Amid a post-COVID boom, Hollywood South went dark for much of the year as writer and actor union strikes stopped productions across the country. Now, more than a month after agreements were met, many in the industry are ready to get back to work. After a difficult year for the film industry, Hollywood South is ready to take on the new year.
“New Orleans will be on fire,” New Orleans-based actress, Sallay Shameka Gray said. “Everybody just cannot wait to be back to work. It’s good to see those things rolling in and those auditions coming back in.”
Gray has been offscreen for months, because of the strike. She describes acting as the kind of career you have to have a passion for because it comes with its challenges.
“You have to love it, you have to have resiliency, you have to have that drive for it. Because the burnout is real,” Gray said.
When actors and writer's unions across America went on strike earlier this year, Gray and tens of thousands of others were out of work. She used that time to pivot her career to theater, but not all of her colleagues had that option.
“You’re not working and you’re not making any money, and people haven’t worked since April. So that’s no money coming in,” Gray said.
But actors and writers weren’t the only ones affected by the strike. The months of negotiations were also a setback for production companies and film studios, including one here in New Orleans.
“It was a setback, the strike,” The Ranch Studios Co-Founder Sidney Torres said. “People were out of work. A lot of the services that do business with the movie industries lost that work.”
During the strike, The Ranch Studios in Chalmette had to downsize, while they waited for negotiations to play out. Now that the strikes are over, 2024 could be a banner year for the company.
“It’s very exciting, and not only to see the activity here and the employees, a lot of people, but the fact that this is an industry which is being anchored in Louisiana,” Torres said.
With several new feature films already lined up for January, the company is expecting a boom in business later this spring.
“We’re going to see more of an explosion, if you will,” The Ranch Studios CEO Jason Waggenspack said. “That’s what we’re expecting to really kind of get going in about March and April.
In 2021, the film industry spent almost a billion dollars in the New Orleans region, making it the fourth-largest production hub in the country.