Pittsburgh Film Office Executive Director Dawn Keezer Opens Pittsburgh to the World
One might think the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Film Office would describe themselves as a film buff, but Dawn Keezer doesn’t. To be fair, while Keezer may not describe herself as a movie buff, she has her favorites.
“Top Gun. All-time favorite. It was the first movie I ever bought. It came out on video when I was in college because I'm a hundred. My friends and I might have rewound and watched the volleyball scene way too many times.”
Courtesy of Pittsburgh Film Office
“I like movies, but I can't tell you who won the Oscar in 1942. I don't look at them that way. This is about letting people live their dreams in an industry that's fun and spends a lot of money.”
Prior to moving to Pittsburgh, Keezer worked as the Director of Tourism, Public Affairs and Film Commissioner for Santa Cruz County. Every day was different. Things like taking sportswriters out on deep-sea fishing trips and showing Japanese tourists the Mystery Spot fell under Keezer’s purview. Her favorite, though, were the film productions. While Pittsburgh and Santa Cruz may not have much in common on paper, the two are frequently used for Hallmark movies.
But what could convince Keezer to give up California sunshine for the Steel City?
“I was having a bad day when Pittsburgh called. I was arguing about my $15,000 film office budget because it wasn't enough money, which is laughable now. At the time, I was really unhappy, and they asked, would you talk to us? I said, yeah, but it snows there, right?”
“This job was an opportunity to create my own program and decide how we wanted to market a region like this. Even when I bought my house, my dad was like, I don't know, how long are you gonna be there, do you really want to buy this house?”
Keezer has been in Pittsburgh for thirty-one years, and in that time, production in the region has ballooned. Despite having Pittsburgh in its name, the Film Office isn’t restricted to the city limits. The office represents eleven counties in the region. At this point, over 250 projects have been shot here, providing nearly $3 billion in economic impact. As Keezer previously mentioned, the role of the Film Office isn’t just about movies, but about making jobs for those who call Pittsburgh home.
“There are over 5,000 people who work in this industry locally and in the region. We have a great reputation. People know us and they want to come back.”
One of those people is Dave “Wino” Weinstein who was recently profiled for his work as a location scout and manager. Weinstein and Keezer have worked together for much of their respective careers, and one memorable project was Warrior. That film required them to find a space in the city that the filmmakers could turn into Iraq.
Courtesy of Pittsburgh Film Office
“We made Iraq out of the Century III Mall. The one thing I tell everyone is that we can do anything here. If you need a beach or a desert, two things we don't have, we can make it work. For the beach we’ll send you up to Erie, and we did that for Mayor of Kingstown. Now I can say that we made the desert at Century III Mall because our amazing crew figured that out. I didn't figure it out. They were like, well, if we parked the tanks here, it's a big empty lot, we throw some camo netting down, and it's close up, right?”
“The clients are pretty open because it’s about saving money. They have to spend 60% of their budget in the Commonwealth to qualify to receive a tax credit. They need to stay here for as much of it as possible. We have the technicians who made all that real. I mean people like Dave and those groups, they figured that out. It was pretty brilliant.”
“Diabolique was my first feature. In the ’90s, it was a lot more about selling and convincing people to get on a plane. We'd pick them up at the airport, and when they got in the van, they were like, we're basically here to put a big red X across Pittsburgh because the studio made us come.”
“Diabolique originally took place in the French countryside in a school that sat out on seven acres of property. We took them to Saint Philomena school in Squirrel Hill, which is surrounded by houses. The filmmakers fell in love with the school. They put camo netting on all these people's houses for a month so you couldn't see the houses. They created the French countryside right there in the middle of Squirrel Hill.”
Keezer cites her work on the Matthew Broderick-led Inspector Gadget as one of the proudest moments in her career. Disney, the studio behind the film, wanted to shut down a bridge for three days. Many cities they were considering wouldn’t agree to that, but Keezer and Pittsburgh would.
Behind the scenes of A League of Their Own on Prime. Courtesy of Pittsburgh Film Office. Photo by Nate Guidry, Post Gazette
“Disney said, well, can you shut the bridge? I'm like, sure. Then, they were like, well, can we shut it for seven? I went, yeah, we gotta plan it, but that shouldn't be a problem. Then it got to thirty-eight days and I'm like, we can make this happen. I just need to make a phone call.”
“The stories that ran in the news were all about how Pittsburgh shut a bridge for 30 days, but they didn’t look at the fact that we closed the Sixth Street Bridge. We have Seventh. We have Ninth. The city was fine. That's what brought Inspector Gadget here. I would argue that movie is one of the best 91 minutes of showcasing Pittsburgh from the sky.”
“But yeah, we closed the bridge for thirty days. No one else in the country could do it, and we pulled it off. We moved two parades for that movie – the African American Heritage Day parade and the Columbus Day parade. With helicopters flying over, you have to clear 500 feet in every direction. It was a real helicopter with a real Matthew Broderick hanging off it, which was also fun.”
“We also shut downtown for twenty-one days for Dark Knight Rises. That took six months of prep, a lot of work by a lot of people, and a lot of agreements from a lot of these local businesses that, yes, we will support this, we will help make it happen.”
“It's not like we just go, okay, we're going to shut everything down tomorrow, come on over, but it's why people think they can get what they want done in southwestern PA, right? It sets the tone for that.”
Stay tuned for more stories from Dawn Keezer’s prolific career!
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