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Film

Looking for love, indie filmmaker turns to Largo

By STEVE PERSALL
Published March 11, 2005

From the eighth floor of the Wachovia building, the landscape of Largo looks a little like Hollywood, minus the hills and the signature sign.

More important to motion-picture hyphenate Philippe Martinez is the city's aroma.

"I can smell the talent out there," said the 36-year-old producer, director and international distributor, whose Bauer Martinez Studios took over the entire eighth floor as part of a bold expansion plan.

Making such colorful declarations in a French accent as thick as his midsection fits the image of an international cinema entrepreneur. Then there's his Rolls-Royce, complete with chauffeur. Someone already pulled the old Grey Poupon gag at a Largo stoplight. The driver had to explain it to Martinez, who trots the globe too often to memorize American TV commercials.

If Martinez's nose is correct, Tampa Bay's film industry now has a successful player on its side.

After five years of dual operations in Los Angeles and London, Bauer Martinez Studios recently centralized its headquarters in, of all places, Largo. It's a family thing, since Martinez's mother, Viviane Patterson, lives nearby and his sister, Karinne Behr, has supervised the company's film distribution strategies for European markets from Largo for several years. (Bauer, in fact, is their mother's maiden name.)

Martinez is also a former Pinellas County resident, fondly recalling days when he co-starred in Cactus Flower with the St. Petersburg Little Theater in the 1980s.

After years of building stature in international markets, Martinez is refocusing operations, planning to make and distribute movies in the United States. The company is still a small fish in an ocean of like-minded studios, swimming against a strong economic current, but stronger with each stroke.

The new plan's inauguration will be the limited U.S. release on May 6 of Citizen Verdict, a campy political yarn set in Tampa and starring Armand Assante, Roy Scheider and Jerry Springer. Citizen Verdict was filmed locally in part in 2003, but mostly in South Africa, where economic benefits made it cheaper to produce. In the future, Martinez hopes to save as much money by staying stateside.

In the works is Genuine Article, a heist movie with Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider, Colors, The Hot Spot) as director. "Right now, we're trying to see if it's better to do it here or in London," said Martinez, whose hopes for producing the film around the Tampa Bay area are obvious. Another project on the drawing board, the action drama Silverfish, is also a local possibility, if Martinez's instincts are on the mark.

"Can we shoot one or two movies a year here?" said Martinez. "Of course we can, if we can get the permits we need to shoot. There are crew members and actors here. The real challenge is: Can we turn this town over the next three years into a real film community that can bring a bunch of people from Orlando or L.A. to make movies? I think so.

"I'm basing that on my hopes that the theater community is as big as it was when I moved to Clearwater 16 years ago. I remember there was a lot of stage talent, some really good actors. So I'm counting on that big time. If I have to fly every actor from L.A. or New York, it could be a major problem.

"It's very difficult. I'm assuming the worst. That way I have no illusions."

Martinez also wants to tap other local resources, beginning with marketing. He plans to contact film schools across Florida, offering cash rewards for unique ideas to sell his movies. "I'm convinced there's a kid somewhere who has better ideas than us," he said.

"Most film distributors are run by kids who get $20-million to promote popcorn movies. I am convinced there's another way to do it. We want to use Tampa, St. Pete and Clearwater as a laboratory of testing our ideas about how we want to promote films."

Those include traditional measures such as premiere screenings with spotlights and stars in attendance, and ideas spiced with old-fashioned ballyhoo, such as a proposed newspaper ad for Citizen Verdict presented as a questionnaire on the film's topic of capital punishment, with Springer and Uncle Sam looking equally grim.

Another bounty for promising screenplays is under consideration. "I believe that out there, in this town, is some young writer with a lot of talent who has a fantastic screenplay that we can put together for under $1-million," Martinez said. "Sometimes, those movies become wonderful surprises."

Bauer Martinez Studios (www.bauermartinezstudios.com) apparently has the capital to make such offers happen. Martinez claims the studio has spent $80-million in production costs over the past few years, for movies American audiences didn't see except at festivals and on home video. "We have to make four movies per year because of our overhead," Martinez said. "Why not do some of them here?"

The studio built its reputation on action movies easy to sell in foreign markets, starring actors such as Hopper, Christopher Lambert and Jean-Claude Van Damme - names that don't mean so much to U.S. audiences anymore. The studio's aim is occasionally loftier, though, with such projects as Modigliani, starring Andy Garcia as the famous Italian artist, and Land of the Blind, a political drama starring Ralph Fiennes and Donald Sutherland.

Such high-minded fare is more in line with Martinez's tastes than movies with titles like Dot.Kill and Wake of Death. His career began on the legitimate stage, first in community productions, then as president of the Odeon Theater in Marseilles, France, one of Europe's finest playhouses. "Then, unfortunately, I became a film producer," he joked.

"Being an independent producer is a rough life. People forget that Miramax (Films), before being bought by Disney, was screaming for cash on a weekly basis. It's a very tough business. . . . It's a business that really obeys no logic. It's very much like a casino."

After 17 credits as a producer - and his directorial debut with Citizen Verdict - Martinez knows the risks and rewards of such gambles. The stakes are raised by moving his studio's production offices to Largo, and refocusing distribution goals to include U.S. theaters, not just home video shelves. Martinez will spend half the year working in his Los Angeles office for creative affairs, just to stay in the Hollywood loop since Largo is so far out of it.

He believes the Tampa Bay region can move a bit closer to the circle. He's encouraged by the public support for The Punisher when local film commissions and governments did the hospitable things - granting permits for filming locations, providing skilled crew members - that made production easier. Tax breaks for film productions are juicier elsewhere, but sometimes even a movie producer needs a little affection.

"I don't want money," Martinez insisted. "London didn't give me money when I filmed there. Cape Town didn't give me money. I'm a selfish person. I want to know I'm loved, I'm admired and I'm surrounded by a very creative community. That's all."

[Last modified March 10, 2005, 10:11:02]