The AFM calls itself the “Home of the Independent” and it’s true. This is the one main places where independent film deals get put together. However, it’s not the type of independent film that you’re most likely familiar with. These are not the independent films that rule Sundance. You’re not going to find movies starring Parker Posey, Sam Rockwell or whatever indie darling that is currently in vogue. No, the AFM is where you find the other type of “independent” film, the straight to video movie.

The straight to video world is a completely different universe than Hollywood. These are the movies that line the shelves at your local Blockbuster or other video store. This is a world where action, horror and franchises rule the day. Where the biggest stars are Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren and the biggest franchises may be ones you’ve never even heard of.

This is a different world operating on a completely different margin. Movies here are made for a fraction of what your typical Hollywood film budget is. The companies that attend these markets operate under the model of making movies cheap enough with desirable elements (action, nudity, more nudity) so that they can be sold to the international market. Quality is not as important as marketability and genre. Drama and comedy are more dependent on dialogue and cultural influences and thus are harder to sell. But boobs and blood will sell anywhere. That’s why action and horror are king at the AFM.

Some of you may ask, why doesn’t quality matter? It’s because the AFM has no pretense of art. The movies here are nothing more than widgets to be sold. You see, America has a thriving film industry. Most countries do not. Sure, the UK makes a fair amount of movies as does France and Asia, but the majority of the world just do not have the infrastructure nor the economy to support a prolific film industry. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of the world doesn’t need content to fill their movie theaters or to program their television networks. And that’s precisely the market for these schlock, straight to video (in the US) movies that are made and traded for the American Film Market. Making a quality film with a good story takes too much time and energy. It’s much easier for the companies that rely on AFM to make movies to a formula. Recycle the plot from this movie, change the setting, add some boobs, maybe an alien monster and that’s about all the innovation that you’re going to get here.

So how does the American Film Market work? To oversimplify it, there are sellers and there are buyers. The buyers are people who represent distributors (theatrical, TV or DVD) from the US and other countries. The sellers are either production companies trying to sell their finished product or pre-sell their future product or individual producers trying to the same. The AFM represents a place where all of these buyers and sellers come together with the hopes and intent of commerce taking place.

In a future post, the Moose will talk more about how an independent filmmaker can use the AFM to help find financing for their film. In the meantime, enjoy a sampling of the movies that are made for and sold at the AFM.

Many of those screenwriting sites have gone to a paid subscriber format. It’s a harsh world and that’s a tough pill to swallow for many struggling writers. But you shouldn’t really worry as there is still one free script sales archive available online – Hollywood Lit Sales. This isn’t the greatest site in the world, but it’s free. Here you can go through their sales archive and look at every script sold as reported by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Does that mean they list every script sold? No. Just the ones reported in the Hollywood trades.

The good news is that the sales archive is searchable. You can filter your script sales search by parameters such as agent, agency, writer’s name, date, buyer, producer, etc. You can even search by writer’s first sale, which is especially useful for fledgling screenwriters interested in seeing how much their stories are worth.

In addition to the script sales archive, there is also a free Story Database that lets producers or whoever search for a type of story. Will you or your story be discovered by a producer and bought through this service? Highly inconceivable but stranger things can happen. The Moose, personally, would not submit to this database as almost any producer who is capable of greenlighting a film or buying your script has a giant stack of scripts that they need to read from established writers. I doubt that they would spend their free time trolling through a free database that anyone can submit when they could be spending time with their kids.

Hollywood Lit Sales also has many other features such as a advice forum and a coverage service. Not really useful, but they are providing you with a service for free. Why not get your script covered by them and subsidize their site? If the coverage is useful, then all the better.

In actuality, the only other useful feature on this site other than the searchable script sales archive is their Hollywood Address Book and their Examples page. The Hollywood Lit Sales Address Book is essentially a bare bones version of the Hollywood Creative Directory. It lists agencies, management companies, production companies, entertainment law firms and guilds. Their Examples page gives examples for a basic screenwriting page, a bad query letter, a good query letter and the script title page. All in all, this site is a decent resource for screenwriters if you just ignore the lame advice they try to give.

