On Saturday, November 21, a monumental event happened to position the Sarasota area as the film and new media mecca of the Southeast. This development is part of a comprehensive strategy to diversify the economy of the City of Sarasota and Newtown, Sarasota County and the greater region. What was that event? It was the groundbreaking symbolizing the beginning of construction of a professional/academic soundstage and post-production facility at Ringling College of Art and Design.

Let me start from the beginning. In 2007, right before the start of the Great Recession, Ringling College launched a Digital Filmmaking academic program. To differentiate this program from the other film schools nationally, the College decided to partner with David Shapiro from New York, owner of Semkhor. The idea was to bring professional filmmakers and talent to Ringling College and expose these professionals to Ringling’s exceptional talent, plus the wonderful Sarasota community. Over the past eight years, the College and Semkhor brought some 35 filmmaking professionals—including Forest Whitaker, Werner Herzog, Andy Garcia, Anna Paquin, Paul Schiff, Dylan McDermott, Andie MacDowell, etc.—to Ringling. Many taught master classes. Many fell in love with Sarasota and the College. Many wanted to find ways to engage with the College’s students and bring their media work to Sarasota.

With that goal in mind, a wide-ranging and diverse collaborative effort involving public and private entities, including Sarasota County and its Commissioners, the City of Sarasota and its Commissioners, the Economic Development Corporation and its Film Commission, the Newtown community, State Sen. Nancy Detert, David Shapiro and a group of private developers (BHS LLC), and many others, engaged with Ringling to help develop Sarasota into a film/new media center. The major obstacle to bringing film/media work to Sarasota was a lack of a sufficient physical infrastructure. There was not an adequate facility to do their work. Given Saturday’s event, that is about to change.

The new film complex is to be located on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way between Cocoanut and Central Avenues and MLK and 25^th Street.  It will be about 25,000 square feet with five soundstages (two large ones, one to be solely for academic purposes and three smaller ones) and a 5,000-square-foot state-of-the-art post production studio (where films are edited, mixed, dubbed and made final). Working directly with Ringling students, professionals will produce their commercial films or new media projects while teaching Ringling students “real world” skills. This complex will also be the hub for new media production, such as web series and episodic programming for distribution channels like Amazon, Netflix and other video streaming entities. So get ready, Sarasota, film and new media production is coming in a BIG way—and soon. The facility is expected to open about a year from now.

Why is this important? First, film/new media is a multi-billion dollar industry and this community is poised to get a share of those dollars. Second, Sarasota County and City plus the Economic Development Corporation’s strategic plans call for diversifying the economy of Sarasota. This project does that. Third, the unique academic benefits of students working hand-in-hand with professionals at Ringling College may well propel our film program’s Hollywood Reporter ranking from 17th in the country to the top 10 or top 5. Fourth, the soundstage/post production facility will bring people to work in Newtown (North Sarasota) and that will create opportunities for businesses in Newtown to be formed to serve those individuals. Fifth, there will soon be a vibrant film/new media facility that will become the new western entrance to Newtown. The list goes on and on.

None of this would have been possible without the initial help of Sarasota County Commissioners—the first visionaries to visualize this and granting $1.75 million to the College to create the post-production complex—and of Sarasota City and especially Mayor Shaw, who foresaw what it could mean to North Sarasota.  

Lights, Camera, Action. Sarasota—get ready to be in the spotlight and at the forefront of where media is going in the future.

Larry Thompson is president of Ringling College of Art and Design.