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For a while in 2013, Maui Film Studios was on an upward trajectory, leasing a warehouse at the Maui Lani Village Center, outfitting it with a 21,000-square-foot sound stage, lining up film and TV projects and getting ready to be a player in Hawaii’s growing film industry.
Then, in 2014, the buzz stopped.
When asked Wednesday about the Maui Film Studios, Maui County Film Commissioner Tracy Bennett replied that it has not been operating for more than a year.
When queried further about Socrates Buenger, studio owner and chief executive officer, Bennett said: “I don’t think he’s in the industry on island. He canceled everything.” Bennett said he didn’t have a current phone number or email for Buenger.
“There was litigation,” Bennett said when asked about what happened to the studio. He said he was not allowed to comment on the situation.
“There’s a new management company,” he said, identifying that company as Cinelease.com.
Cinelease was reopening the film studio as of Monday, Bennett said.
A couple of workers at the site Wednesday confirmed that the building had been used as a film studio. They identified themselves as Wal-Mart employees and said the store had leased the building for storage space. They were clearing out the space, putting display shelving material into dumpsters.
Attempts to contact Cinelease’s Maui manager, Mark Walters, and its management in California were unsuccessful Wednesday.
However, the company’s LinkedIn page included a post that said: “Aloha! We’re proud to announce that Cinelease Inc. is coming to Maui!”
According to Cinelease, it is the largest independent motion picture equipment rental provider in North America, with company headquarters in Los Angeles and multiple branch locations including Honolulu, New York, Chicago, Atlanta and New Orleans, among other Mainland locations.
It appears that the original developer of the film studio ran into financial issues. Second Circuit Court documents show that Embree Investment Partners I LLC sued Buenger, Maui Film Studios, Hawaii Productions Group and Aloha Film Studios for breach of contract, among other things, in July 2014. In October, 2nd Circuit Judge Rhonda Loo granted a summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff for $236,000 in unpaid loans from Maui Film Studios.
Court documents show that Jerald Embree, manager of Embree Investment, was a business partner and co-manager with Buenger in Maui Film Studios.
The court record shows that the studio entered into a four-year lease, beginning in March 2013, with building owner Pacific Beverages Inc. The documents describe the building as being 20,000 square feet, with 11-inch thick walls and a 25-foot-high ceiling. Tenant improvements included installation of sound insulation materials, state-of-the-art sound blankets, internal wall partitioning and electrical upgrades.
The plaintiff’s complaint refers to “mismanagement” by Buenger. In his reply document, filed July 25, 2014, Buenger said: “Jerry’s inability to raise adequate startup investment funds – funds he clearly claimed he could raise – is the real cause of the imminent failure of (the Maui Film Studios).”
Contacted by phone Wednesday, Buenger said he had no comment.
Hawaii State Film Commissioner Donne Dawson said she was aware of litigation involving Maui Film Studios, but she wasn’t privy to details.
Meanwhile, “Cinelease is a reputable company,” she said.
Cinelease acquired the lighting grid at the state-owned Hawaii Film Studio on Oahu in 2011 when the lighting equipment was no longer needed by ABC TV for its production of the “Lost” TV series, which ran from 2004-10, she said. The film studio on 7.5 acres on the back side of Diamond Head is Hawaii’s largest film studio and home to current productions of “Hawaii 5-0,” she said. It has a 16,500-square-foot sound stage.
Dawson said it’s “critically important” for the film industry in the state and on any island that a sound stage be available for TV and film productions.
Crews come to Hawaii for its scenic beauty, not its sound stages, she said. But a sound stage is an important part of the film industry’s infrastructure to allow productions to film interior or other scenes in a carefully controlled environment, free from outside noise, for example, she said.
Without a sound stage, options are limited in what film productions are going to be able to shoot in any given location, Dawson said.
Without a sound stage, productions may film exterior locations on Maui, but crews will go elsewhere to do other needed production work on available sound stages elsewhere, she said.
“Maui is not able to capture that element of business,” she said. “Hawaii is lacking in film infrastructure. We need to support these entities that are developing infrastructure space.”
* Brian Perry can be reached at bperry@mauinews.com.