Mystic River

The Departed

So what does Massachusetts have to offer to Hollywood? Plenty. First, there’s the refundable tax credit. Massachusetts offers a unique tax credit that is both refundable or transferable. Filmmakers can take the tax credit themselves as a cash rebate at 90% of the value, or they can sell (transfer) the credit to someone else for market rates. This option is useful for filmmakers looking for financing as they can offer a tax credit for their investors in addition to equity profit participation. To make things even better, the credits has a 5 year carry forward from the year incurred. Not too shabby. And there is no cap on the tax credit. There is, however, a minimum spend of $50,000.

Massachusetts does not offer a hotel tax exemption. However, discount rates at hotels may be obtained for production by contacting the Massachusetts Film Office. All state owned locations and facilities are fee free for filmmakers and no sales tax is collected on all production related expenditures. There is an experienced crew base in Massachusetts and a selection of several sound stages and production rental houses for filmmakers to use.

For more information about Massachusetts filming incentives, contact:

Massachusetts Film Office
31 St. James Avenue, Suite 260
Boston, MA 02116
Phone: (617) 423-1155

Nick Paleologos
Executive Director
Phone: (617) 423-1202

New Mexico does not offer a tax credit, but an actual cash rebate of 25% of qualifying local spend. There is no brokering required as the check will be sent straight to the production company’s office from the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department. There is no cap on in-state expenditures and the qualifying amount includes New Mexico labor costs. The rebate is capped, however, at $5,000,000 on all out of state “performing artists” per project. Best of all, there is no minimum spend to qualify so this is great news for smaller, independent productions. The state has set no annual cap on the rebates so there’s no need to rush or plan an early year shoot

There is also a sales tax exemption for film production in New Mexico. In addition, all hotel and lodger taxes are waived on stays longer than 30 days. There are no permit fees for the city of Albuquerque while the city of Santa Fe charges a meager $25.00 permit fee. State owned buildings are fee-free including a closed state penitentiary with space for a mill and production offices. Not too shabby. If that’s not enough, New Mexico also offers a loan/investment program for film production.

New Mexico is a union state and as such has a large and experienced union crew base capable of handling up to 12 productions at a time. There are three studios with a total of ten stages in Albuquerque and another two soundstages in Santa Fe. Camera, sound, and other production equipment houses can be found in the two big cities of Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

The terrain and environment of New Mexico is suitable for desert and mountain locations. Some recent productions that have been filmed in New Mexico include: In the Valley of Elah, 3:10 to Yuma, No Country for Old Men, Wild Hogs, The Astronaut Farmer and Transformers. Currently, the latest installment of the Terminator franchise Terminator: Salvation is shooting in Albuquerque.

For more information, contact:

New Mexico Film Office
418 Montezuma Avenue
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Phone: (505) 476-5610
Fax: (505) 476-5601

Lisa Strout
Director

Jennifer Schwalenberg
Deputy Director

Tax Rebate

Sales Tax Exemption

Loan Program

When people think of California, they almost inevitably think of Hollywood. And why not? The entertainment industry, primarily fueled by television and movies, is the third largest industry in California behind agriculture and aerospace. In other words, there’s a lot of money in film and television production and that money is in jeopardy of moving out of the state of California.

Other states are aggressively pursuing film and television producers by offering generous tax credits and rebates and other production incentives. Michigan just passed the most generous film and television production incentives package in the country. New York just upped their production incentives. So did Massachusetts. All of these other states are now competing for Hollywood’s production dollars.

Now take a minute to think about your average big budget film. A big event movie like Iron Man or Speed Racer can easily cost over $100 million. That’s a lot of money. And if another state like Louisiana or New Mexico gets that production, than that’s money that California is not getting.

