'The Year One' movie set ... yeah, they still build 'em like they used to

Without question, "The Year One" is the wildest movie set yet built in northwest Louisiana. It's six acres, surrounded by many more acres of desert-looking sand, and stands in for the Biblical city Sodom. The set will get oodles of screen time when the Jack Black comedy debuts June.

Times photographer Greg Pearson (his work below) and I got a tour of it last week, led by Phillip Jordan Brooks. Brooks now spends his weekdays showcasing the set to scouts. The set hopes to book another picture there, and really it could be re-dressed as anything from Sodom to a stereotypical Middle Eastern village to a modern-day sword-and-sandal epic to a western. Who knows, but the site has tons of potential for future filming.





Here's a little about Brooks (pictured), who some may recognize as a stage actor who graduated from Centenary College's Marjorie Lyons Playhouse. He's also a filmmaker who shot the war short "Deliberate" in the bowels of Shreveport Municipal Auditorium.

After Brooks graduated, he began eying the film industry and ultimately landed his biggest movie industry gig on "The Year One" as assistant location manager.

He's between movie jobs right now, so he's focusing his efforts on developing a script of his own: a suspense thriller tentatively titled "Modern Day Lotus." Not much detail yet, except to say it's set in northwest Louisiana and that Brooks is modeling his efforts after those of director Jeffrey Goodman, who funded and filmed "The Last Lullaby" locally. If you want to get in touch with Brooks, just lemme know.