The Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI) is embarking on a pivotal change in its managerial structure (see separate story, p. 1). Over the next eight to 10 months, the association hopes to transition from being handled by a management company to securing a full-time staff executive who is dedicated exclusively to the AFCI agenda. Within this time frame, the AFCI also intends to establish a national headquarters.
Helping the AFCI in this transition will be Lonie Stimac, a former AFCI board member who recently announced that she is stepping down from her post as director of the Montana Film Office to launch an independent firm, Sentience Global Solutions. Sentience will team with the AFCI board in the search for an executive director/managing director type.
Mississippi Film Office director Ward Emling, re-elected last week to a two-year term as AFCI president, described the naming of a full-time executive as representing the next logical step in the AFCI’s progression, helping the organization to attain a higher industry profile and to realize its goals. He observed that other trade associations have benefited greatly from having a full-time staff executive.
Indeed, there’s significant precedent within the commercial industry. That history lesson was part of SHOOT’s 40th-Anniversary Supplement last week, in which spot production house veteran Dick Kerns, a former mainstay at the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), reflected on that association’s growth. Now a cost consultant for the Southern California Ford Dealers, Kerns noted that the AICP’s hiring of Matt Miller as national executive director in 1994 has proven to be vital. (Miller is now president of AICP.) Kerns observed that a full-time officer—not a production house principal who’s running a business full-time—was sorely needed to fill a leadership role. "That took the AICP to the next level," assessed Kerns.
Miller’s coming aboard helped set the stage for further growth, including the recent formation of a strategic alliance with the Association of Music Producers (AMP), thus meaningfully diversifying the AICP into the music and sound sector. Miller also serves an important role as a spokesman for the production community, at times taking stands that might be difficult for individual company executives to publicly express for fear of repercussions against their businesses.
Other groups have also found the hiring of a full-time executive beneficial. Among those examples is the Association of Independent Creative Editors (AICE), with executive director John Held, who additionally helped AMP during its formative stages.
Emling explained that once an executive director is in place, the AFCI plans to set an expanded agenda of specific objectives. "It would be premature for me to talk about these goals at this point," he related, adding that the AFCI is looking to establish itself "on a higher plane."
That can only serve to benefit the overall industry, in that film commissions have gained added strength via the AFCI. Be they from foreign countries or domestic state and local entities, film commissions have proven invaluable to commercial and long-form producers in facilitating lensing and in troubleshooting on projects. The AFCI has also perennially been involved in educating its rank-and-file, as evidenced by the tutorial sessions and roundtable discussions at the recently concluded Cineposium, during which Emling was re-elected.
"We already have attained a certain respect in the industry for serving production of any type, providing access to locations," said Emling regarding the AFCI. "Now [via a new management structure] we want to build upon that and be of greater service to the filmmaking community."
