A pair of counties in the Sunshine State is taking an educational approach to help combat runaway production and improve the economic prospects for local communities. Starting in January, several Florida high schools will offer more than the usual math, science and English curriculum, branching out into filmmaking classes designed to deepen the local talent pool. Generating capable homegrown crew artisans is viewed as pivotal to not only attracting more production but also to facilitating increased filming in Florida.
Miami/Dade wants to create an educational curriculum that will turn out graduates ready to go to work the day after they receive their diplomas. Osceola County—which encompasses Kissimee, Celebration and other towns—hopes to also generate a future workforce by exposing youngsters to career opportunities they might not have been able to realistically consider otherwise.
Wayne Morris, a veteran feature/ TV producer/president of Celebration, Fla.-based Telesis Productions, explains the underpinning of the Osceola program: "I got started in the industry twenty seven years ago by going to a vocational exposure program at a television station. I’ve just taken it up a couple of levels," explains Morris, who is spearheading Osceola’s educational efforts as part of an incentive deal he recently entered into with the county. "The primary reasons for doing this are: To give economically disadvantaged kids in this county an opportunity to be exposed to a high paying industry that they would otherwise never have been exposed to; and to help create a more culturally diversified crew base in this region."
Morris’ program is a 10-week course that draws from five county high schools: Gateway, Osceola, Poinciana, St. Cloud and Celebration High. While not a part of the official curriculum, the program has the support of county educators who will nominate students to participate in the program. For the first eight weeks of the course, various disciplines that comprise the filmmaking process (i.e., camerawork, art, audio, sound design) will be featured and focused on weekly. During the final two weeks, the students will write and produce PSA’s under the guidance of mentors.
Morris plans to bring in three industry professionals each of those first eight weeks to discuss their jobs and careers in a particular discipline. For example in the cinematography session, the trio might be comprised of an established DP, an entry-level camera loader and a Steadicam shooting specialist. Morris would then explain how producing interfaces with cinematography or whatever area is being discussed in a given week. He also plans to tackle topics other than the practical aspects of production. "We’ll be discussing issues like ethics and safety as a primary ongoing concern—something that should be taught to all filmmakers—but never really has been," Morris explains. "We’ll also cover issues like how to be a freelancer."
Hollywood South
Meanwhile, Miami’s program covers all four years of high school. As part of One Community, One Goal, a program launched by the greater Miami/Dade Chamber of Commerce to expand the local economy, the county’s school system has established ARTEC (Arts Related Technology for Entertainment Careers). Several secondary schools such as Miami Beach Senior High, Design and Architecture High, and William Turner Technological Arts High have been designated as academies that will teach students both above and below the line skills in various entertainment-related disciplines. For the first two years in the program, students will take courses in the basics of making movies, creating computer graphics, etc. During their junior and senior terms, students choose and concentrate on more advanced courses in a given field, such as commercials, sound engineering and sound reinforcement, visual technology, television and film writing and directing.
Peggi McKinley, who was recently hired as the entertainment industry liaison for the Miami/Dade County public school system, likens the ARTEC model to a university where students complete a core curriculum and then concentrate on courses in a major their junior and senior years. "Studies have shown that academy-focused programs cut down on absenteeism of both students and teachers," she says. "This approach allows teachers to have more interaction with the students, and the kids will gain more hands-on capability."
Miami/Dade’s academies will begin operating in January. Educators envision ARTEC as ultimately becoming a coordinated program that starts in junior high and carries on through the university level. One Community, One Goal has established a Curriculum Committee comprised of educators and commercial and entertainment production professionals that is charged with designing a practical curriculum at primary, secondary and university levels that turns out graduates ready to enter the film and entertainment work force. On the commercial side, several Miami-based production companies, including Walker/Fitzgibbon, AFI/Filmworks, Echo Bridge, Multivision, and Paradise Entertainment, are donating their time to advise the curriculum committee.
"The basic idea is [for educators] to work closely with the industry so there is coordination between the schools and the industry," says Bill Randall, director/owner of AFI/Filmworks.
"One of the things people recognized [right] off the bat is that there’s a big disconnect between what you learn in junior high and high school and what you get in community college or university programs," says Jeff Peel, director of the Miami/Dade Mayor’s Office of Film and Entertainment. "We wanted to work on that problem a little bit and create a smoother transition so that somebody matriculating within this system from junior high to high school and on to college or a technical school is following a path."
Training programs become all the more important in light of a recent study commissioned by the Miami/Dade Film Office, which concluded that Miami’s entertainment industry is a major contributor to the economy. The study showed that 1,000 entertainment/commercial production businesses employing 10,000 people are located in the greater Miami area, with another 10,000-15,000 people working in the industry as freelance crew and technicians. Miami has identified entertainment as a growth industry and sees doubling its entertainment economy as a necessity to help combat a projected 250,000 shortfall in jobs caused by projected immigration into the area over the next decade.
Miami’s leadership hopes that more young artisans will remain area residents as the effort to make the city into a Latin entertainment production center bear fruit. "What happens now is that a lot of the crew people and technicians working in the industry in Miami/Dade have moved here," Peel points out.
"That’s not really solving our 250,000 shortage scenario," he continues. "Some of that’s going to continue to happen and there are reasons for it. But we wanted to be able to educate our own native folks to take some of those jobs, in fact the majority of those jobs as they become available, because that’s going to be the salvation of the job creation we’re looking for."
Growth Factors
The efforts of Miami-Dade and Osceola counties are not confined to education. Miami is banking on a community-wide chamber of commerce and government led push to double the area’s $2.5 billion entertainment economy to $5 billion by 2010. The county hopes to reach that goal through a variety of measures, including marketing initiatives, a streamlining of the permit process and government red tape, as well as incentive programs.
Miami wants Los Angeles and New York-originated productions, but sees turning Miami into Hollywood South as the key to reaching its goal of a $5-billion-a-year entertainment economy. "We want and need full time employment for people," says Peel. "With the growth and globalization of the entertainment industry, there are niche pockets around the world that are going to be able to take advantage of different kinds of entertainment sectors and be able to carve out their own piece of the action. We think we’re one of those places."
Miami’s production is booming with the area’s growing prominence as a production center for Hispanic programming, interactive media and music. Both the Miami-Dade and Osceola areas also boast healthy television spot production activity.
Osceola County is counting on proximity to the studios and production facilities in Orlando, combined with a unique partnership arrangement built around the ability of the aforementioned Telesis Productions, to drive down filming costs to lure back runaway productions. Telesis used a complex litany of barter and rate agreements with vendors and the unions last year to coax the syndicated series Mortal Kombat to Osceola County. Because of Morris’ success with the show, he recently entered into an alliance with the county whereby Morris will market Osceola to commercial, feature and episodic television producers. If anyone brings a production to the county because of Morris’ efforts, he will receive an incentive payment from the county.
"We lost our textile industries overseas because of higher costs," points out Katherine Ramsberger, film commissioner of the Metro Orlando Film and Television Commission and senior VP of the Economic Development Commission of Mid Florida. "We’re now in the same situation in production. These are businessmen, and they need to make a profit."
Telesis was able to obtain lower rates that got the cost down enough to bring in that show without substantially affecting the profit margins of the vendors or the wages of the crews. That long-term thinking is in line with the benefits both counties hope to realize through an expanded, skilled labor pool generated by a commitment to formal, hands-on education.
