Casino news source: Press Enterprise - http://www.pe.com
Band takes lead in wooing LA film crews
By KIMBERLY PIERCEALL
The Press-Enterprise
Inland tribes have long advertised their slot machines and table games as a nearby gambling alternative to Sin City.
Now, some are using the same logic to attract Los Angeles-based film crews looking for casino views, and at least one is aiming to be more than a Las Vegas impersonator.
Offering a 32,000-acre reservation with roaming cattle, open hillsides, and even a quarry, while promising to do almost anything a film crew might need inside the casino -- quieting music, programming television sets, cordoning off a bank of slot machines -- Michael Potts, director of sales and marketing at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa, has taken the lead in attracting film and television to the Morongo Band of Mission Indians' reservation in Cabazon.
Rather than waiting for Hollywood to call, the tribe has partnered with the Inland Empire Film Commission to set up an office inside the hotel to assist location scouts.
It adds another form of revenue for a tribe that already counts retail, restaurants, water bottling, lodging, gambling and energy production among its economic ventures.
"Anything you're looking at, you can shoot," said Potts in early June while he led a group of 17 location scouts with credits from television shows such as Showtime's "Dexter" and films such as the recently released "Transformers" on a tour of the tribe's reservation.
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Michael Potts, left, director of sales and marketing at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa, leads a tour for location scouts.
"Anything" includes the casino's bathrooms -- already used in three productions -- and even the hotel's employees, who become willing extras.
Terry Gusto, a former location manager for the Showtime series "Huff," brought a crew to the Morongo Casino Resort and Spa for two days.
Producers still had to pay for food and rooms for crew at the casino, but he said travel costs were better, compared with making the trek to Las Vegas.
"You don't get the Strip, but if you're not featuring the Strip, you get everything else," said Gusto, who is now working on Showtime's "Dexter."
For most Los Angeles-based location scouts, the expense of filming in Las Vegas is transporting crews and equipment to the city and putting them up for the night in hotels.
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Otherwise, filming in Las Vegas comes with few fees. Major hotels rarely charge site fees outright but do sometimes require script approval. Rolly Stoffel, assistant manager of the Nevada Film Office's Las Vegas division, said there are no permit or site fees for shooting footage of the iconic destination from city sidewalks.
Tribes' Policies Differ
At the Pechanga Resort & Casino near Temecula, a network's unnamed reality television show finished filming a segment this week, said Audra Merrell, the hotel's spokeswoman. Merrell said the hotel has been a setting for episodes of "Smith," "CSI: Miami," "Bridezillas," and "Flavor of Love." Typically the resort charges $10,000 per day.
Security concerns and potential environmental damage have kept the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians from trying to attract films and television series to their two casinos in Palm Springs and outside Rancho Mirage as a Hollywood backdrop. Shooting footage in the tribe's Indian Canyon popular with hikers costs $1,000 a day and is typically discouraged because a large crew could trample habitat.
"Generally, it's not something we open the casino to," said Nancy Conrad, government affairs spokeswoman for the tribe. "A project would have to be very closely looked at and reviewed."
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The tribe's own commercials, which star John O'Hurley, better known as Peterman on "Seinfeld," require approval and oversight of the tribe's gaming commission during filming and background checks for crew members because of the significant sums of money stored on site.
Jay Chesterton, vice president of hotel operations for Fantasy Springs Resort Hotel and Casino in Indio, said the hotel doesn't actively seek film and television shows and doesn't have permits and guidelines besides those that govern events held at the property. This year the resort hosted the ESPN show "Rome is Burning."
Inland Casino, Many Roles
The Morongo Band of Mission Indians charges about $10,000 per day in most cases to shoot, not counting security and catering costs the resort requires.
Los Angeles crews haven't balked. A television pilot starring Hugh Jackman about a Laughlin, Nev., casino owner was shooting scenes inside the Morongo resort as recently as July.
"You've got to be inventive. LA's getting very expensive to shoot now," said Ilt Jones, a location manager who worked on "Transformers."
Inside The Vibe nightclub at the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa, the location scouts milled about, peering in staircases and behind the bar.
"It has a nice compression. You have a lot in one shot," Jones said. "That's what we're always looking forward to is multi-functionality."
In the mind of a location scout, the front desk isn't just a front desk -- it's an airport check-in counter. A deserted house surrounded by desert scrub? It could be a safe house for criminal types.
The Morongo Band made an effort to showcase its other potential backdrops, taking an entire weekend to tour most of the 32,000 acres of the tribe's reservation with the 17 location scouts to see a former quarry that's now a gravel pit, a water-bottling factory, a bowling alley, restaurants, a gas station and untouched terrain deep in the reservation that could double for a Western scene or even a European hillside.
Most are areas restricted to tribal members, rarely seen by the non-Indian public.
"If you're looking for an older-type casino, this can be used every day," said Thomas Linton, planning and economic development director, motioning to the tribe's original casino and bingo hall.
"You can be on the desert floor and looking at some Iraqi scene and then you have mountainous terrain," he said. |
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