Select Committee On the Preservation of Calif.'s Entertainment Industry Slates Session For 9/17
By Robert Goldrich
BURBANK, Calif. --While California has thus far failed to pass production incentives to help the state keep and attract filming business spanning features, TV, commercials and branded content, several legislators have not given up on that quest. Among the core supporters for an incentives package are members of the State Assembly Select Committee on the Preservation of California Entertainment Industry.
Chairing the Select Committee is Assemblyman Paul Krekorian (D-Burbank). Committee members are Assembly Majority Leader Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles), and Assemblymembers Cameron Smyth (R-Santa Clarita), Sam Blakeslee (R-San Luis Obispo), Mike Davis (D-Los Angeles) Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach), Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and Anthony Portantino (D-Pasadena).
In June, the committee played a key role in the Assembly’s passage of a film grant program designed to combat runaway production. However, that measure appears to have since fallen by the wayside.
Still the Select Committee is looking to renew support for incentives to help level the playing field for California as compared to the many other states that have such programs–tax rebates and the like–in place.
The Select Committee is holding its first public hearing on Monday, Sept. 17, bringing in experts to discuss such topics as the entertainment industry’s contributions to California’s overall economy and job creation, the adverse impacts that production incentives offered by other jurisdictions have had on California employment and state revenues in recent years, and the major challenges California faces in maintaining, if not boosting entertainment jobs and infrastructure.
The public hearing will take place at the IATSE Local 80 office in Burbank, from 1 to 4 p.m. Plans also call for a second public hearing to be held in San Francisco a month or so later. Additional hearings will also likely be scheduled in 2008.
Based on the input and feedback generated by these public hearings, the Select Committee intends to develop a range of policy options designed to stimulate filmmaking in California.
To help muster public involvement and support, the Select Committee has launched a website, www.assembly.ca.gov/entertainment. Krekorian described the site as a vehicle for Californians to learn more about issues that impact the industry. “Literally millions of Californians are dependent on the entertainment industry for their livelihoods,” he said. “I hope they will use this website as a tool to learn more about the challenges we face in keeping the industry here in California, and also to voice their views about how vitally important the success of this industry is to our state.”
Indeed competition is fierce for the business. “So many other states and countries are working overtime to lure this industry away from us because they know it produces tremendous economic benefits and revenues with good middle class jobs,” stated Krekorian. “The charter of my committee is to fight hard to keep those jobs here, keep California competitive and make sure that the state is a great partner for this industry.”
Assemblymember Portantino cited the wide impact that production has on the broader economy of the state. “From the food actors and crews eat, to the hotels and support businesses that help a production’s needs, the survival of filmed entertainment in California is central to our chances of having a healthy economy.”
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More