State Representative Susi Hamilton
Isn’t it ironic that Republican Governors in South Carolina and Georgia are boasting about the explosion their states have experienced in television and film production?
These conservative Republican governors are bragging about the jobs and revenue generated by the film and television industry. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal last week announced that 248 movies and film productions were shot on location in their state last year spending more than $1.7 billion and generating a $6 billion economic impact.
Those movie and television jobs were once in North Carolina and the associated revenue were once in North Carolina.
But the wisdom of the Republican Legislature cut the incentives and tax credits for the film production industry so the jobs and revenue have migrated south, where they do provide film production tax credits.
According to the Greensboro News & Record, from January through June of 2014 there were 40 film production projects in our state totaling more than $268 million in economic impact. During the same period in 2015, there were only 13 productions generating $70 million in economic impact.
So the philosophical free-market Republicans in our State Legislature are seeing the results of their plans to cut incentives and tax credits for the film and television industry in our state. It is costing us jobs, revenue and taxes that help fuel our state’s economy.
The policy is short-sighted and is hurting our state and the free-market in television production is doing just fine in South Carolina and Georgia. Their success has come at North Carolina’s expense and that’s just wrong.
PAID FOR BY THE MAIN STREET DEMOCRATS PAC
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT: Susi Hamilton (919) 733-5754
The outflow of jobs out of the state was predicted in my economic analysis distributed to the the NC House and Congress. The report was funded by the MPAA and other local film centers in NC, and I was given free rein to conduct an independent review. The study (http://www.wral.com/asset/news/state/nccapitol/2014/10/10/14064040/NC_Film_Supply_Chain_Study_3.31.14.PDF) predicted a loss of over 4000 jobs in North Carolina, a loss of revenue of $124 to local businesses, and a shortfall of over $21M in tax revenue to state and local communities. When this study came out, some people ridiculed the report, saying there is no way this could ever happen, and that eliminating the incentive would have no impact whatsoever. Not so funny anymore…
My reporting feature article of 15, 17 years ago in Reel Carolina said that until NC matured its Film and Television Industry so that “Above the Line” banking, agency, and distribution was fully invested in the state, it would be a cyclical weak industry for the state.
My way of thinking is that one ought build on your strengths. Hence I have repeatedly proposed an Above the Line, Invitational Disc Golf, Golf, Televised Annual event.
The furthest Arnold would go was to give away course passes when on their junkets to LA, where they sold NC as non union and around cheap.
Those involved in bribery understand that another party may well offer a bigger bribe. Further we are all familiar with the phrase “God bless the child that has its own.”
I am still at this pitching an angle to a company in LA.
Regardless of the money, there are cultural issues that cause many producers, and the rest of those Above the Line to have little real interest in NC. The legalization of pot would do as much for the industry as the movement to allow “liquor by the drink” did for state businesses 40 odd years ago.
The state of NC has made it clear that they don’t like “Your Kind”. It is no accidental thing that the horror show Blue Velvet was made in Wilmington. Burgaw if a desirable location for horror movies, as is the rest of the state in too many regards. (Hell to think of it the entire industry was kicked off by Firestarter, another Stephen King horror show.)
P.S. My most raw and personal accounting of aspects of my own writing and movie making career in NYC and NC is titled: Attack on the Hill, and is included in my latest book Poor Buzz & Stories from Warnings for my Daughter. I hope the Editor Thomas Mills will allow me to mention it.
– To fully close: the fact is that if you don’t like Union Labor, you don’t like the professionals working in the film and television industry. In my Labor Day Reel Carolina I pointed out that Union Labor was better, and safer. (That article got me run out of town.) I was in a unique position running an independent Lighting and Grip truck in NY to find these things out as I was supplying lights and grip to both sorts of crews.
No, it isn’t ironic (“ironic” means that the literal meaning and the actual meaning are oppositional). It is frustrating. I’d like to see more movies and television shows made in NC. I’d like for NC to have those jobs associated with the entertainment industry. Years ago conservative Senator Jesse Helms had a meeting-of-the-minds with Bono of U2. Why can’t our conservative leaders have a meeting-of-the-minds with some movie and television industry people?
“Don’t like, Blacks, Jews, Gays, you need to find another business.” Pot smokers. Freelancers. Creative classes. What’s NC really got that makes them want to live in NC? From working in NYC on The Guiding Light, EUE Screen Gems, I got the view that the studio had to be a write off. All the carpentry costs for the show could have been reduced bringing the show down here. Actors didn’t even have direct flights back and forth from ILM to LGA or EWR then.
And the idea that unions were important to professional producers, unbelievable! You have to stop the anti union rhetoric. You can’t have it, that business when you just look at the people the actors, writers, producers, and see dollar signs, period.
Businesses and industries need to be about more than that, especially movies and TV, our myths.
Go to the WGA then, just give them money, say write us scripts, TV for NC graduate filmmakers.
Give the writers in the writers programs producers and distributors. Tell the banks to loan to the writers with distribution.
It’s connected. Tourism. Tell the tourism boards to give money to the filmmakers, TV show makers.
Andy Griffith was the entire TV industry for years. He lived here. Hollywood, the TV networks, they wanted to sell his work. You got to have that. People like Andy.
Bribes run out, the place is just a stage, a location, it’s not a mature business.
The Federal Gov’t should pass a law (which of course would be challenged) stating that incentives by State and Local Government are forbidden. Those incentives interfere with interstate commerce! So do State and local generated taxes for that matter as every state tries to lower their taxes in vain to create jobs.
If you really do want a film business in NC, it has to be a matured business. That means what it meant 20 years ago when I reported the lack of an Above the Line Presence in NC for Reel Carolina.
More than the bribes you must have a welcoming culture. Legalized pot would do for the business what “Liquor by the Drink” did 40 years ago.
I proposed to build on the strengths of the State, which for visitors from LA were golf. I proposed and have again recently tried to get an Invitational Golf Frisbee Golf Tournament going as an annual TV Show. Golf isn’t much remarkable, Disc Golf is remarkable. NC has the best disc golf courses in the world.
I started with that 20 years ago.
Finally Bill Arnold went so far as to give away golf course passes. That was it.
I tried again when the Orange County Tourism Board saw infusions of cash from the new hotels. Hotel taxes would be properly put towards such as I have repeatedly proposed. Movies and TV increase tourism. Not even the Hoteliers I called would support my initiatives.
Tourism Board Leadership had their own plans to hire “sales” people to their bureaus. Figure what that means. There goes the 400 thousand plus to what, brochures, nice desk jobs for insiders?
I hate it for the IATSE brothers and sisters of Local 491, that the business is now in SC. When I could still Grip or Gaff, it was going to LA, the State, or Vancouver. Somebody else can always come up with a bigger bribe. It works for awhile.
A Mature Movie & TV Industry means headquarters, banking, agency and distribution.
Getting that in place means daily bread, TV and then the movies.
NC doesn’t really like the creative minds, the actors, the writers. They see them come through, come from LA, and see money signs, raise rents. Forget it. Let it go. Get a factory. Get some low paying jobs you can scream Non Union, about. Roll over, go back to sleep Rip. Forget it.
As long as we continue to elect right-wing extremists to the General Assembly this is what they will continue to give us back. The GOP has done such a tremendous job of gerrymandering districts and suppressing the vote they think they will be in power for generations to come. However, I trust that someday soon NC citizens will show them that they can think independently and elect sane people to represent us in Raleigh.