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The Film Works blog just broke news about the newest report on the California Film & Television Tax Credit program. The report, from UCLA and the Headway project, is available in the Report Library of this site under California. I strongly recommend everyone read the actual report in full. From the Film Works article:...
Sad news from Michigan. But many, including myself, saw this one coming from the beginning. Raleigh’s Pontiac Studios, the flagship state-of-the-art $80 million studio complex is reportedly going to default on a bond payment next month and, tragically, the state’s pension funds are on the hook for over $600,000. From The Detroit News: Michigan’s...
The Film Works campaign just posted a fantastic, easy to digest, article that destroys the economic thinking employed by film incentive supporters around the nation. They use a PSA made for New Mexico as an example and then deconstruct it. To be sure, the article was not singling out New Mexico as a target....
This is Part One of a series of articles about state film incentive programs in the United States….. A few days ago, I posted the new report from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR) to study the economic impact of the state’s film incentive program. The big story was the 82% decline in production...
It’s time for California to wake up. California is under attack. In the late 1990′s, Canada devised generous film incentives in the form of tax credits as a weapon to wage economic war on the U.S. in an attempt to capture one of the planet’s most valuable and prized industries: the U.S. motion picture...
There is a fantastic post on the Film Works blog that has a fairly detailed breakdown of the major expenditures of a major film production that spent $20.2 million over 93 days shooting in Los Angeles in 2009. Here is a sample of the itemized expenditures: Hotel room days: 213 $66,061 Car rental days:...
A war of words between the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hiltzik, the LAEDC and the MPAA has erupted over Hiltzik’s recent editorial attacking the LAEDC’s recent report about the California film incentive. In short, Hiltzik is of the opinion that because of the mere fact the MPAA paid for the report, that fact alone...
Below is the first half of the Film Works campaign’s analysis of the brand new LAEDC study on the economic impact of the California film incentive. It is quite thorough and is a honest appraisal of the report, which some people are attempting to spin as showing a positive return on investment for the...
There is a general consensus that producers, studios and filmmakers who take advantage of generous film incentives are not to blame for runaway production, but rather the underlying incentive. Filmmaking is a highly competitive business and the stakes are huge. Most films lose money, and one big-budget flop can sink a studio. If a...
The brief interview below made me gasp at the end, when I heard how much money this one motion picture catering business in Los Angeles spends at just one of its many vendors, who are also in California. I think this highlights the very real danger to California from runaway production. The losses and...
The new economic impact report for Louisiana was released today and is available in the Report Library under Louisiana. I will be digesting it over the next week or so, but wanted to post the highlight that jumped out at me most. In 2010 alone, Louisiana spent $97.6 million to subsidize just four movies. ...
A total of five annual reports about the New York state film incentive program from the NY Dept. of Taxation & Finance have been added to the Report Library. In addition to these reports, I also added the January 2011 “Progress Report” from the California Film Commission as well as a 2007 report on...
Three recently released articles published by the Film Works L.A. campaign in California are well worth reading…. The first article, Part One: “The Clear and Present Danger” of Runaway Production to California, is the first of a two-part story about the threat of runaway production to California (and therefore the nation in the long run)...
Enacted in 2002, New Mexico’s film incentive program, along with Louisiana, was the first significant film incentive in the United States on par with those offered in Canada. It was often lauded as a model program that emphasized using in-state labor, building infrastructure and fostering talent in community college programs. When it began, the...
The following video is from the ABC affiliate in Los Angeles that covered the Film Works launch event.
It’s about time. And the timing could not be better. As state film incentives across the nation begin to recede and California’s own incenitve shows more proof that filmmakers prefer to stay in California to take advantage of its overwhelming talent base and infrastructure if they have the chance comes this unveiling today….”Film Works...
Thanks to politically active Santa Barbara doctoral student Lauren Copeland for sending the following story about the “California Cows” commercial controversy, which I covered HERE and HERE. In what should have been a “no-duh”, California is about to pass a bill that requires state tourism and agriculture commercials to shoot in California. Why is...
I’ve never had much respect for USA Today, but their August 2 article about the film industry in Louisiana made me cringe. It’s rife with problems…. Let’s start with the article’s second & third sentences: In the 1990s, filmmakers often traveled to Canada. But that eventually became less fashionable, and these days the industry...
I’ve been posting quite a bit about California lately and new numbers coming out about the effectiveness of the states one-year-old film incentive, which is rather modest. And certainly, while I have called the modesty of the California film incentive a pretty smart move, I have also written about tweaks to the program that...
The Santa Monica-based Milken Institute, an “independent economic think tank”, released an excellent “must read” report on how runaway production is impacting California called “Film Flight: Lost Production and its Economic Impact on California”. The 46-page report has been added to the Report Library HERE. I thought the report was excellent and well worth...
Variety.com – H'w'd and D.C.