Film commission puts Baton Rouge on movie map

There was a time when the Hollywood trades did not bother printing the name “Baton Rouge.” If an in-state film was not shot in New Orleans, then according to Variety or The Hollywood Reporter, it was simply made somewhere else “in Louisiana.” Change has come, though, and it is due in large part to the relentless efforts of the Baton Rouge Film Commission. A former veteran of Oscar-factory Miramax Pictures, Amy Mitchell Smith took office as director of the Baton Rouge Film Commission in January 2007. Still effectively connected with the Baton Rouge Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, but now joined by Katie Harvey—another New York transplant and a former post-production supervisor—the commission is a full-time staff of two tasked with selling the city as a filmable and hospitable location, then uncoiling the logistical challenges presented by the productions that say yes. Read the 225 magazine story about the work of the commission here.