle with a new agency to be "in full-time operation" by the middle of September.

Sandy Freeman and Rob Shoaf, principals in the Freeman Group production company, said Monday they intend to promote a 13-county region as a shooting location and by developing a local "crew base" producers can draw upon.

"We really want to build a new industry in this area," Freeman said. "It's really an untapped gold mine."

While Durham has often served as a movie backdrop over the past 30 years, and the Convention and Visitors Bureau has had its own film office, the Triangle overall has lagged behind other regions in the state.

Hollywood producer Thom Mount, for one, said it's a good idea.

"I talked to a number of motion-picture and television people in California, and they are gung-ho about it," said Mount, a Durham native who produced the hit "Bull Durham."

The region, which covers the area from Moore County north through Person and Warren County south through Johnston, has a great variety of locations and a labor force well versed in electronic production, Mount said.

"People who are smart," he said. The expansion of motion-picture making from film to video and computer animation, and of movies through television into video gaming has meant a "huge shift in ... the kind of people we're looking for," Mount said.

"Durham has done reasonably well," he said, in attracting production business, but has "nothing like a modern commission looking for more than movies and TV ... more media-oriented."

Freeman and Shoaf said they've been working up the idea for about a year, since working as location managers for the feature movie "Main Street" shot in Durham last year.

The cast and crew spent 10 weeks in town, injecting about $4 million into the city's economy, Shoaf said.

Besides Mount, Freeman and Shoaf have worked in consultation with the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, and economic-development association, and with the DCVB. Carolyn Carney, who has managed DCVB's film office, will become a Film Commission staff member and the commission's office is going to be at DCVB -- though Freeman and Shoaf said they'd eventually like to move to the Research Triangle Park.