The Political Thriller
June 22, 2009
Summer has begun! It’s hard to believe I worked over the end of winter and all through spring, feeling the seasons slowly change under a haze of fatigue and long hours. The people I spent twelve hours a day with are fading slowly from memory as I gear up for a new set of tasks. I am trying to jump on to another film in the state above me, Washington, but even though we’re all in the same union, I may have residency requirements to meet before I am once again gainfully employed.
And speaking of employment, there’s a dust storm of bad news on the horizon that hopefully we in the film business in my state can forestall by emailing our desires as constituents to the Oregon legislature’s Speaker of the House. Our film incentive bill, SB 621, which would increase our film incentive package from 5 million to 7 ½ million per year, passed the Oregon Senate, then failed to make it out of the Oregon House Revenue Committee. Now only the Oregon Speaker of the House can get it on to a vote by the whole House of Representatives. Why this bottleneck when the Senate already passed it? Shouldn’t the two parts of the legislature each get a straight shot at voting on it? “Committees” are not readily transparent, and are not a direct reflection of the majority vote. I so distrust and revile politics, especially when it impacts my own life this directly.
What the passage of the bill will mean is twelve months’ worth of films up here in Oregon every year as opposed to the six we get now. That’s the difference between making a living and… maybe having to quit the Business or move somewhere else and start over again—for hundreds of us. The reality is we don’t even give out the money from the incentive fund until a film has turned in the receipts to prove they spent the required money in Oregon. So how can Oregon lose? They’ve got more business tax money in their coffers, allowed employment of more of their residents (who all pay a hefty state income tax), and brought money to more of Oregon’s businesses.
It also means more jobs in a green industry that will provide health insurance and pension benefits to those it employs. That’s the kind of industry we need to have more of, here in Oregon.
So why not spend another 2 ½ million to make many times that much in financial returns. In these economic conditions, such a strategy makes more sense than ever before. Perhaps somebody in the Revenue Committee thinks we’re financing “Hollywood moguls” on our dime. In reality, of the 18 projects funded by the incentive program six were Oregon productions, and of the remaining twelve, ten were independently financed (thanks to Michael Fine for these figures).
I just want to feel summer, not worry about short-sightedness in my own state legislature. I just want to get out on a kayak and look for orcas, feeling the sun on my face, not fear for my own career and that of everybody I work with. I admit it—I’m really, really self-involved. Nevertheless, I wrote a letter to the Oregon Speaker of the House, Dave Hunt, yesterday, in hopes of making my voice heard. Any of my readers out there who work in Oregon, I invite you to do the same. Contact him at http://www.leg.state.or.us/hunt Can we change the status quo? If enough of us care? “Yes we can!”
Good Lord, welcome to our world out here in Kansas! We feel your pain. Our state legislature just repealed our paltry $2 million (yes, you read that right) tax credit for twelve months. And we face probably the same stigma that you do: that non-family friendly hollywood element, film isn’t a “real” business, insert whatever stereotype about the film industry you can think of here.
I keep wondering if filmmakers and industry professionals really have to become politicians in order to keep movies being made in places other than New York, California, and Chicago. I think the key is, like you said in your earlier blog, to pitch film incentives programs to state legislatures as programs that “will keep hundreds of us employed, and bring money to many businesses” in EVERY state that creates a film incentives package.
These politicians (many of whom I deal with in my “real world” job — I do work in state politics, as a campaign politico) do not understand the film industry, so they are frightened to jump in and help. On top of that, every state in the union is facing budget crunches. So, when our lobbying group — the Kansas Film Commission — were selling the package to our legislature, instead of telling them that it works on the foundation for state economic help (local businesses and employing local professionals), they said it would bring money into the state. The legislators, in their infinite wisdom (most of whom are like friggin’ children) heard “money into the state,” and immediately thought “tax revenue.” It’s idiots who think the only way to improve the economy is to tax the living daylights out of the studio moguls, as you have said.
They can’t see the trees for the forest and, instead of thinking about local professionals getting work and local businesses staying afloat, are more interested in government money for their special interests in each district.
My advice? And this is something I’ve discussed with MANY of my friends in the industry…
Let these people know that while it would be unethical to guarantee them professionally created commercials and media in exchange for a vote on an increase in the state incentive program, it is not unethical that as an interest group (the keyword being “group”), industry professionals from Oregon (and every other state) CAN guarantee that they will NOT help produce commercials and online media for any legislator that does not support the industry.
Then, when these politicians do decide to go out and hire some out-of-state company, you know enough industry professionals that you can make your own 501 (non-profit, unaffiliated political action committee) ads that target these politicians by saying that they refused to support local workers in the legislature, and then refused to support them when they hired out-of-state workers to produce their commercials and online media.
We tend to forget that the most powerful weapon in politics is the mass media. And we control access to that mass media. We can weild some clout. We just need to get organized enough to do it.
Tyler,
Thank you for your obviously considered and politically savvy response. I almost wrote you back immediately, and I’m glad I didn’t, because good news has just completely changed our circumstances for the better, here in Oregon. It seems our emails and letters actually revived this bill after it was legally dead. Read my blog for this week and you’ll see how it happened. I’m still reeling from the outcome of my first real dealings with the state legislature. Reeling in a good way.