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CineSource Collective Narrative
Tour of the East Apologies all around, about the delay in this month’s gala issue getting up on the web, but we were on a whirlwind tour of the East Coast. We discovered that business is back on track in New York City, booming in South Carolina and ending in Florida and Massachusetts.
Although corperate industrial shoots have plummeted in New York, especially the banks and brokerage houses (go figure!), lots of little productions are stepping into take their place, if not at the same revenue level than increased content attraction. A bit of the latter is also up in South Carolina, where some young indies were recently busted for filming what appeared to be "fellating or simulating fellatio." The movie was titled Beach Week, a comedy about spring break, understandable then, although the filmmakers claimed "There was nothing going on."
What with their governor, Mark Sanford, getting actual action from a female member of the famously romantic South American tribe, the Argentines, you think they wouldn’t be worried. But this is still the ultra old-fashioned neck of the swampy South, and its residents have a bunch of moral ambiguities to sort.
Ex-New York filmmaker, Nick Lindsay, and Jackie, his actress-wife, say that things have gotten pretty busy. Charleston has become a cultural hub, with a lovely downtown and lots of concerts and galleries. And in this setting, filmmaking has jumped a notch, from local commercials to indie features. Lindsay is working on a doc about a doomsday prophet in New York and a feature starring Amy Koehler, although he was too busy to tell me much more about it.
Elsewhere in the East, Representative Joe de Minico, of Florida, is claiming that all the tax breaks they give filmmakers don’t really pay for itself, with increased jobs, etc. What, with all those MTV spots and Miami serials being filmed there? But that is what he claims, adding that the 43 states offering breaks are often forced to compete against each other and all loose in the process. Evidently, the complaint is falling on sympathetic ears in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, originally Puritan and Quaker states so perhaps more comprehensible than Florida.
Oh, well. Let them cancel the tax abatement and send more productions back to California where we just passed new tax breaks laws. Despite the fiscal crisis, they probably won’t be repealing them anytime soon. Indeed, on July 1, the California Film Commission, began accepting application and has received about 100 million worth from 60 productions, the majority being indie features. Of course, big studios are also eligible.
Re: Big studio production, a local producer emailed to complain that, contrary to our reports in the April Oakland issue, the television pilot "Parenthood" did get picked up, but is not shooting in Oakland, except for some scenics. Although she titled her email "irresponsible journalism," and noted "Check your facts. It is unfortunate, but true," the actual facts are even sadder. Parenthood has been cancelled entirely due to the undisclosed illness of its putative star Maura Tierney. Hope you all get better: Tierney, Oakland filmmaking and responsible journalists.