(Trinidad Express) Trinidad’s iconic sites, scenery and culture, are being featured as the cast of Love and Hip Hop Atlanta, shoots on the island. Season eight of the reality series will put the spotlight on Trinidad in at least two episodes which is expected to be aired in the coming months.
Over the last couple of days, cast members were seen enjoying various pre-Carnival events and festivities as Trinidad and Tobago gets ready to stage the splendour of Carnival come Monday and Tuesday.
The opportunity for the reality TV show to shoot in Trinidad is viewed as another opportunity to put Trinidad and Tobago on the map. Speaking at a press conference yesterday, jointly by Imagine Media and FilmTT, at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre, President of imagine media, Lisa Wickham said the move will only auger well for the Trinidad and Tobago’s film industry.
“When you have international productions in Trinidad and Tobago it only augers well for Trinidad and Tobago’s film industry because you have the integration of the local team members and local talent mixing with international talent it benefits with more and more projects coming,” Wickham said.
Love and Hip Hop Atlanta Executive Producer, Mona Scott-Young, said although the cast and crew will leave the island before Carnival climaxes in the coming days, she was happy to get an opportunity to showcase more of what the island had to offer other than just Carnival alone. “Although Carnival is the main thing that everybody knows Trinidad and Tobago for there is Trinidad and Tobago all year round and we worked hard to come up with experiences and the locations and attractions that we could showcase and highlight and be able to showcase the full experience and beauty of the island, to hopefully encourage people all year round to come and experience the island.
“We have been trying to come for carnival every year we still haven’t made it for Carnival proper but we are very happy to be showcase something other than the main thing that Trinidad is known for because a lot of times the island get relegated to one season, one element and people miss out on the fact that its beautiful year round and there are so much more to experience so we were very happy to provide that opportunity, Scott-Young said. Scott-Young said her team consistently seek out different cultures to work with and have been largely able to work with local filmmakers and other industry talents while they’ve been here.
FilmTT General Manager Nneka Luke noted the benefits of utilising the productivity tools to improve the film production process and where both local and international producers can utilise to find professional production services and suppliers for their next productions. “This production has been some months in the making and is the latest to benefit from the collective commitment of FilmTT’s growing film friendly network of agencies, industries and partners to see a striving film industry here in Trinidad and Tobago.
“In the first quarter of 2018-2019 alone FilmTT worked closely with eight productions from the US, UK, Canada and France, which collectively we have hired more than 320 local cast, crew and suppliers and collectively spent TT2.5Million in the country on services. Love and Hip Hop Atlanta adds to the growing interest of Trinidad and Tobago as a growing location that offers much more that the standard Caribbean prototype of Sun, Sea and sand,” Luke said.
Trinidad Tourism Limited CEO Camille Campbell said it can also be expected that people are going to want to visit the places portrayed in the show. “Film at TV production can be powerful ways to showcase pour natural and cultural assets. I believe that Trinidad and Tobago has a great deal to offer as a destination for film development. Tourism TT Limited is focused on destination marketing and film production is an organic and natural way of achieving this objective,” Campbell said.
The cast of Love and Hip Hop is excited to be here. Karlie Redd spoke about her Trinidad roots. She said she regularly comes for Carnival and had been hoping for the opportunity to showcase the island to her cast mates for some time.