Cue scary music. A carload of college students are headed to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but find themselves stranded in the fictional Black Bayou, La., a rural town very similar to New Roads.

Terrible, inexplicable things begin to happen to the students soon after their arrival in Black Bayou, but what happens to them and perhaps more important, why is left up to the directors and producers of "Terror on the Bayou," a low budget film recently produced in Pointe Coupee Parish.

HK Pictures, headed by Jason Hewitt and George Kostuch, is producing the movie, which Kostuch described as "'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' without the chain saws and it's Louisiana style."

"There are eight kids on their way to Mardi Gras," Kostuch said. "They pull over and have to spend the night in a small, backroads town and get involved in voodoo."

He said the town is New Roads, but in the movie it will be known as Black Bayou, La. Kostuch, a native of Baton Rouge, said he was familiar with the city and False River, having visited the area numerous times.

"It's a beautiful place," he said, but added it won't seem so "beautiful" in the movie, then revealed more of Terror on the Bayou's mysterious plot. "Several of the kids get killed."

"The killer is called the Mardi Gras Killer," Kostuch said, quickly adding there's a very ark side to the story, "of taking souls," he said. "The killings are tied to the devil."

"The town is in on it and the townspeople supplying souls to the killer so they don't get killed," Kostuch said.

It seems almost any stranger who passes through Black Bayou, La., could be the killer's and the town's next victim.

That certainly could be the fate of the film's most familiar name, Clifton Powell, a veteran of almost 30 years in the movie business. In Terror on the Bayou, he plays Cyrus, "a guy who comes into town who's fallen onto bad times," Powell said.

Powell, recognizable to most movies fans for his roles in "Friday After Next," "Dead Presidents," "Rush Hour," "Ray" and other Hollywood blockbusters, completed his scenes in the movie over a whirlwind 24-hour stay in the parish.

"We brought him in for a day, shot his scenes and sent him home," Kostuch said. Powell said it made for a busy weekend for him, having spent the 24 hours prior to coming to New Roads in California working on his role in "Faces," a dramatic crime series coming to the Fox Network.

"I worked all night Friday night on the series," he said the Saturday evening he arrived in Louisiana. "I'll work all night tonight on this movie and fly out tomorrow."

Almost everything happens in a hurry for HK Pictures,the company only spent 10 days in production shooting Terror on the Bayou, HK's fourth movie since mid-January.

Kostuch said the company's latest movie will be ready for release in as little as six weeks. Kostuch and Hewitt hired about 20 local actors and 25 local crew members to produce the movie and brought in Powell and Tamie Sheffield, a recent winner of the television reality program "Fear Factor," to add star power to the movie.

Powell and Sheffield are part of a formula HK Pictures uses to ensure the success of its movies. "We're making widgets," Kostuch said. "We plug in a script, plug in a film genre, then go to the distributor, who says, 'Go make it.'"

"Half the movies we make are pre-sold," he continued, adding keeping the production costs low is key to HK Pictures' success. "I've made films for as little as $9,000...and I make films for between $30,000 and $50,000."

Shooting in Louisiana helps to keep production costs down, Kostuch said, making the projects HK Pictures do possible. "We couldn't make this movie outside Louisiana," he said, adding Pointe Coupee proved to be a prime location for him.

"Everybody's been greeting us with open arms," Kostuch said, then complimented Jamie Delatte, the Greater Pointe Coupee Chamber of Commerce's economic development director, for accommodating the movie crew.

"Jamie has made life as easy as it could be for me," Kostuch said. "Without her, I wouldn't have half of what I have to do this film. She's been invaluable to us."

Kostuch said the film crew's experience in Pointe Coupee Parish was so pleasant and its people so cooperative, HK Pictures is already planning another movie shoot in the area.

"I can do 20 of these a year and do all of them here," he said. "At least, until they get tired of us."

