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.”
Writers of “Conclave,” “Say Nothing” Win Scripter Awards
The authors and screenwriters behind the film โConclaveโ and the series โSay Nothingโ won the 37th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards during a black-tie ceremony at USCโs Town and Gown ballroom on Saturday evening (2/22).
The Scripter Awards recognize the yearโs most accomplished adaptations of the written word for the screen, including both feature-length films and episodic series.
Novelist Robert Harris and screenwriter Peter Straughan took home the award for โConclave.โ
In accepting the award, Straughan said, โAdaptation is a really strange process, youโre very much the servant of two masters. In a way itโs an act of betrayal of one master for the other.โ He joked that โYou start off with a book that you love, you read it again and again, and then you end up throwing it over your shoulder,โ crediting author Robert Harris for being โso kind, so generous, so open throughout.โ
In the episodic series category, Joshua Zetumer and Patrick Radden Keefe won for the episode โThe People in the Dirtโ from the limited series โSay Nothing,โ which Zetumer adapted from Keefeโs nonfiction book about the Troubles in Ireland.
Zetumer referenced this yearโs extraordinary group of Scripter finalists, saying โprojects like these reminded me of why I wanted to become a writer when I was sitting in USCโs Leavey Library dreaming of becoming a screenwriter. If you fell in love with movies, or fell in love with TV, chances are you fell in love with something dangerous.โ
Special guest for the evening, actress and producer Jennifer Beals, shared her thoughts on the impact of libraries. โIf ever you are at a loss wondering if there is good in the world,โ she said, โyou have only to go to a... Read More