Published: December 13, 2007 08:01 am      

A little bit of Hollywood

Malakoff graduate Clark talks to Chamber about life in the entertainment industry

Josh Clark — assistant location manager for the TV show “Prison Break — spoke to the Athens Chamber of Commerce Wednesday during its monthly luncheon.

Clark was born in Arlington and moved to Tool when he was five years old. After graduating from Malakoff High School, he attended Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches.

Clark explained how he got into the entertainment industry and talked about what is happening in Hollywood right now.

“I didn’t really know what I wanted to study,” he said. “My parents just told me ‘Do something.’ I then started looking at the film department and it really intrigued me.”

He said he began getting nervous about his future around his senior year of college.

“People were saying you couldn’t make a living in film unless you moved to Los Angeles, and I wanted to stay here,” Clark said.

He didn’t have to worry, though, because after graduation he began working as an assistant location assistant for the TV show “Walker Texas Ranger.” Clark said he knew he had made the right decision — to go into the entertainment industry — as he worked on the final three seasons of the television series.

“As the last season came to an end I started to get nervous again, because you don’t really know where you are going to go or what you will do next,” he said.

After the show wrapped, Clark packed his bags and moved to Austin where he began working with Robert Rodriguez, who directed “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” and “Sin City.”

“Working with Robert Rodriguez was great, because I studied his films in college,” he said.

Clark began working on “Prison Break” after receiving a call from the producer of the series. The two had worked together on “Walker Texas Ranger.”

“Last season we shot 22 shows in Dallas,” he said, “and none of them were supposed to be in Dallas. I hope that we were able to depict all of different locations well enough that people couldn’t tell it was Dallas.”

With the Writers Guild strike now in its sixth week, “Prison Break” has been shut down.

“There isn’t anything for us to shoot,” Clark said. “We would all like to see the strike worked out over the holidays.”

The last writers strike was in 1982 and lasted five months. Clark said the industry lost $500 million to $800 million.

“With the dollar equaling what it does now,” he said, “a strike of that length could be in the billions.”

Clark also explained to the audience the benefits of having a film or television show filmed in Athens or any small town.

“The further I move up in management,” Clark said, “I see the economic impact my industry does for a town.”

He said “Prison Break” has a budget of $3 million dollars per show.

“It is typical for $1 million to $2 million to be pumped back into the town,” he said.