(L to R) Thomas Delatte, Clifton Powell and Eric Delatte. Powell was in town for the filming of Terror on the Bayou. Some of his previous works include Ray, Selma Lord Selma and Da Block Party. Checking his listing of work on Internet Movie Database, there are more than 85 entries. Powell had never had the opportunity to fish in his life, having grown up in a city. The Delatte twins, 12-years-old, taught Powell how to cast a rod; but unfortunately he only caught his coat when he went back to cast. Powell enjoyed his time in Pointe Coupee, commenting that he would like to one day come back with his wife and grandkids, so they can learn to fish.

Hiring employees is also called recruitment. Perhaps the most important thing you can do is to bring other capable, motivated people into your business. In the bestseller Good to Great, management expert Jim Collins says great leaders "get the right people on the bus -- sometimes even before a company decides exactly what business it will be in." Here are some ways to bring employees into your business:

• Bring people in as partners. Partners share the risks and rewards of the venture and will co-own the business with you.

• Hire experts to work on specific tasks on a contract or hourly basis. For example, you might hire a professional accountant to work one day per month on your recordkeeping.

• Hire someone as a full-time, permanent employee. The most common way to do this is an "at will" arrangement. Typically the "at-will" employment relationship continues for an indefinite amount of time, but can be ended by either party in writing with, say, two weeks notice.

Specific steps in the recruiting process:

1. Defining the job. Think about what you need this employee to do wand what kind of skills you will need.

2. Posting the job. Will you place an ad in a newspaper? Put up want-ad posters?

3. Screening resumes. A resume is a one-page summary of a person's education and work experience. When you post the opportunity, ask for people who want the job to mail or fax their resumes.

4. Interviewing candidates. Use the resumes to choose several people to interview. Beforehand, prepare the questions you want to ask about the individual's skills and ambitions.

5. Checking references. Ask the candidates who interest you to provide at least two references from previous employers or other professional people who can tell you about their character.

6. Negotiating salary. You and the candidate you choose will have to negotiate how much you intend to pay, and any benefits the job includes, such as health insurance.

7. Hiring. Once you decide to hire someone, you will have paperwork to fill out to start creating paychecks.

8. Orientation. This is the process of introducing the employee into the company and teaching him or her about the job.

Mariotti, Steve. Entrepreneurship: Starting and Operating a Small Business. Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2007. 282.

These days, the conventional wisdom is that if you are serious about starting a business, you ought to start a business full time and prepare for it by doing a business plan. That makes a lot of sense, since a business plan enables you to look at every aspect of your business. Business plans are also important if you intend to ask others for expertise or financial investments. However, running a business full time can be a major commitment and is not always the best way to go about becoming an entrepreneur.

There are three situations in which it might make better sense to undertake a part-time business first. One of these is when you are new to business and need to gain basic experience. If you have not been involved in pricing, buying, and selling, learning how to do such things makes a lot of sense before launching the business of your dreams. You might want to obtain other types of experience before starting a full-scale business or writing a business plan. These can include experience in the industry, in the line of business, in the locality of the specific market you plan to serve, in managing cash, or in managing yourself in self-employment.

A second type of situation is one in which you lack resources to pursue a full-scale business or create a business plan. Time is probably the ultimate resource, and starting a business can tax it heavily. Estimates suggest that a business plan may take anywhere from 50 to 200 hours or more if you are new to business and working on you own. Starting a full-time business can absorb 70 hours a week or more in its early stages. You might not be able to commit the time to work that way, and pursuing a precursor makes a lot of sense. It also makes sense if you are missing other resources. Think about Dan Murza. He lacked a resource -- inventory. By pursuing a small business online through eBay, he was able to match his business scale to the resources available.

The third type of situation is a narrow window of opportunity. Dan saw this when the New York Giants were in the Super Bowl. He identified a time when interest would be high, and his Giant jersey would be a hot property. He had to act fast, and that meant going the part-time route. Part-time businesses can generally be created quickly, and they offer a concrete example of a business to customers, suppliers, and others. When there is not enough time to do a business plan or get the entire business going, pursuing a part-time business to capture the attention of others makes a lot of sense.

Katz, Jerome A., and Richard P. Green. Entrepreneurial Small Business. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007. 117.