Now let’s look at television. The average sitcom or drama costs several million to produce for each episode. Let’s say for argument’s sake that the average show costs $2.5 million an episode. There are between 22-24 episodes in a full season. That’s $55-$60 million per television show that gets pumped into the local economy. That’s a lot of jobs for Californians and a good base for tax revenue. You can imagine the impact to California’s economy when a big movie or television show moves to another state.

More and more movies and television shows are leaving California and rightly so because production money goes a lot further in other states with good production incentives. Terminator: Salvation starring Christian Bale is shooting in New Mexico. Want to guess why? How about a 25% refundable tax credit for qualifying local spending. On a big budget movie, that’s a lot of money the producers are saving. The ABC show Ugly Betty is moving production to New York. Why? Because New York just upped their refundable tax credit to 30% of qualifying local spend.

What about California? As the Moose has already lamented, California’s production incentives are laughable at best. Producers would be stupid to film here when they can be getting 20%, 30%, 40% of their money back just for filming somewhere else.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the move of Ugly Betty to New York will cost two-thirds of the show’s 150 crew members their jobs. It’s also the first of what is sure to be several television shows that leaves California. The disgruntled crew grouped together to take out an ad in Variety appealing to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to help stop the hemorrhaging of work to other states.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, no stranger to filming himself, addressed the issue by saying, “What happened was productions that shifted to other states, didn’t come back to California; they went to Louisiana, they went to Florida, they went to New Mexico because they give great tax incentives.” He insisted that that the Democrat-controlled California legislature get with the program and offer tax incentives to keep productions in California.

Most producers, I think, would prefer to shoot in California because they live here. Their families live here. And California has the infrastructure and experienced crew base to offer the best production value for producers if they shot here. The problem is that the aggressive tax incentives of other states outweigh the positives of shooting in California. Governor Schwarzenegger needs to press the issues and get competitive tax credits and other production incentives if he wants to keep California as the epicenter for the entertainment industry. They don’t need to be the best incentives. Just competitive. Can Arnold save California from runaway productions? I hope so. I don’t want to have to move to New Mexico.

Now New York State will increase its 10% below-the-line tax credit for film and television production to a whopping 30%, upping the program to $575 million, speeding the rebate waiting period from two years to one and extending the deal to 2013, with an ultimate $110 million cap. Now that’s an incentive package. In actuality, the Republicans in the Senate wanted a bigger incentive package but the Democrats bargained the incentives down to this still sterling package. Is it as good as Michigan’s production incentives? No. But this is New York. You have Niagra Falls and New York City and all the places in between. New York doesn’t have to be the cheapest state to film in or have the best incentives, it just needs to be competitive and this package is a good one.

Already business is picking up for New York. There’s talk that the show Ugly Betty may move to New York to take advantage of the incentives. Even films that aren’t set in New York are relocating there to take advantage of all New York has to offer. And what does New York offer besides great locations? How about an experienced and diverse crew and talent pool to draw from. Now that’s exciting.

So how does one qualify for the New York refundable film production tax credit? Qualified production costs at a qualified film production facility must be greater than or equal to 75% of the costs within and outside New York. Productions are required to spend at least one day at a qualified facility on a set. If production costs at a qualified facility are less than $3,000,000, then shooting days in New York outside qualified production facility must be greater than or equal to 75% of shooting days within and outside New York.

There is an investment tax credit that is available for tangible property containing at least one sound stage greater than or equal to 7,000 square feet, which is principally used as a qualified film production facility and the taxpayer provides at least 3 qualified services, including but not limited to: studio lighting grid, lighting and grip equipment, multi-line phone service, broadband information technology access, industrial scale electrical capacity, food services, security services, and heating, ventilation and A/C.

In addition, sales tax is exempt for film productions for most film related expenditures. And New York City doesn’t charge for film permits or use of New York City police. Bravo!

New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture & TV Development
633 Third Avenue, 33rd Floor
New York, NY 10017
Phone: (212) 803-2330

Pat Swinney Kaufman
Deputy Commissioner & Executive Director

You see, the blue suited penguins believe that movie stars are essential to a film’s success. That’s why they’re willing to show the money and pay the big bucks for stars. The blue suited penguins believe that these stars can generate an enormous amount of free publicity and help to open a motion picture regardless of its quality.

