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1. First off, some people may incredibly not even know where
Santo Domingo is. Could you tell everyone a little about
your country?
Well
First of all, Dale, its quite a common misconception that
our country is called Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo is
actually the capital of our beautiful country which is
called the Dominican Republic. Our gorgeous country is
located in the Caribbean and logistically friendly with
its flights of less than 2 hrs from Miami and 3 from New
York. We have every type of eco system imaginable from
Cactus filled deserts that look like the old west to
Arabian Sand Dunes, Tropical Rain Forests, and extensive
underwater cave system and amazing waterfalls. We even
have white water rafting in Pine tree laden forests. So
anything your script may be require we've got it all right
here.
2. Yet
there is room for a film industry there?
That's
a tough one. There isn't enough equipment or qualified
personnel yet here on our part of the island to have any
type of a quality local film industry, however for only
use as a location, bringing in the majority of the needed
keys and equipment from either Miami or Puerto Rico for
larger shoots, it's a perfect place for the film industry.
We have a limited amount of equipment on the ground,
enough for a small independent but lacking for a large studio
pic, and can usually fill any need from the best boy and/or assistant down. Third tier is what we call it.
3. What is the function of Santo Domingo Film?
Santo Domingo Film was first started as a Private Film
Commission to fill the need here in the DR to bring in
quality projects and thus creating jobs and education for
the locals during the administration of President Hipolito
Mejia, 2000-2004. He totally got it and
understood what I was trying to do and the potential of
such foreign stimulation to our economy, and opened every
single door for me and my filmmakers that was possible. He
exhonerated all of their sales tax, their service tax and
even the payroll taxes. He also exhonorated any
immigration taxes and fees and even waived the Visas for a
few of our European visitors bringing them in under
something we created called a Temporary Film Immigration
Permit. He allowed for the equipment to be imported on a
temporary import basis without any complicated paperwork
using a system that we implemented which was basically
like a carnet. As most jobs have to have a carnet to get
their gear back in the US, he allowed us to just leave a
copy of this carnet along with a gear list at the customs
port of entry and then the clients just had it returned
upon their departure for the ease of not only temporary
import, but also the export of the equipment as well. We
have now evolved Santo Domingo Film into Santo Domingo
Film and Music Video and also branched out as Serie23
Productions, Serie23 Casting, and Dominican Republic
Production Support as each and every job wanted to hire me
as their Supervising Producer, so I basically had to shut
down the Film Commission and start producing again full
time. I did this full time until I was approached by the
Mayor of San Pedro de Macoris who had been so impressed
with the increase in foreign filmmaking in our country
that he asked me to create a local film commission and
head it up for him. I have been with him since the end of
2004 and he has also created interesting incentives for
filmmakers or photographers who use San Pedro as their
backdrop for their projects. We can close streets at
anytime, use any public space with no permit fee and
basically anything we need to. The Mayor is a young man
who is attempting to create opportunities for his
townspeople through the film industry and we have been
extremely successful. We unfortunately aren't allowed any
financial incentives anymore as those are only given by
the National level of Government officials and the current
administration belongs to a different political party than
President Mejia and the Mayor of San Pedro, Tony
Echavarria, so they don't collaborate with any of their
efforts.
4. And what is your job with them?
I am a Supervising Producer with all of my companies and
Executive Director of the Mayor's Film Commission in San
Pedro de Macoris and I am President of the Fundacion MVP
which teaches and trains people in the film industry to
help them suceed in life in an area where on-the-job
education is not available here in the Dominican Republic,
and the education taught in the local schools is very
beneath the level of the International Film Industry for
which we train our people.
5. What are some of the types of music videos you
have produced?
In my lifetime I have produced over 200 Music Videos with the
majority of them being award winners. However, since coming
home to the DR, Alicia Keys Karma - which won
Music Video of the Year and was directed by Chris
Robinson, Robin Thicke and Pharrell, Wanna Love You
Girl with Hype Williams and Benzino, Wide
Body with Juan Carlos, are the ones that come to
mind. Believe it or not, I am most proud of Karma as it was the very first Mainstream
Music Video shot here in the Dominican Republic and won
MTV's Music Video of the Year which was an amazing
accomplishment for our entire country.
6. And films?
I served as Production Consultant on Lovewrecked
directed by Randal Kleiser which served as the precedent
for everything else to come here in this country. They had
attempted once to create an industry friendly to foreign
filmmakers years ago with The Godfather, but the project
was a complete disaster sadly, there were tons of problems
with the local side of the production which caused the
filmmakers problems with their completion bonds and the DR
was placed on the Blacklist of which everyone knows that a
studio pic without a completion bond is just not going to
happen.
