If all goes as planned, the country’s second-largest Black-owned film studio will rise in Whitehaven over the next few years. 

BLP Film Studios got approval this week from the Land Use Control Board for an 85-acre compound in Whitehaven, where plans call for a dozen state-of-the-art soundstages and a battery of supporting facilities, including post-production studios, warehouses, workshops, offices and lodging spaces for production crews.

The proposed project would be located on a patch of generally undeveloped land near the southwest corner of Elvis Presley Boulevard and Holmes Road. 

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Designed to cater, specifically, to the growing but still underserved market for Black-oriented film and television production, BLP Studios is the brainchild of founder/CEO Jason A. Farmer, a Memphis native and Whitehaven High graduate who was brought into the film space a decade ago via the career interests of his son, Jason Farmer II, who is now an undergraduate film student at Atlanta’s Morehouse College. 

The senior Farmer, who says he’s worked primarily as a law-enforcement trainer and consultant, began attending film festivals and got involved with the Indie Memphis Film Festival and the International Black Film Festival in Nashville. 

“It was a learning curve for myself and my wife Audrey,” he says. “In that whole process, we discovered that there was a business side to the film industry that we hadn’t considered.” 

About four years ago, Farmer says, this interest took a more serious turn, as he began to research film production around the country and how Memphis might play a greater role. 

With partners Cecilia Barnes, BLP’s general counsel, and chief financial officer Carolyn Henry, Farmer envisions BLP Studios as an avenue for Memphis to assert its rightful place within a growing market for Black film and television production, as well as to build local infrastructure for all kinds of potential productions. 

“They were all far short of where they needed to be in terms of content marketed to Black and brown audiences,” Farmer says of the shifting business plans of national media and entertainment companies.

85-acre film compound receives approval

“As the country was changing to a majority minority population and that population was becoming more media savvy and wanting content that was more intentional about its design purposes and creators, all of those companies were on the sideline trying to figure out how do we improve our diversity, equity and inclusion? We took that and juxtaposed it to the market here in Memphis.”

While Atlanta has emerged as perhaps the country’s most fertile ground for Black cultural production, BLP sees that Memphis can – and should – grab a greater slice of a growing pie.

The obvious but perhaps too-daunting comparison is to Atlanta’s Tyler Perry Studios, a 330-acre complex in the heart of Atlanta that includes 40 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in addition to its modern soundstages and studio facilities. Memphian Craig Brewer shot his recent “Coming 2 America” primarily on Perry’s lot. Memphis native Katori Hall, a newly minted Pulitzer-Prize winner, made her “P-Valley” series, set in the Delta and Memphis area, in Atlanta and on Perry’s lot. 

Unlike the relative newcomers of BLP, Perry was a major creative force as a writer, producer and director before opening his first studio, bringing both established stature and content to the effort. 

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And Perry is doing so in Georgia, which, due to its generous financial incentives and concentration of talent, has perhaps become the country’s second most active filming location, after Hollywood. (Much of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” work is done in Atlanta.)

“Perry built a huge body of work and early on was doing his own work (at his studios),” Farmer says. 

“Our business model is wholly different. We’re not content-creators and aren’t pursuing this from that standpoint. My two partners come from a corporate background. We approach this from a business standpoint. We won’t be what Tyler Perry Studios is, but we can be a complement to it and others like it.”

BLP also isn’t trying to be a home to blockbusters. 

“The facilities here will primarily be for projects in the half a million to $20 million range,” Farmer says. “We specifically targeted that segment of the film and entertainment industry because those projects have a hard time being made. Those are the kinds of projects entertainment entities fund for emerging producers and directors. We’re hoping that Memphis will become an epicenter for attracting those kinds of projects.”

While he doesn’t mention any of these projects specifically, many of the Memphis-connected film and television projects since “Bluff City Law” have been Black-oriented projects that would seem to fit within this range, from Netflix’s feature film “Uncorked” to the reality series “Buried by the Bernards.” 

A notion this bold from industry newcomers can draw skepticism, but the BLP project got a crucial co-sign from Memphis & Shelby County film commissioner Linn Sitler, who has been at the forefront of Memphis film production from the heyday of “The Firm” to the recent too-short-lived triumph “Bluff City Law.”

