VIDEO, PHOTOS: Fayetteville studio to help grow regional film economy, officials say

FAYETTEVILLE -- The people behind Rockhill Studios say major projects rolling through Northwest Arkansas will have a one-stop production shop to go with the region's scenic filming locations, boosting a budding film economy.

The full-service film studio at 240 E. Township St. opened to the public Wednesday. Mother-son duo Kerri and Blake Elder helmed the project with a number of partners, including actor Joey Lauren Adams, an Arkansas native. The building used to house an indoor bouncy-house for kids.

Rockhill Media, the production company associated with the studio, has been doing business since last summer. The completed, state-of-the-art facility will attract local and out-of-state film crews and could generate at least $20 million annually into the state economy, Kerri Elder said.

"There are that many projects that want to be here and want to come here," she said. "With this facility, we have the resources for them to feel comfortable."

The Elder family bought the building in 2016 for $1.9 million, according to property records. Inside lies a 4,000-square-foot soundproof stage. A 12-foot-tall, 11-foot-wide sliding front door weighing 4,000 pounds can be opened by hand, allowing in trucks and large production rigs. A 30,000-pound lighting grid propped with steel hangs overhead.

That's not to mention the hair, makeup and wardrobe stations, editing suite and vocal booth on the eastern end of the building. Plus, there's room to grow with unused portions on the western end.

Kris Katrosh -- media production manager with the University of Arkansas' Global Campus -- helped design the space. It offers something unique to the region, even when considering other adequate facilities such as the city's community access studio, he said.

"This is made for the feature-film level world," Katrosh said. "When you're shooting and it costs $100,000 a day to shoot, everything has to work exactly right. There's no room for error."

Mutiny FX, a visual effects company out of Bentonville, now has a single spot in which punch buttons on a computer and do motion-capture and green-screen work, said owner Dustin Solomon. Solomon also served as a producer on God's Not Dead 2, which filmed primarily in central Arkansas with some post-production shots at John Brown University in Siloam Springs.

"It'll be nice to potentially be able to come down here and have a large room and just get in and kick stuff around," he said.

Adams, known for her work on Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy and the Adam Sandler film Big Daddy, said Rockhill Studios is a world-class facility. Adams has known the Elders for years and serves as the studio's creative director.

"It's commercials, music videos, documentaries, films -- whatever," she said.

A 2012 Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation study found the creative economy in Arkansas pumps about $927 million into the state every year.

Large-scale projects want to stay efficient while creating a high-quality product, said Christopher Crane with the Arkansas Film Commission. For example, HBO's True Detective has been filming in Northwest Arkansas for several weeks. Rockhill Studios could serve as the difference in attracting the next equivalent, Crane said.

"It is a nice piece of that puzzle that we were missing," he said.

Rockhill didn't receive state tax breaks or financial aid from the city.

Mayor Lioneld Jordan said the city was on the heels of a recession and major ice storm when he first took office in 2009. He said he couldn't have imagined then the booming arts scene the city has now and thanked the Chamber of Commerce for its work in that achievement.

Jordan recalled sitting on the U.S. Conference of Mayors arts and tourism committee a few years ago.

"They used to say, 'Well we're doing this here and we're doing this there, and we're doing this in New Jersey and we're doing this in L.A., and we're doing this in San Francisco," he said. "But today, we're doing it right here."

NW News on 04/26/2018