The company’s first efforts were shorts, B-grade features, and freelance production assistance for larger films. “We’d basically take a film’s budget and try to shave a few hundred dollars off the top,” says Meistrich. This was generally accomplished by, as he puts it, “scamming deals” on everything from camera rentals to catering.

“We realized there was a huge opportunity there,” explains Meistrich. “Nobody likes that end of the business. It’s not glamorous; it’s really hard work; it sucks. It’s like playing offensive line in football.” He flashes that grin again. “But you know, if you have a great line, then your team wins.”

Such Parcells-inspired business philosophy led to the launch of a Shooting Gallery production-services division, followed by a SoHo post-production facility and, finally, subsidiaries dealing with music for films, grip and electric services, and studio resources. The latter led to Harrison, New Jersey.

“This isn’t just something that we came up with last week,” says Greg Kanter, a company vice-president who headed up the search for a studio site. He lists the locations that were considered: a warehouse on Mercer Street; the roof of the St. John’s Center in Tribeca; sites in Chelsea, Battery Park City, Harlem, Long Island, and Westchester.

Last year, the company came close to buying the old Yale Trucking building on 40th Street and the West Side Highway. “The city was behind us,” says Kanter. “But at the last minute, the Javits Center, which is next door and has eminent domain over the Yale building, decided they might exercise their right to expand. Anyway, after that, we found Harrison.”

Currently, the two biggest New York studios are Kaufman Astoria and Silvercup. Both are located in Queens and are constrained by their relatively small size. “Those places aren’t big enough and don’t have the full range of services we’re talking about,” says Kanter. “And the existing warehouse at the Harrison site is in pretty good shape as is. Several Hollywood studios have already approached us about it.”

But the financing deal required to turn the site into a viable studio has not been finalized, and no architect has yet been hired. Meistrich has secured the services of Stone Pine Capital, the firm that brokered the financing of the Chelsea Piers, but he is still negotiating with the New Jersey State Economic Development Commission to get a credit enhancement that would allow the Shooting Gallery to borrow at a reduced interest rate.

“We’re confident that New Jersey will do anything to help bring this project to the state,” says Meistrich. “We’ve already gotten verbal commitments from institutions who will finance us. And equity deals are what we come from. From the top down, we’re always willing to take the risk.”

Overheard at this year’s Sundance Film Festival: “this is a company that hasn’t made a movie with a budget of over $2 million. How the fuck do they think they’re going to build a $100 million studio?”

It’s true that even in the relatively small pond that is the New York film industry, the Shooting Gallery isn’t close to being a big fish. The total gross of all the Shooting Gallery’s films, ever, is just over $100 million, while Miramax (the big fish) grossed $419 million last year alone. The disparity was obvious at Sundance. While Miramax threw a swank wall-to-wall cocktail party at Park City, Utah’s only oyster bar, the Shooting Gallery held a staff dinner at a nearly empty Chinese restaurant, where most of the action was generated by Meistrich’s 2-year-old daughter, who was playing loudly under a table.