Do you like to take scenery photos, have a house you are willing to rent or are willing to pitch in other ways?

Then the newly formed Bastrop Film Commission could use your help.

The group, which is under the auspices of the Bastrop Chamber of Commerce, held their first community-wide meeting Thursday night at the Bastrop Opera House. Group organizers say their intention is to bring more film and TV ventures to the Bastrop area.

Carol Pirie, manager of the Film Friendly Texas program with the Texas Film Commission, was the keynote speaker for the night. Adena Lewis, a director of the Smithville Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Smithville Film Commission joined her.

Pirie said she travels throughout Texas holding workshops for communities to help facilitate smaller towns in landing film and TV productions. She said Film Friendly Texas was started in 2008.

“The Texas Film Commission covers all of Texas, but we wanted something that also spoke for the smaller communities” Pirie said of the reason behind forming Film Friendly Texas within the TFC.

A few days after the start of the program in 2008, Smithville was named the first Film Friendly Community in Texas. That community has had great success in landing film productions, including “Hope Floats” in 1997 and the recently filmed “Tree of Life,” starring Brad Pitt.

Economic boon

Lewis said “Tree of Life,” which had major portions of its production filmed in Smithville, gave the town an economic shot in the arm.

“The film had a huge economic impact for Smithville,” Lewis said, adding that approximately $780,000 was spent by the production company, a figure which did not include the extra money spent by film workers who hung out in Smithville after hours.

“They spent a lot of time in (Heubel’s),” Lewis said of the well-known Smithville watering hole, which elicited laughter from the audience.

Pirie said both citizens and businesses can earn money from film production through the rental of those places as shooting locations.

Lewis said before a film company decides to shoot a production in a town, they almost always send out film scouts to get still photos of the place and check out the overall advantages to filming there.

“Sometimes you don’t even know they are coming,” Lewis said. “They won’t necessarily have ‘Hollywood’ written on a tee shirt.”

Other speakers at the Thursday night gathering at the Opera House included Chester Eitze, director of the venue who spoke about his hosting the commissary for the film crew during “Fireflies in the Garden,” a Julia Roberts film shot in Bastrop in 2007.

Tommy Warren, owner of Spiderwood Studios in Webberville, also spoke to the audience.

Warren seconded other speaker’s comments about the potential economic impacts of filming in local communities. “Even a small production can involved 40 people, and 100 people can be an average,” Warren said.

“I’ve been trying to get L.A. to listen to us that Texas is good place to film,” he said. Warren said a 3-D animation department he has established is bringing more work to both his studio and the area.

Pirie and Lewis said one of the immediate goals of the Bastrop Film Commission will be to establish a database highlighting what Bastrop can offer to entice film and TV production companies to come here.

For those wanting to volunteer with the Bastrop Film Commission, or to get further information, they may call the Bastrop Chamber of Commerce at 303-0558.