A new building is going up on Huey P. Long Avenue in Gretna -- but it's not permanent. Rather, it's part of a set for a new movie and one of the tell-tale signs of the growing number of film and television productions taking place in Jefferson Parish.
"We continuously get to work, and we love it," said Jefferson Parish resident Valerie Ryan, who works as a location manager for local productions.
Right now, Ryan is working on a new TV cop show called "Common Law."
"They love our people," she said. "They love the food -- of course, who wouldn't like the food here? But they really like being down here."
What they also like are the incentives. Along with the 30 percent filming tax credit provided by the state, Jefferson Parish is also offering an additional 3 percent cash rebate -- the only parish in the state to do so.
"It definitely gives Jefferson Parish an advantage," said Jennifer Van Vrancken, Jefferson Parish's Film Liaison.
That rebate translates into big bucks. This year alone, the parish issued eight film incentive rebate checks, totaling $347,739.
However, those eight productions spent a combined total of $15,398,396 in Jefferson Parish. It's not just the three percent rebate that productions find attractive here-- it's also what they call the "visual diversity" of Jefferson Parish.
"We have beaches in Grand Isle, swamps in Lafitte, beautiful homes in Old Metairie," said Van Vrancken, "but it's the bottom line, the dollars that we offer them back, for being here."
Those dollars are helping the Elmwood area of Jefferson Parish become a production hub.
"It was the place to be for production. We moved into a building that's owned by another production company, called Moxie Media, so we're kind of brother/sister companies," said Will Morrow of Full Motion Productions. "It seems every time I go down a different street, I'm seeing a production company pop up."
Those productions dollars are spreading to other businesses, including a 15 percent increase in business for Stan Benoit. He owns "Hose Guys," a hydraulic hose company, which works on pyrotechnics for movies in Jefferson Parish.
"Who would think that a hydraulic hose company would have that much to offer to a movie set or a movie studio, in filming movies? It really surprised me," Benoit said.
There were 24 film productions in Jefferson Parish this year -- up from approximately 14 the year before.
2011年11月1日星期二
Newark flight makes emergency landing in Poland
A Boeing 767 on a flight from Newark, New Jersey, made a dramatic emergency landing at Warsaw, Poland's Frederic Chopin International airport Tuesday after problems with its landing gear, an airport spokeswoman said.
All the passengers on the flight, from Newark Liberty International Airport to Warsaw, are safe and uninjured, she told CNN. Newark Liberty serves the greater New York area.
The LOT Polish Airlines flight, which had been due to land at 1:35 p.m. local time, circled above the airport for an hour before coming down in a belly landing at 2:40, she said.
"After noticing a central hydraulic system failure the standard procedure for emergency landings at Warsaw airport were implemented," LOT said in a statement, saying emergency crews were in place on the ground to assist.
Video footage from the scene showed the plane coming in to land without its wheels down and skidding along the tarmac to a halt. Emergency vehicles raced toward the aircraft and appeared to hose it down as passengers disembarked.
There were 231 people aboard the flight, 220 of them passengers and 11 crew, the airline said.
The passengers "stayed calm" during the emergency landing, and after reaching the terminal were cared for by support staff and psychologists, the airline said.
They are being allowed to go home after a medical examination and a brief police interview, it added.
Other travelers face significant disruption.
The airport will remain closed until at least 8 a.m. local time Wednesday because the damaged aircraft is blocking the runways, an airport spokesman told reporters.
LOT said all its flights scheduled to leave later Tuesday have been canceled. Incoming flights have been redirected to other airports in Poland, it said, and passengers will be brought from there to Warsaw.
The airport is Poland's busiest, handling almost half its air passenger traffic with about 100 scheduled flights a day, the airport's website says.
LOT, the Polish flag carrier and one of the world's oldest airlines, is currently offering special deals on flights from the New York area to Warsaw.
In 2010, it carried more than 4.5 million passengers, nearly three-quarters of whom were on international flights, its website says. The airline said it aims to offer quality of service and value for money.
All the passengers on the flight, from Newark Liberty International Airport to Warsaw, are safe and uninjured, she told CNN. Newark Liberty serves the greater New York area.
