PEOPLE Kevin Bar
BY ERIC WEILBACHER
REIMAGINING THE TEXAS FILM INDUSTRY
$308 MILLION in new regional economic activity $107 MILLION in labor (2,065 jobs); and $8 MILLION in new tax revenue in the rst ve or six years. Hill Country Studios is expected to be the largest lm and television production studio outside of Los Angeles in the United States and is expected to bring:
Chief operating o cer named for Hill Country Studios in San Marcos
Hill Country Studios, a forthcoming $267 million lm and television produc- tion studio to be built o Wonder World Drive in San Marcos, announced Nov. 1 that former Net ix executive Kevin Bar would lead the development of the studio as its chief operations ocer. Bar brings more than 15 years of industry experience to the studio, both from Net ix and as vice president of Pinewood International’s Atlanta studio. Bar spoke with Community Impact about his experience and what he hopes to see Hill Country Studios become. This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Kevin Bar is the new COO of Hill Country Studios in San Marcos. (Courtesy Hill Country Studios)
HOW DID YOU GET TO WHERE YOU ARE IN YOUR CAREER, AND WHAT LED YOU TO HILL COUN TRY STUDIOS? I started with MTV, and MTV International in New York for about seven, eight years as well as a small stint in London. During that time I worked with some of the Pinewood Studios team from the London hub and stayed in touch as I sort of made my way out to New York. Pinewood Studios was building stages in Atlanta, their very rst studio in the US. … That was during the largest Georgia production boom that hap- pened between 2015 and 2018. It’s still going on now. From that position I found my way to Net ix, which at that time had a huge amount of content to produce and set up in multiple markets. I got con- nected with the Hill Country Group through some colleagues. … I thought it was a really exciting, unique opportunity to jump into something ground up that could really change the Texas lm industry. WHAT MAKES HILL COUNTRY STUDIOS UNIQUE? It’s unique in a sense that it can provide these premier facilities, great stages that supports oces, all the facility lots that you can really hit any range of production or credit require- ment, multiple shows or types of productions. So it doesn’t matter if it’s a large-budget feature, which it’s well suited for, or medium-sized television or independent or commercial or branded content. That is, we want to be a full produc- tion service partner. With facilities [such as] a large amount of land, a large studio lot and you can really help kind of ll the needs that any of these type of shows or budget ranges
would require. And then [there will be a] production service partner. We want to have vendors, whether on- or o -lot that we can resource to have multiple productions [to help] grow and with the workforce development, the training, be a partner to those groups, and hope- fully kind of [create] more crew depth and new training in the area in the local region. So have an awesome integration within the studio; I think that would make us really unique and really bene cial to any show coming into Texas. WHAT ADVANTAGES ARE THERE WITH THE STUDIO’S LOCATION BETWEEN SAN ANTONIO AND AUSTIN? On the Texas State [University] front, working with their students or their ongoing training or classes are structured so that we can help provide facilities, partnerships to collaborate with them and other universities. We’re very open to that. There’s been a lot of great results when these state universities can partner with professional businesses, whether it’s the vendors or studio group productions themselves, and come on and collaborate because it really would accelerate the training and can be really quick to kind of purpose t for what is needed in that area and for immediate jobs and long- term career development. [This] loca- tion is really, really great and equal distance in some ways to San Antonio and Austin, near the middle with all the growth and sort of growth into San Antonio. People move into Austin and San Antonio. A lot of production folks I’ve talked to and producers, they’ve had some interest to go to San Antonio, some will be going to Austin. There’s
attractions to both places, so it’s nice to be sort of [be] right there in the middle. HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN THE FILM INDUSTRY? Born and raised in Northwest Indi- ana. So high school, college I was just trying to study lmmaking, media, all kinds of production, whatever pro- gram I could get into. So from Indiana, I interned on a lm that was able to get me into an internship with MTV. From there I moved to New York and was an intern with the international department. I did eight years of pro- duction and production management operations while producing on the side and any other kind of moonlight- ing. ... That sort of helped me navigate in di erent areas in the business and do di erent jobs, writing, try di erent paths, which ultimately led me to be more in studio operation. WHAT MAKES A STUDIO OUT SIDE OF HOLLYWOOD UNIQUE? I think the big thing is—this comes up all the time—L.A.’s the center of the industry, the center of every- thing that ties in the industry, every company, every job, the production, the nancial teams. All the billing for business operations is all there. So I think from having a studio with the amount of production, the size of these productions, the footprint and what they need, space is such a premium. Some studios in Georgia have so much space to really accommodate the full size of a large Marvel movie or Western, they take an incredible amount of space and to have it all contained on one lot is most of the time unique to what they can get in L.A., because you’re usually just kind of piecemealing or patching production plants together [in L.A.]
THE STUDIO AT A GLANCE
Hill Country Studios will cover more than 209 acres, which will include: • 12 sound stages spanning 310,000 square feet; • two virtual production stages; • 310,000 square feet of modular o ces; • 15 acres of outdoor production space; and • 25 acres of vendor and commercial space.
FROM INCEPTION TO “ACTION!”
January 2020 Hill Country Group founds the studio concept June 2022 Tax incentives and development approval announced Early 2023 Construction slated to begin Early 2024 First productions begin
SOURCE: HILL COUNTRY STUDIOS, CITY OF SAN MARCOS COMMUNITY IMPACT
because of what’s available and where locations are. Georgia was unique, as the studio in San Marcos will be that you can really bring everything kind of full service within the studio walls, which is a huge logistics advantage. It saves time, saves money to sell to creative the full operation, because you can really just have a nice large and multiple large productions, able to get what they need to do or within the studio, and they’ll also nd that they can sort of rely on just the space and the footprint to be contained, which with another location is just harder to do.
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LAKE TRAVIS WESTLAKE EDITION • MARCH 2023
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