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Friday, 20 January 2012 22:01

Written by Barbara Vancheri

At last! Some insider news about "One Shot," which finished filming in Pittsburgh earlier this week and should arrive in theaters in 2013.

Executive producer Jake Myers, who had returned home to New York, flew back Thursday (during the snow) to address the Pennsylvania Film Industry Association at the Westin Convention Center hotel. He's shown in the above photo.

In addition to providing a recap of his personal history and how he started as a production assistant – "a human parking cone," he joked – and ended up as a producer of such uniformly fine films as "Man on a Ledge" (arriving in theaters Friday), "Red," "1408" and "Chicago," he talked about the project that filmed here for months.

There was more discussion about tax incentives than Tom Cruise but one absolutely led to the other. Myers, forced to watch Steelers games as a child thanks to a grandmother from Ben Avon, said "One Shot" came to Pittsburgh because of the state's incentive, pure and simple.

Tax credits are a "game changer," he said, and the amount of money a state pays back is a fraction of what it brings in. To continue to attract business, the commonwealth needs to retain the incentives and Pittsburgh needs to further develop its infrastructure – especially soundstage space – and expand and train more crews since "One Shot" used a huge amount of people and even ran out in some areas.

In an ideal situation, state leaders build longevity into their tax credits; that creates a sense of security among producers weighing one state against another. It wasn't until New York's tax incentive was renewed that "Man on a Ledge" got the go-ahead. It was shot at the Roosevelt Hotel which, Myers belatedly realized, was a carbon copy of the Omni William Penn. He could have shot it here.

But Myers spent a good part of 2011 in Pittsburgh for "One Shot," which is based on Lee Child's novel of the same name about an ex-military investigator named Jack Reacher (Cruise, in PG photo by Nate Guidry at left) who comes to suspect the wrong person has been accused in a deadly sniper incident.

The story, largely set in the state of Indiana in the book, now takes place in Pittsburgh so the film could take advantage of the rivers, ballparks, bridges and everything else the city and its surrounding areas had to offer.

That included a quarry in Saltsburg, Indiana County, which took two hours to reach nightly and turned into a mud hole once the rain started. Myers learned October is not the driest month here but the quarry, he said, looks great on film. And so should the illuminated 10th Street Bridge which factors into a spectacular unscripted car chase.

In the meantime, efforts continue to ensure the state keeps the tax credit. Go to www.capwiz.com/iatse489 for details. For more information about the association which invited Myers, see www.pafia.org.

And the Pittsburgh Film Office's annual Oscar gala should have some fabulous autographed items for auction, given the stars who have passed through town. See www.pghfilm.org to order tickets for the party at Heinz Field on Feb 26. Look for the "Highmark Presents Lights! Glamour! Action" info.

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