The LOT Polish Airlines flight, which had been due to land at 1:35 p.m. local time, circled above the airport for an hour before coming down in a belly landing at 2:40, she said.
"After noticing a central hydraulic system failure the standard procedure for emergency landings at Warsaw airport were implemented," LOT said in a statement, saying emergency crews were in place on the ground to assist.
Video footage from the scene showed the plane coming in to land without its wheels down and skidding along the tarmac to a halt. Emergency vehicles raced toward the aircraft and appeared to hose it down as passengers disembarked.
There were 231 people aboard the flight, 220 of them passengers and 11 crew, the airline said.
The passengers "stayed calm" during the emergency landing, and after reaching the terminal were cared for by support staff and psychologists, the airline said.
They are being allowed to go home after a medical examination and a brief police interview, it added.
Other travelers face significant disruption.
The airport will remain closed until at least 8 a.m. local time Wednesday because the damaged aircraft is blocking the runways, an airport spokesman told reporters.
LOT said all its flights scheduled to leave later Tuesday have been canceled. Incoming flights have been redirected to other airports in Poland, it said, and passengers will be brought from there to Warsaw.
The airport is Poland's busiest, handling almost half its air passenger traffic with about 100 scheduled flights a day, the airport's website says.
LOT, the Polish flag carrier and one of the world's oldest airlines, is currently offering special deals on flights from the New York area to Warsaw.
In 2010, it carried more than 4.5 million passengers, nearly three-quarters of whom were on international flights, its website says. The airline said it aims to offer quality of service and value for money.
2011年6月12日星期日
Gold rush another blight to ailing Amazon jungle
A gold rush that accelerated with the onset of the 2008 global recession is compounding the woes of the Amazon basin, laying waste to Peruvian rain forest and spilling tons of toxic mercury into the air and water.
With gold's price soaring globally as the metal became a hedge against financial uncertainty, the army of small-scale miners in the state of Madre de Dios has swelled to some 40,000. The result: Diesel exhaust sullies the air, trees are toppled to get at the sandy, gold-flecked earth and the scars inflicted on the land are visible on satellite photos.
"Extracting an ounce of gold costs from $400 to $500 and the profit is $1,000 per ounce," notes Peru's environment minister, Antonio Brack. In just a decade, gold has more than tripled in value.
The situation in the southeastern state of Madre de Dios, which borders Brazil and Bolivia, is mirrored in dozens of the countries where gold is similarly mined, and where the desperately poor often end up working for the most unsavory of opportunists.
Government controls are mostly futile.
As the industry has grown, heavy machinery has moved in bearing Caterpillar, Volvo and other international trademarks into a state the size of Maine or Portugal, whose remotest reaches are believed inhabited by uncontacted Indian tribes.
In February the Peruvian navy dynamited 13 dredges which, working in violation of a government ban, were choking the Madre de Dios river with silt, killing plants and destroying habitats. Protesting laborers blockaded Madre de Dios' only highway, and at least three people were shot and killed by police sent from Lima.
"One of the big hydraulic dredges we destroyed could easily harvest a kilogram (worth about $45,000) of gold a day," said Brack.
Rather than try to evict the thousands of protesting informal miners, the government decided to work to "formalize" their operations, which have denuded well over 180 square kilometers (70 square miles ) of jungle in Madre de Dios.
With gold's price soaring globally as the metal became a hedge against financial uncertainty, the army of small-scale miners in the state of Madre de Dios has swelled to some 40,000. The result: Diesel exhaust sullies the air, trees are toppled to get at the sandy, gold-flecked earth and the scars inflicted on the land are visible on satellite photos.
"Extracting an ounce of gold costs from $400 to $500 and the profit is $1,000 per ounce," notes Peru's environment minister, Antonio Brack. In just a decade, gold has more than tripled in value.
The situation in the southeastern state of Madre de Dios, which borders Brazil and Bolivia, is mirrored in dozens of the countries where gold is similarly mined, and where the desperately poor often end up working for the most unsavory of opportunists.
Government controls are mostly futile.
As the industry has grown, heavy machinery has moved in bearing Caterpillar, Volvo and other international trademarks into a state the size of Maine or Portugal, whose remotest reaches are believed inhabited by uncontacted Indian tribes.