Lovewrecked produced by Media 8,
coming off of their big Oscar win for Monster,
was the re-inauguration of the DR as it is today as a
viable location to film. We were afforded every single
incentive we asked for by President Mejia and the film
went off without any glitch, it was my first show as head
of the Film Commission. From there I served as Production
Consultant on The Lost City, Miami
Vice, The Good Shepherd, and was
Supervising Producer on the absolutely most amazing film
ever to come out of the Dominican Republic, Sugar. We are most proud of
Sugar
as we did everything from finding and casting the star
actor, Algenis Perez Soto in a gym and inviting him and
his brother to a casting at a Softball Field which they
thought was crazy, along with all of the Baseball
Principals, to finding each and every location except for
Baseball City used throughout the Dominican portion of the
film. We spent months traveling all over the country
putting thousands of kids on tape before or after their
practices to send them off to the directors so that they
could have callbacks when they visited. This amazing film
was shot right here in all of the areas of San Pedro where
the types of people portrayed in this beautiful film
actually live and play in. Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden were
the driving source behind each and every move we made.
They are absolute geniuses and it made our lives so easy
to give them exactly what they needed, as they always knew
exactly what they wanted. It was so amazing to see them
right out their in the middle of these cow laden fields
right alongside us looking for just the right person. None
of the actors used here in the DR were actors, they were
all just real people and the majority baseball players or
had played baseball except of course for the female roles.
8. With the economy in many large countries turning bad, do you
see people coming to places such as Santo Domingo to shoot
films or produce music videos due
to economics?
Of course, but this is nothing new, in the Fashion Industry
people are coming here looking for our exotic locations
for their photo shoots, but in the Film and Music Video
industry it's basically about their bottom line and always
has been. We work an 18hr day for around 50% IATSE rates,
but also have 2009 Suburbans in our garage which clients
always find crazy. I remember recently working on
something for VH1 and one of their executive producers
telling me, "Man, how in the world did you get
Surburbans in the DR?" He was really amazed and
impressed with the quality and the level of the services
that we provided for them, we were told that things were
even better here with us then they had been for them in
the past in Mexico and Puerto Rico, and that they would
definitely be back. That's what we're always striving for.
The repeat producer, the great word of mouth referral.
9. Does your company have any new productions in the preparation
stages now?
We
are currently working on a new reality Do-It-Yourself show
called Bringing Home the Spa and we are
currently shooting a show called BNN on the
Road for BNN in Holland, and have a couple of
Independent Features in development we are working with to
make their numbers work to get their green light for their
producers in the US. And then of course we are always
shooting Travel à la Mode for the Travel
Channel that airs on American Airlines, Delta and
US Air
on their coast to coast flights. We've been producing that
for the past 4 years.
10. How did you come to be involved in the film or music business
yourself?
I was extremely blessed to have met Rick McCallum of Lucas
Film when I was very young and from that very day I always
knew that I wanted to be him when I grew up. :-) I may not
have reached his superstar producer status of bossing
around George Lucas on film sets in my life, but being
the absolute best in the International Film Industry for
an entire country is pretty cool in itself. I later left
his side and worked with the most powerful man in the
Music Industry, Suge Knight, where I was able to learn the
ins and outs of the most incredible label in the history
of Music, Death Row. To this day I am in touch with the
man who was our mentor, Darryl Young, and his lessons in
both life and the industry are and always will be,
invaluable to me. I don't even think that Rick has any
idea what I'm doing now or how much he actually has
influenced my life and career. I hope to be able to share
that with him someday, maybe convince them to shoot
something here :-)
11. Would not the hurricanes in the area pose a threat to
concerts or film making?
Not at all. During the filming of Miami Vice the
hurricanes were used as an excuse for the crew to get out
safely after the famous on-set shooting that was provoked
by a member of security that the Governmental
Administration of President Leonel Fernandez had hired. It
was an extremely sad issue because just because you have
all of the governmental power in the country does not
necessarily mean you know what you're doing in the Film
Industry. On our sets we strictly follow the rule of The Crow based on Brandon Lee's death and we
do not allow our security to carry live firearms except on
the perimeter. However, when the government steps in and
tries to take over your set and says "we are the
government, we are all-knowing, you do what we say or you
won't be able to do anything", they had to do what
the government wanted and hire who the Government said.
