As the first of several infrastructure projects planned for Louisiana, Louisiana-born Dr. Ken Atchity, chairman of Atchity Entertainment International, Inc. ( www.aeionline.com), announced with co-manager Fred Griffin of Houston's Griffin Partners, Inc. ( www.griffinpartners.com), the formation of Louisiana Wave Studio, LLC to own and operate the only motion picture-dedicated facility with built-in automatically-generating waves in the United States at Sealy-Slack Industrial Park six miles from downtown Shreveport.
Atchity produced 'The Madams Family' for CBS and Orly Adelson Productions in Louisiana. AEI is also producing 'Meg' (New Line, Jan de Bont directing) and 'Believe-It-Or-Not!' (Paramount, Jim Carrey starring). He was looking for a way to shoot a film about Katrina's impact on Charity Hospital when he came across the Shreveport tank and realized it was slated for removal. Backed by real estate developer Griffin, with the help of 'The Guardian's' Mark Indig and Shreveport's Roger DeKay, they were able to secure the support of the Shreveport community, assume the liability from Disney's A School Productions, and acquire the land and tank from Sealy, the company that manages the industrial park. 'I'm thrilled to be able to make a contribution to the infrastructure of the booming Louisiana film industry,' Atchity said, adding that his company is preparing a number of films to be filmed in the State.
The 750,000-gallon 'wave factory,' capable of generating and endless variety of waves up to 9' and horizontal storm conditions, was created by Aqua Tech of Flushing, New York, under the supervision of Col. Victor Lent for Walt Disney Pictures' A School Productions to film the motion picture 'The Guardian' directed by Andy Davis and produced by Peter McGregor Scott and starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kuchner. Col. Lent will serve as consultant to Louisiana Wave Studio (LWS).
The bright blue structure is 100 feet long, 80 feet wide, and 8 feet deep. On one side drums, or 'dump tanks,' can be mounted 50 feet in the air atop wide chutes to pour water onto actors or set pieces like ship decks. Three 150 horsepower fans and eight hidden chambers are used to churn up waves of any type or configuration the director can imagine. 'The Guardian' used set pieces constructed to resemble cargo ships, fishing boats and even a giant water cave, and employed high cranes and film production equipment including lights, scaffolding and camera cranes.
Production designer Maher Ahmad, who worked with Indig and Patrick McGregor-Scott on the design and construction of the wave tank, was quoted in previous news stories, 'We're doing something here, your audience should know, that's really never been done before. There's never been a tank quite like this one.' Ahmad, a veteran production designer, has worked on many films with big-time water effects. He helped build tanks to submerge a plane's fuselage in a river for ' U.S. Marshals' and sink a pirate ship in 'Miss Congeniality 2.' Though he would not disclose how much the tank cost to build, Macgregor-Scott was reported as saying, 'It is smaller than the one created for 'Titanic' but five times larger than the one used to shoot effects for 'The Perfect Storm.' 'They shot all of that wave-making (for 'The Perfect Storm') on Stage 16 at Warner Brothers,' he said, adding that their tank measured 20 by 80 feet.
Construction of the wave tank was a joint effort that included, under Colonel Lent's supervision, the local engineering firm Aillet, Fenner, Jolly and McClelland, Minden-based McInnis Bros. Construction, and Aquatic Development Group from Albany, N.Y., which designed the wave-making equipment and makes wave pools for theme parks.
Louisiana Wave Studio acquired approximately 18 acres around the tank and leasing rights on an adjacent 51,000-sq-ft warehouse to accommodate future infrastructure expansion plans. 'The operation of the wave pool,' said Griffin, is just 'phase one. We are exploring further development to complement what northwest Louisiana filmmakers already have in place or in planning stages.'
According to Betty Jo LeBrun-Mooring, executive director of the Shreveport-Bossier Film Office, 'The wave pool is an invaluable asset to the film infrastructure of Shreveport-Bossier City. We are thrilled that it will continue to be available for films to use, as it makes the area just that much more attractive to productions.'
