New Orleans Music & Film Strategy

Talent working without integration with the wider infrastructure is doomed to be limited in its success.

Working together to define what needs to change, working with those who can enable those changes - and working from realism and passion - a strategy was born.

It was a strategy whose development was led by Paquita but it was a strategy defined by the people it most affected.

It was enacted without any overseeing officer or ongoing funds.

New Orleans can truly say: We did it ourselves.

Paquita says she just provided a bit of guidance - but she was a catalyst bringing together the key elements in a productive environment to generate real change.

That change was the foundation which led New Orleans to become the leading film site location in the USA - and create a robust and growing economy. Key actions the strategy achieved? 

Loyola University Law School took to redress the wrongs of Rights for the talented New Orleans musicians who were blocked from achieving benefit from their creativity - something the big music companies did benefit from.

The Louisiana State Legislature enacted a changed law to encourage the attraction of film and music production and site locations within the State. For context, Forrest Gump was a Louisiana- based film but was filmed in Mississippi because of the previous unhelpful laws and tax arrangements. From this first success  a film company ran a test case with around $1.5m investment so that every element of the new law would be tested and recieve judgement. All were done within a six week period.

New Orleans removed its previous tax on live-music venues.

AVID lent the city a mixing deck for 18 months so that local artists could become familiar with, and experts in the newly developed High Definition film production.

They did it themselves.

Paquita was the catalyst