By Matt Roush
If it had been a movie, it would have been a massive crowd scene in one of those old 1950s Biblical epics.
And none of this green screen computer effects stuff either. These people were for real and deadly serious. And they came, 1,300-plus strong, to the CBS Radio Michigan Makes Movies Expo Sunday at the Rock Financial Showplace.
 View a video recap!
View photos from the event -Â Click here
Michigan became a major player in the movie business in April 2008, when legislators passed an incentive package calling for a 40 percent refundable tax credit for movie production costs spent in Michigan, or 42 percent if filmed in one of Michigan’s 103 core communities. Importantly, the credit only applies to costs paid to Michigan-based companies or staff — not staff temporarily imported from elsewhere.
“Movies chase incentives worldwide,” said Larry August, director and managing partner of Avalon Films. “That’s become the way they do it. So they go to Canada or Louisiana or now, Michigan. There’s more movies being made in Michigan than in California. There’s literlaly no movies being made in Hollywood right now — it’s shocking. What’s being made in Hollywood is a lot of TV shows, because most TV shows are still made in studios.”
August said the 40 percent tax credit gives Michgian suppliers an important advantage. “If you services have a built in 40 percent price advantage you would think you could price your services profitably,” he said.
The movie industry needs lots of talent in Michgian, August said, from assistant directors to heads of departments to camera operators to makeup artists to grips and electrical staff.
August said all employees in the film business start at the bottom as production assistants, and that the business purposely makes it difficult to get into its unions.
“They want people who are persistent and who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” August said. “But writers get a pass — if you write a great screenplay you start at the top.”
Also speaking was Christopher Coppola, nephew of the famed director Francis Ford Coppola, who has just been made an adjunct professor at Livonia’s Madonna University for his efforts to bring more film and video production training to the school, including this week’s Project Accessible Hollywood citizen film training session and film festival.
Coppola said old school film skills like writing screenplays, doing a shot list and working with actors must be combined with new school skills like getting film concepts onto different platforms like cell phones and video games. “The old school needs to tell good stories on these new school platforms,” he said.
Coppola said incentives like Michigan’s means filmmakers “don’t need to move to Hollywood now. You can do these things on stages now from anywhere.” Read more. (more…)
Think you’re the ultimate Survivor? Then head to WWJ-TV’s open call for Survivor on Thursday, December 17th, from 3-7pm, at Gardner White Furniture in Canton, for your chance to audition!
A local broadcast school is now training Michigan workers to get ready for new jobs in the state’s booming film industry.