But a third world military guy is one thing and a
Professional Security Staff well-versed in Set etiquite is
quite another. Hurricanes don't ruin our projects but
overzealous inept Governmental Authorities surely can.
12. Anything else you would wish to talk about before closing?
The DR is in desperate need for the same types of Governmental
incentives that President Hipolito Mejia allowed for the
film industry. In the past elections, the opposition
candidate Miguel Vargas Maldonado had bills and incentives
ready to present to congress had he won the elections. The
incentives basically offered a production loan program to
foreign filmmakers with the government taking a percentage
of profits with the employment of a small percentage of
locals. It allowed no fee - no stress imports and exports
and exhonorated each and every tax associated with the
project in hopes of stimulating the economy with foreign
filmmakers flocking to the DR and creating a species of
Free Zone for Filmmaking. It even allowed for any public
permit fees to be donated to a local film fund to promote
local filmmaking for the local Dominican filmmakers who
have no big budget possibilities. There was also a program
for anyone wanting to build infrastructure such as a
studio to take advantage of tax free construction and
operation for 15 years, and in addition the government
would donate the land or assist with finding private
donors. It was each and everything that we needed to be
competitive nowadays with the Bahamas buliding $25 million
dollar studios :-) for their visitors, Canada with their
great programs and every state implementing incentives to
prevent runaway production. The Government of Miguel
Vargas Maldonado would have donated everything needed to
assist foreign filmmakers, helicopters, locations, etc,
but along with his loss in the elections the film industry
also took a huge hit and lost out on some amazing
legislation that could have helped turn the country around
from the severe financial crisis it is living and the
terrible separation between the classes, and bring it into
the present all the while assisting foreign filmmakers
accomplish their goals.
13. Closing comments?
I was born in the Dominican Republic yet had the privelege
to leave as an infant and be raised in the US, and my
dream for this country when I returned home about 10 years
ago with all of my knowledge and experience stateside was
to mingle with the local industry, try and bring it to
another level and really start a local industry of
quality. What happened was anything but, I was attacked
from all sides by the local industry and asked "what
in the world could we learn from you, you just got here
and we've been making projects here in this country for 30
years." So in my defensive on such a senseless attack
I responded, "Well, did you ever think maybe THAT'S
your problem? You've been producing things HERE for the
past 30 years and haven't even been to the Universal
Studios Theme Park, much less on a live set on their Back
Lot?" So things basically went from bad to worse. The
only support I had was from the very President, which was
an incredible blessing for me, so I used that to my
colleague's advantage and got them to bring in everything
and everyone needed for their jobs and use our amazing
country as a beautiful backdop for their projects. On a
couple of my first attempts to hire locals, things went
terriblly wrong and I found out on one occasion that it
had been sabotage by a local company who thought they
could steal the client away for future shoots. A client
and crew that I had more than 15 years experience with in
Los Angeles. What happened? It totally backfired in their
faces, the clients, who were all friends or referrals from
friends all began to ask me, "What in the world are
you doing here? Have you lost your mind? Look at the way
these people work? Look at this equipment? How can you
stand it?" So instead of agreeing that I had lost my
mind, I decided to do something about it. What did I do?
Started buying my own equipment, so that I didn't have to
rent from someone who promised me a 10k HMI yet brought me
a homemade Kino Flo. And as for the personnel? I started
training people from scratch through the Fundacion MVP in
simple positions and for the more technical positions I
found really young kids with open minds and great talent
potential and put them with some of the great people I
have worked with for years and got them even more training
and now they are seasoned pros. For any position that I
can't promise A List Crew, I take my Production Fee and
fly someone in from NY, LA or wherever to get the job
done. I love the DR. I absolutely love it and would not
trade it for any place on earth, it's a paradise to me, but
I have lived through the school of hard knocks here and
ever since President Mejia left office things have just
gotten less efficient and alot more complicated, however
it just makes me stay on my toes and have to get crafty. I
pray that someday, someone, somewhere will understand the
economic impact that foreign filmmaking can have here in
this country and instead of opening their hands for a
handout and payoff, will open their hearts and minds to
help things work so that everyone can plant seeds of
promise together and then we can all continue to harvest
for many many years to come. My dream for this country is
that in 2012, Miguel Vargas Maldonado will be elected our
President, so that we can really get things started here.
I'll keep you posted!!!!!
Thanks for the interview, and the best of luck!
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