Illinois is back in action. The state’s visual media production had dropped dramatically since late 2005 as fierce competition from other states drew projects away. But in May of 2006 the state’s general assembly approved a proposed 20 percent credit incentive on total state production spending. Once again the business climate is healthy in the commercial and feature world.
For example this summer the cast and crew of The Dark Knight, the follow-up to Batman Begins, descended upon Chicago for 12 weeks of filming. Warner Bros. shot a portion of Batman Begins in the Windy City three years ago, but Mayor Richard Daley called The Dark Knight the biggest film ever shot in Chicago in terms of generating money and jobs. Projected spending was more than $40 million and it was expected to employ close to 400 workers from the local production community, in addition to hiring 250 day players and 6,000 extras. In addition Angelina Jolie was in town recently shooting the action movie Wanted, which is based on a graphic novel.
Mark Androw, president of Chicago-headquartered STORY and immediate past chairman of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), believes the tax credit is only part of the reason for Illinois’ production success. “An incentive is not by itself going to bring somebody to a state if there weren’t other factors that contribute to it. You need good crews and talent. Chicago has all of those things. Some other states are a little weaker in those areas,” Androw says.
But Don McNeill, president of Digital Kitchen and AICP/Midwest president, points out that the film incentives can have a positive effect on the overall production infrastructure, including increasing the depth of the crew talent. “My sense is that there has been less defection than increase yet, but I would hope that that is the next phase of it. If the features continue to come back, that will have a big impact. If I were betting, I would bet that it’s clearly going to reinvigorate what was a slowing industry,” McNeill says.
Tom Fletcher of Fletcher Chicago, a camera rental company serving the Midwest, adds that lately every DP that comes through has been very impressed with the crew Chicago offers. “I have said it before–the biggest resource we have here in Chicago is we have a good crew base. It’s a city with broad shoulders. We have guys here who are willing to work hard and get the job done,” Fletcher explains. “Big DPs are coming in and are really excited by the level of the crew guys. And they get that experience from working on the Wanteds and the Batmans.”
Feeling Snowbate’s effect
Snowbate, Minnesota’s production incentive, has had a positive effect on the production infrastructure in that state. Lucinda Winter, executive director of the Minnesota Film & TV Board, says that she is seeing somewhat of a migration of crew back to the state. “I am getting a lot of calls from people who want to come here, who have done their time in L.A. and want to come back,” she says. “They ask me if there is enough work so they can keep their union membership. I think it’s exciting.”
She adds that an outstanding makeup artist has just moved to town and that L.A. filmmaker Rob Perez, who wrote 40 Days And 40 Nights, is temporarily relocating to Minnesota in the fall because he will be shooting a feature film there next spring. ” He just really likes the area and really wants to integrate into the community and make this movie here. That’s the stuff I am seeing,”
Winter also points out she is witnessing the opening of some new post houses. “I’m feeling very positive right now.”
Since Snowbate was reinstated in September of 2006, there has been an interesting spread of more than 30 projects–including five features and eight spots. Snowbate was structured to not only encourage people to shoot in Minnesota but also give some incentive to the agencies to say, ‘I’ll bid a Minneapolis production house, a Chicago house and a Phoenix house, for example, and I expect Mr. Minnesota production company, that because you have this incentive here, that the savings might be reflected in your fee,'” relates Winter. “We tried to educate the agencies so they, knowing that the rebate existed, could expect to see it impact the budget that they were being handed by the production company. And that actually worked. And then what happened in a number of cases was we would have an L.A. or New York production company come back over and over again whereas before Snowbate, they wouldn’t have shot here,” she says.
One of the production companies benefiting from the incentive package is Twist, which has offices in Minneapolis and NYC. Jim Geib, Twist president/exec producer, explains that Minnesota has always been a cost effective market to shoot in, but remained relatively unknown to the industry at large–unless there were location or client specific needs.
Since one of Twist’s offices is in Minnesota, Geib has often presented it as an option to clients along with requested bids for New York, L.A. and Canada. Now, the value has increased to the point where clients are requesting him to bid Minnesota. “The savings can more than cover any additions to the bid needed to compensate for the size of the market and make our clients feel absolutely comfortable with the choice,” Geib says.
Geib adds that he has seen the effect of the rebate on both a company-wide and Minnesota industry-wide level. “We’ve noticed a surge in non-Minnesota commercial production companies shooting in Minnesota. This is the first Minnesota rebate to include television commercials in the mix of eligible projects. That really helps keep the crews and talent busy and growing in numbers,” he says.
At press time Twist was shooting a job in Minnesota with Grey, New York, for its 3M client. “It’s a perfect example of the rebate in action. The rebate is a draw because it’s very straightforward and is a substantial savings applied to all Minnesota expenditures in A-K, as well as post and talent.”
Michigan’s spot aspirations
Michigan Film Office Director Janet Lockwood was hoping business would have picked up more than it has since the introduction of the film incentive back in January, but she reports that overall the biz has been a little better. “No question we will double what came in last year insofar as feature films are concerned. We are working with three medium sized features right now, and I’m hoping they do commit to Michigan.”
But she admits the spot business remains flat. “The ad agencies haven’t used the incentive yet, much to my disappointment. We are doing calls on agencies and clients to encourage them to give it a try,” she says.