In a letter of support to the Land Use Control Board, Sitler noted that bigger productions working in Memphis over the years have had to “make do” with temporary soundstages crafted in empty warehouses and factories.

This became a particular issue for “Bluff City Law,” which constructed sets at a former skating rink in East Memphis, far from Downtown production offices and subject to the noise of nearby Summer Avenue. 

Sitler noted that “more suitable, plentiful soundstage spaces are a priority” for attracting major film and television production to town. 

And while BLP is specifically targeting Black-oriented projects as a market niche, as the best production facility in the region, it would undoubtedly attract interest from any client looking to shoot in Memphis. 

“The history of the industry has primarily been white-dominated. So this is an identifiable market segment that’s underserved and we happen to be in the position to take advantage,” Farmer says. 

“But it’s not to the exclusion of anyone. As production companies express an interest to come here, for sure those facilities will be available, and will be able to meet their DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) concerns because BLP is Black-owned. Will that create other opportunities for other minorities? Sure it will, and that’s its intended purpose. But it’s not to the exclusion of any particular type of project.” 

Sitler’s letter noted a looming improvement of state-based incentives as an opportunity, and also alluded to addressing a hurdle not widely noted: The limited depth of local crew talent, which makes it difficult to staff multiple productions at a time.

Sitler cites a desire to work with BLP on a training program to build the city’s talent base, which Farmer confirmed. 

A full-time soundstage for film and television production has long been a dream for those invested in the Memphis film scene. It’s always floated as a potential use for any big empty, from the Pyramid Arena prior to its rebirth as the Bass Pro Pyramid to the Mid-South Coliseum now.

For his 2007 film “Black Snake Moan,” Brewer built sets inside the Pyramid, which was then between permanent uses. 

But state-of-the-art, built-for-the-purpose soundstages, like those planned by BLP, are seen by those in the industry as preferable to the adaptive-reuse daydreams that have tended to dominate local thinking over the years.

“Memphis heretofore hasn’t had the correct infrastructure to sustain productions on a long-term schedule,” Farmer says. “They would come here to shoot if it was Memphis-specific, if it was about Beale Street or about a character from Memphis. By creating this campus, it gives film teams the opportunity to come in and create whatever settings they need to create. They can come to Memphis and shoot a movie about Atlanta. The potential for projects coming here isn’t limited by the topic but moreso by the budget.”

After having Atlanta play Memphis in works such as “The Blind Side” and the OWN series “Greenleaf,” the opposite would be something to see. But just Memphis playing itself – or nowhere in particular – more frequently would be quite the advance. And more regular work of any kind would help develop and keep the local creators and craftspeople to do it.

“The increased infrastructure will allow us to have sustainable productions coming here and will allow us to retain Memphis talent, who will be able to be based in Memphis while working in the entertainment industry as opposed to living in Memphis and traveling all over the world pursuing projects,” says Farmer. “It’s a multi-faceted approach.”

BLP isn’t the only film production/soundstage idea around. Another is an unrelated proposal in the Hickory Hill area, involving the site of Malco’s Majestic theater. And nearby Graceland has had stated designs on moving into film/television production work.

But BLP Film Studios is both the boldest of these and the farthest along. 

Even that is a long way from the finish line, both building it and getting them – film and television productions – to come. 

While Farmer says that BLP fully owns (“free and clear”) the 85-acre site of the proposed studio, he and his partners have been guarded, so far, on the financial details of what would surely be a multi-million project. 

“I know cost is always going to be one of the key components of anything,” says BLP chief financial officer and co-owner Henry. “Of course, this is a huge venture and right now we are in constant contact with our contractors, project managers and our architects trying to nail down the final project cost. We’re hoping that in upcoming weeks we’ll have information to share about the final figures and our partners.” 

Disclosed members of the project team include the architectural firm HBG Design, engineering consultant Reaves Firm, contractor Montgomery Martin and development consultant NuDev.

Farmer says that the project is on schedule to break ground in the late fall and could be completed in 24 to 30 months. 

He cites a study this spring from the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. that “$10 billion plus is being left on the table” annually by media and entertainment companies due to not having enough content that attracts a multicultural audience. 

“We’re offering BLP Film Studios as an answer to that $10 billion question,” he says. “And it’s $10 billion and growing.”