In February the Peruvian navy dynamited 13 dredges which, working in violation of a government ban, were choking the Madre de Dios river with silt, killing plants and destroying habitats. Protesting laborers blockaded Madre de Dios' only highway, and at least three people were shot and killed by police sent from Lima.
"One of the big hydraulic dredges we destroyed could easily harvest a kilogram (worth about $45,000) of gold a day," said Brack.
Rather than try to evict the thousands of protesting informal miners, the government decided to work to "formalize" their operations, which have denuded well over 180 square kilometers (70 square miles ) of jungle in Madre de Dios.
2011年4月13日星期三
Dharne & Co. redesigns Ecommerce website for Three Day Tool Service
Dharne & Co. is pleased to announce the launch of a new and improved Ecommerce website for Three Day Tool Service, Inc.
Three Day Tool Service is a reputed industrial tools and equipment dealer and repair firm. The firm specializes in providing semi-trailer- truck body tooling, grinding tools, riveting and hydraulic tools, air tool parts with hose fittings, accessories and supplies. The firm wanted a website that was easy to navigate for visitors and easy to manage for the site administrator. Three Day Tool Service offers a wide range of tools across several product categories. A new website was needed to display the tools in an effective manner according to the different product domains.
Dharne & Co designed an improved version of the website with each product vertical having a separate domain and path. The home page serves as a common interface for the different product domains accessible by way of the menu bar at the top of the page. The new website considerably improves the user experience making it easy to shop for the various products. Customers can now shop across the different product domains without having to manually enter the details every time a new order is to be made.
The website is built using a robust Ecommerce platform, the Zen Cart. The shopping cart comes with several features enabling prospective buyers to shop easily in a minimum number of steps. The site administrator can add products and categories without requiring much technical know-how. The website provides for a secure mode of payment using offline credit card processing facility. Dharne & Co also configured a shipping calculator into the website to provide an estimate of the shipping costs and enable quicker order processing.
The website layout was designed using an attractive theme and different color schemes for each product domain. A revolving Flash banner provides first time visitors with an eye-view of the product range according to different categories. The website has been custom designed from start to end to provide a convenient shopping experience for customers.
About Dharne & Co: Dharne & Co. is a professional website design firm based near Irvine, Orange County, California that offers website design service to clients across several industry verticals. The company has a proven record of delivering expert website design and development solutions to businesses in the Greater Los Angeles Area with clients across LA, Long Beach, Anaheim, Santa Ana, San Bernardino and Riverside.
Three Day Tool Service is a reputed industrial tools and equipment dealer and repair firm. The firm specializes in providing semi-trailer- truck body tooling, grinding tools, riveting and hydraulic tools, air tool parts with hose fittings, accessories and supplies. The firm wanted a website that was easy to navigate for visitors and easy to manage for the site administrator. Three Day Tool Service offers a wide range of tools across several product categories. A new website was needed to display the tools in an effective manner according to the different product domains.
Dharne & Co designed an improved version of the website with each product vertical having a separate domain and path. The home page serves as a common interface for the different product domains accessible by way of the menu bar at the top of the page. The new website considerably improves the user experience making it easy to shop for the various products. Customers can now shop across the different product domains without having to manually enter the details every time a new order is to be made.
The website is built using a robust Ecommerce platform, the Zen Cart. The shopping cart comes with several features enabling prospective buyers to shop easily in a minimum number of steps. The site administrator can add products and categories without requiring much technical know-how. The website provides for a secure mode of payment using offline credit card processing facility. Dharne & Co also configured a shipping calculator into the website to provide an estimate of the shipping costs and enable quicker order processing.
The website layout was designed using an attractive theme and different color schemes for each product domain. A revolving Flash banner provides first time visitors with an eye-view of the product range according to different categories. The website has been custom designed from start to end to provide a convenient shopping experience for customers.
About Dharne & Co: Dharne & Co. is a professional website design firm based near Irvine, Orange County, California that offers website design service to clients across several industry verticals. The company has a proven record of delivering expert website design and development solutions to businesses in the Greater Los Angeles Area with clients across LA, Long Beach, Anaheim, Santa Ana, San Bernardino and Riverside.
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