“A number of states have upped the ante significantly, Connecticut for instance. They are a tax credit and Michigan is a cash refund, but I’m sure the producers see 30 percent versus 20 percent and that’s that. We’re hoping to improve the incentive in 2008.”
While Keith Neff, managing director of hdstudios, a division of Grace & Wild, Farmington Hills, agrees that the spot market is having its ups and downs this year, partially due to the automotive industry’s travails, Internet work has kept them busy.
“We’re doing a lot of work feeding websites with video content and things like that. And what we have been discovering is that because of how compressed those websites have to be to deliver content, we find that the better quality video that you start with, the better quality you end up with; so we are shooting high def for the Internet.”
Neff has also seen a pickup in midlevel feature work in town. Earlier this year, hdstudios provided the Milford, Mich.-based Skeleton Factory with HD cameras, sound stage rental, online postproduction and audio post for the film company’s latest feature Little Red Devil. “We have some more feature work coming up this fall. It’s a good sign,” Neff says.
Another good sign is that creativity is alive and well in Michigan. Evidence of that is the newly formed D Show (www.thedshow.org) that will replace the Caddy Awards, which the advertising community decided didn’t do full justice to the creative excellence produced in Detroit. The show will take place at the end of November.
Creative trends
Speaking of ingenuity, there are some creative and technological trends emerging from all the work being done in the Midwest. For example, YouTube continues to influence the spot business.
“With YouTube burgeoning, creative trends and applications continue to be shaped in the direction of accessible, yet unexpected: The comedy work is much wackier, and the execution voyeuristic,” says Amyliz Pera; executive producer of Twist. “Also, stories are told by ‘real people,’ and spots are made to be repurposed. As a result of the creative trends, we’ve been extremely busy in new media– embracing the portability of Final Cut Pro and HD 24p and handling projects through finish to help clients with development of their application.”
Androw too is seeing a resurgence of more real people in commercials or actors that are telling stories like real people. He says spots have a more naturalistic style and a less staged feel. Like Pera, he believes the success of YouTube has spilled over into commercials, so really outrageous ideas or things in YouTube videos that look like they’re not staged are going to keep appearing in spots.
On the technical side, Fletcher has noticed that post houses are driving more camera decisions than in the past because they are doing such graphically intensive work. “They are doing a lot of compositing so they are telling the DPs to use a 4:4:4 camera. If you are going to be doing compositing, shooting with a 4:4:4 camera saves you a lot of time in cleanup,” Fletcher explains. “The price of the camera might be double but you are saving more than that in post because it’s time and it’s money. So 90 percent of our D20 and Viper rentals to this date have been driven by post, not by the DP.”
The other trend he is witnessing is that people are starting to see the benefit of the improved scanners that are out there and they are moving to a digital intermediate workflow.
The Filmworkers Club, Chicago, is in the process of developing a digital intermediate pipeline, according to Reid Brody, VP/co-founder. “There are many systems to choose from. Whatever we buy will make a statement. I hope to make a decision by the end of the month,” he says.
Other workflow changes at the company include a new fiber uplink service that facilitates the real-time delivery of HD TV spots and other media to broadcasting destinations across the United States, which was introduced earlier this year. The service is being offered via Vyvx. Brody said the service is “a boon to advertisers facing ever tighter deadlines for the delivery of advertising content. This is a great option for clients who can’t wait for overnight delivery. Now they can have a high-quality HD spot sent to New York, Los Angeles or virtually anywhere else in the country in minutes.”
Addressing the issues of speed and tighter deadlines, McNeill says that moving forward, production companies have to get more crafty in terms of how they do things. “CMOS have so little time and money to make an impact on their brand, whatever it is. They are asking the agencies to behave so quickly and nimbly, that’s why there is a splinter effect on the production companies. The challenge now is not which jobs to do or how to bid the job, it’s how to actually produce the job. That’s directly related to the tax credit. There’s so much opportunity to take the credit and factor that into how you do it because it could be important,” says McNeill.
He believes agencies will continue to ask production companies to behave differently, to be more like creative partners and to be more understanding of their business. “It sort of relates to the tax credit. I think we need to become more educated. Production companies need to adapt and understand our clients needs more and the crew needs,” he says.
McNeill adds that Digital Kitchen has gotten much more educated on how to use the tax credit and what it means and has taken a lot more advantage of it over the last 12 months. Recent work shot in Illinois includes a project for bud.tv and spots for Dick’s Sporting Goods and Finish Line shoes.
He is a little disappointed in the advertising community in that he doesn’t think everyone is really embracing the tax credit yet. “I actually hear some criticisms. From my AICP Midwest perspective, you get exposure to a lot of other states trying to do incentives, and ours is really good. Is it the best? No. But is it the worst, not even close.
“It’s sort of misunderstood. I think the danger is if it gets criticized too much or doesn’t get wildly embraced, it could go away. And that would be a mistake.”
His advice is to call the AICP or the state film office before you make a judgment. “I think the tax credit is one piece of an ongoing trend in which we are being forced to look a little more deeply and use more outside-the-box solutions to making stuff. To me, it’s a great result of that. Four years ago someone said, ‘We have to attract people. We are losing people. How do we do it?’
“It’s a great step. I don’t think we should stop, though. I think we still need to consider there’s so much production going overseas and the labor is a big issue. We have to continue to refine it and look for other big ideas.”
