Entertainment
Hollywood-type movie studio opens in Cebu South Road Properties
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Nov 11, 2008 - 8:14:50 AM

CEBU CITY, Nov. 11 (PNA) – The multi-billion-peso South Road Properties (SRP) of the Cebu City Government now hosts a Hollywood-type movie studio, giving taxpayers their first close-up look at investments there.

Only the first phase of the project has been built, a rectangular building with four shooting stages, production rooms and a helipad.

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmena, who inaugurated the project over the weekend, said that Michael Gleisser of Bigfoot International has so far invested some P2 billion in Cebu, including the international movie studio at the SRP.

A Filipino architect designed the studio, a project of Bigfoot Entertainment.

Osmena used the story of how Gleissner chose Cebu to invest in as an example of giving “personal attention to investors,” which he said is high on the city’s priorities.

Aside from having less pollution and a lot of beaches, it was the “good treatment” that Gleissner got from the Cebuanos that made him pick Cebu to set up Bigfoot Entertainment and his film industry ventures, the mayor said.

”Gleissner is training Cebuanos to make movies not Manila-style, but for Hollywood,” Osmena said.

Cebuanos are currently a minority at Bigfoot’s film school, the International Academy of Film and Television (IAFT). Most of IAFT’s Filipino students come from Manila, said Sarah Abadia, the architect who designed the studio.

Abadia said the majority are foreigners, coming from countries like Germany and India.

But Gleissner said he is confident that Cebuanos could make Hollywood-quality films and added that more structures and production facilities will be added to their SRP site.

The shooting stages can be converted into sound-stages that are sound-proof and do not carry echoes, said Abadia. This, with its accompanying rooms and helipad, cost P150 million and took 13 months to build.