TV, film company lured to N.O.

• By GARY PERILLOUX
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Aug 20, 2008 - Page: 1D - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson and state economic development officials have persuaded an Atlanta TV and film production company to move to New Orleans, a company that will be housed in the WVUE television studios of Fox 8.

Horizon Entertainment would create 40 jobs in New Orleans in the next month, and company founder Jason Sciavicco anticipates filming about $10 million in reality-based TV series work in the next year, with plans to expand to major motion pictures.

Benson bought the TV station from Indiana-based Emmis Communications Corp. for $41 million in May, a month after state officials began actively working to bring Horizon Entertainment to the state from Atlanta.

Horizon already had produced the ESPN 2 television series “Varsity Inc.” about the successful high school football program in West Monroe last fall, a project that brought a $5 million economic impact to that city, state film officials said. Horizon also produced a similar series called “Two-A-Days” for MTV.

The Louisiana Department of Economic Development, through its Office of Entertainment Industry Development, worked with regional film offices throughout the state before pairing Sciavicco with Louisiana Media Co., the Benson-owned firm that bought WVUE.

Sciavicco will bring Horizon Entertainment to Louisiana as a joint venture with Louisiana Media, in which Benson’s company owns an undisclosed percentage.

Sciavicco, Horizon’s executive producer, is producing a new reality football series this fall at John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge

Average pay associated with the Horizon jobs will be $73,000 plus benefits, state economic development officials said.

LED Secretary Stephen Moret said his entertainment industry staff deserves much of the credit for bringing Horizon to the state permanently, and regional teamwork among GNO Inc., the New Orleans Film & Video Commission and Jefferson Parish government officials played a pivotal role.

“Most of the time when we’re successful, it’s the result of partnerships where you have local economic development officials and the state working closely together to make something happen,” Moret said. “And this is a great example of that.”

“We just had a good chemistry together,” Louisiana Media President Joe Cook said. “We like what we see in Jason, and I think he likes what he sees in us.”

Among the assets Louisiana Media offered Sciavicco’s firm is an expanded production studio with a 5,000-square-foot soundstage, five high-definition editing suites and full field production capabilities.

Cook said Horizon should move most of its equipment and occupy its part of the Fox 8 facilities on South Jefferson Davis Parkway near Xavier University in the next two weeks. If production grows to four or five projects in 2009 as the company expects, employment could exceed 100, Cook said.