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Crossroads for the Arts

Mar 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Eric Melin

Content creation in Kansas City.

           

TakeTwo's facility includes edit suites, conference rooms, a shooting stage, and a bar and kitchen area that houses T2’s executive chef.

Modern communication and file distribution over the Internet have been game-changers for the Kansas City-based company, making it easier for T2 to get high-profile entertainment work. There wasn't even one face-to-face meeting with ABC during the entire process, and the MGM project would regularly include conference calls with up to six or seven countries on the line at one time. When a design is in its rough stages, clients can view rough-stage videos online or on their iPhones and directly respond to it.

T2 is leading the art direction and doing most of the motion-graphic design of We the People, a nonfiction movie that covers important American milestones such as the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the civil-rights movement. The Smithsonian Institute, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives are just some of the film's sponsors. Buchner says the movie is groundbreaking because a large bulk of the film is motion graphics, which is not typical for IMAX films due to the unwieldy size of the digital files.

Despite this recent work, the notion that a company in Kansas City can't run with the big boys is still something that T2 sometimes finds itself up against. In Buchner's estimation, it's a perception that literally comes with the territory. “It's being [in] a second-tier market. People from New York and L.A. look at coming to Kansas City for work kind of like we'd look at going to Des Moines for work,” she says. “There are probably very talented people in Des Moines — it just seems smaller.”

In another attempt to disprove that idea on a production level, Rogers started a traditional full-service production company eight months ago called Back Alley Films. The formation of the new company was also a growth strategy to help push forward T2's new direction, allowing the company to sell more motion design outside of Kansas City. Back Alley Films, in turn, can go after commercial spot work while both companies work together to complete projects.

“We wanted to go after the bigger kind of production jobs, and we knew we couldn't do it with production sitting inside a post facility. Commercial agencies believe that production companies need to exist as production companies and post companies need to exist as post companies,” Rogers says.

While the company's corporate clients were content under one roof (“all they want to know is that they're going to go to a company and they'll take care of it from concept through the dubs,” according to Rogers), agencies see it differently. “We wanted to get some of the bigger projects and bring business in from out of town, so we started Back Alley to sell production with the idea that it would also extend over into including post [at T2],” Rogers says.

Rogers' other position as chair of the Greater Kansas City Film Commission also helps encourage out-of-towners to film their projects in Kansas City. A $2.5 million feature called Last Will recently wrapped production in Kansas City, and T2 handled the film's dailies and synced up audio for the crew. Besides the obvious hotel and restaurant revenue that hosting a production can generate, many actors and actresses from the area appeared in the film, the crew was filled out with members of the Kansas City film community, and local equipment rental companies benefited as well.

“It really benefits the city and the industry,” Rogers says. “We are taking inquiries almost on a daily basis [from] filmmakers who are interested in knowing about locations and the tax incentives that are available in Missouri and Kansas. Our goal is to work with the Kansas and Missouri film commissions and bring film to Kansas City specifically.”

See T2's reel at reel-exchange.com/members/15429304/profile.