RDI Stages brings Hollywood to St. Francis

January 30, 2009

By Matthew Sliker

St. Francis got a taste of Hollywood Jan. 8, at the grand opening of RDI Stages, Wisconsin’s largest independent movie studio complex, 2525 E. Crawford Ave.

The gala was packed—between 800 and 1,000 people passed through the stage doors, according to an RDI Stages estimate. The crowd was composed of local residents, directors, producers, entertainment industry executives, politicians, and actors alike—including Tony Shalhoub, perhaps best known as the phobia-plagued detective from TV’s Monk.

Shalhoub was in town to help Lieutenant Governor Barbara Lawton cut the ceremonial ribbon and announce that he’ll be filming an independent movie, Feed the Fish, in Door County throughout February.

Scott Robbe, executive director of Film Wisconsin, said that RDI Stages will fortify Wisconsin’s budding entertainment production industry. “This building actually represents the last piece of the puzzle for truly building a dynamic and vital film and television production community in Wisconsin because now we can do interior scenes of movies as well as shoot on location,” Robbe said.

RDI Stages was cofounded by Janine Sijan Rozina, Tom Davenport, and Darrick Dysland. Davenport and Rozina are commercial photography industry veterans who opened their own photography studio, RDImage, on site in 2005. Dysland is the property owner.

When independent film production company Lightning Rod Studios needed green screen space to shoot its film Carnivorous a few years ago, it found space at RDImage, whose principals learned of the tax incentives being proposed to draw film industry investment to the state.

Later, after realizing there weren’t any large independent soundstages available in Wisconsin and when it became clear the film incentives would become a reality, the three began investigating what it would it take to open a movie studio on the property.

They went to Los Angeles and toured several studios including Paramount, Jim Henson, and Raleigh studios. “We decided that what we saw was not intimidating,” said Rozina. “We knew we could do it.”

Their complex consists of two buildings, set about half a block from each other on E. Crawford Avenue. Building 1 houses RDI Stages offices, RDImage commercial photography studio, and two large rental stages. Stage 1 is 4,800 square feet and includes production offices and dressing rooms. Stage 2 offers an additional 1,400 square feet and includes a full kitchen.

The second building, 3770 S. Pennsylvania Ave., houses Stage 3, a 1,700-square-foot rental space, editing suite, and production offices. It is also the home of two tenants—Creative Spurts, an online marketing firm, and Third Ward Records, a recording studio. The building also features a large multi-use area for set building.

Incentives Attract Dollars

Rozina said one of the goals of the grand opening gala was to show legislators and the community just how important an economic boon the tax incentives are for Wisconsin. The incentives provide a 25-percent investment tax credit for productions with $100,000 or greater budgets.

Effective Jan. 1, 2008, the tax incentives gave Wisconsin its biggest year ever in terms of film and television production. Sixteen television productions, nine feature films, and several national and international commercials were produced in the state, according to Lawton and Rozina.

Perhaps the most high-profile project was Public Enemies, a film starring Johnny Depp, shot throughout Wisconsin in 2008 and scheduled to hit theaters this summer. The project brought an estimated $7.5 million in expenditures to Wisconsin, according to Universal Studio’s actuals report.

Rozina said the incentives were the “only reason” for Wisconsin’s big TV and film year. “If we didn’t have the incentives, we would not have had any of those projects,” said Rozina.

But she and other film advocates expressed concern that proposed changes to the incentive program could hinder the state’s ability to attract new productions.

The Wisconsin Department of Commerce has proposed changes in its new budget proposal that would cap the film incentive program at $5 million annually and add ambiguous language putting the value of the credits in question, according to an open letter to Governor Doyle from Lieutenant Governor Lawton.

In the letter, Lawton wrote that, if passed, the proposal would suggest Wisconsin is disinterested in developing its film, television, and video game industry. “They would read that $5 million cap as emblematic of a state with no serious plans to compete, no ambition to expand the sector’s infrastructure capacity to create jobs,” wrote Lawton. “They would simply look elsewhere.”

Rozina agreed. “We have to remain competitive in this industry so that cap cannot happen,” she said.

Creative Potential

Lawton told the Compass the opening of RDI Stages is yet another way to bump up the attractiveness of Wisconsin as a filmmaking destination.

“This is a creative industry that has tremendous potential here [in Wisconsin],” said Lawton. “Someone’s even coming with Tony Shalhoub to do a movie in the dead of winter, for heaven’s sakes! This is a great place!”

Lawton is referring to Michael Matzdorff, a longtime film editor and Green Bay native who wrote and will direct Feed the Fish, a romantic comedy about a burned-out children’s book author who’s trying to get his career and life back together.

Matzdorff shot the annual polar bear plunge in Jacksonport, Wis. Jan. 1, and will return to Door County with Shalhoub in February to film the rest of the movie.

Matzdorff said Wisconsin is a “fantastic” destination for filming. “It’s got a ton of elements that are used in every story,” Matzdorff said. “It’s got big cities, it’s got open water like an ocean, it’s got hilly country, it’s got forests, it’s got farmland, and little towns in between.”

Shalhoub, who has family in Milwaukee, Appleton, and Green Bay, told the Compass he was excited to announce the new project and help bring awareness to the state’s blossoming entertainment industry.

“This was a perfect alignment of the stars. I wanted to come and encourage people to get behind the film industry in Wisconsin because it could really help the state,” said Shalhoub.

St. Francis City Administrator Ralph Voltner thinks the film industry will help St. Francis. He credited state legislators and the governor for approving the tax credits and said RDI Stages has the potential to create jobs in the area. “These are good paying jobs and uniquely different compared to most jobs in the Milwaukee area,” said Voltner. “We’re excited about it.”

Deepening the Talent Pool

During the RDI Stages grand opening, students from Milwaukee Area Technical College demonstrated their motion capture animation system, which tracks actors’ movements and converts them into a computer animation. For example, if a person, hooked up to sensors, jumps up and down, the recorded motion is used to create a more realistic computer animation. Similar systems have been used in popular films such as Titanic, Gladiator, Spiderman, and Pearl Harbor.

MATC is the first school in the Midwest to obtain such a system. When they acquired it in August 2008, the only other school in the country with the system was the University of Southern California.

Although schools like MATC have been training students in trades related to the film industry for years, Rozina said that past students might have had to leave the state to find production jobs specific to their training. “We’ve got programs here. Let’s keep them here. Let’s not lose these students,” said Rozina. “And so we have to grow this community.”

Rozina said that while Wisconsin already has a pool of trained production crews, it’s shallow. “We just need to deepen that pool,” she said.

Milwaukee residents Glen and Karen Copper came to the gala to see MATC’s demonstration. Glen is a retired Milwaukee High School of the Arts teacher. He’s also a screenwriter, but said he decided to teach rather than move to Los Angeles. Regarding Wisconsin’s up-and-coming film and TV production industry, he said, “I wish it was here when I came out of college 30 years ago.”

Karen is a retired employee of Channel 10, which is run by MATC. “It’s exciting to help Milwaukee move into this era of being able to make films and have a creative footprint in the nation,” she said.

Rozina said that working with Davenport and Dysland on RDI Stages has allowed her to dream dreams she never anticipated.

“I’m a little girl from Bay View,” she said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think something like this would happen to me personally, to the community, the industry, or to the state.”

Film Wisconsin’s Scott Robbe said future projects to be produced in Wisconsin are not yet ready to be announced. “But I would say you’ll see quite a number of feature films done here in the next year, as well as more television.”

RDI Stages brings Hollywood to St. Francis

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