The problem with this line of thinking is that movie stars do not guarantee a movie doing well on its opening weekend. They can be a factor if cast in the right role in the right story, but they can just as easily make flops as any other actors. Case in point, take Charlie Wilson’s War. Here’s a movie starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, arguably two of the biggest stars in the past fifteen years.

Yet the movie opened to a less than stellar $9.6 million dollars and came in 4th place behind National Treasure 2 – Book of Secrets, I Am Legend and Alvin and the Chipmunks. That’s right. The surefire pairing of two of Hollywood’s biggest stars loses to a movie starring Jason Lee and a trio of animated chipmunks.

Want another example? Take Lions For Lambs. Here’s a movie starring Tom Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. There’s no denying the star power involved on this film. First you have Tom Cruise who is one of the highest grossing actors ever. Then you add ’70s matinee idol Robert Redford and The Devil Wears Prada star Meryl Streep, who also happens to be one of the most celebrated actresses of her generation, and you should have a pure box office bonanza, right?

Perhaps not. Even with all the star power involved on this movie, Lions For Lambs could only open at number 4 at the weekend box office losing out to Bee Movie, American Gangster and Fred Claus. All the movie stars in the world couldn’t help that movie.

People will not go see a movie just for the stars anymore. I’m not sure they ever did. It was always dependent on both the story and the type of movie. Put Sylvester Stallone in Rocky and you have a hit. Put him in Rhinestone and you’ll have a flop on your hands. Cast Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and you’ll be raking in the money. Cast him as a Russian submarine captain in K-19: The Widowmaker and you’ll have both an embarrassment and an expensive box office failure.

But what about the blue suited penguins’s notion that casting stars gets you tons of free publicity that you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten? Just keep in mind that nothing is free. You had to pay for the damn movie star, didn’t you? Sure you might get a lot of chances to promote your film with magazine covers and appearances on Leno or Letterman or Craig Ferguson, but you could have bought just as much exposure if not more with the money you used to pay for your movie star. Think about it. Did all the free publicity that came with casting Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart equal the amount of advertising or press you could have bought with her $10 million salary? I think the answer you’ll find is no.

Does that mean that movie stars are useless? After all, what good are movie stars if they can’t guarantee a movie’s opening and the free publicity you get is less than what their salaries would have bought? The answer is no. Movie stars have their place and use. From a financial standpoint, movie stars help to drive the DVD sales and rental markets. A person is more likely to rent or buy the DVD of a movie starring Jet Li even if they never saw the film in its original theatrical release than they are to rent or buy a straight to video film starring someone they’ve never heard of. That’s why faded and fat former action stars like Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme still have healthy careers making straight to video movies. People are more likely to see one of these clunkers starring someone they know over a movie they’ve never heard of starring someone unknown.

To be fair, Stein mentions that there are plenty of box office draws (he names Will Smith, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Johnny Depp) and even more famous celebrities (Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, Lindsay Lohan), but as Joel Stein puts it “no one besides Clooney is so gracefully both.” Really? You mean this guy?

I don’t think so. People are quick these days to write about the demise of movie stars and anoint their
favorite actor as the last movie star. The problem with this is that as long as there are movies, there will always be movie stars.

What people miss is the mystery and glamour of Hollywood’s Golden era. What they forget is that many of the stars in that era were manufactured by the Studios. Sure, many of them were talented or effortlessly charming as if they were a different breed from you and me, but the vast majority of them were created by the studio system that controlled every aspect of their public personas. How they talked, how they walked, who they could be seen in public with…, that’s hard to do these days with all the instant media and the tabloids and the paparazzi and sites like TMZ.

Still, that doesn’t mean that movie stars are an endangered species. And as for George Clooney, I still find it hard that anyone would even consider him a movie star. If he’s a star than he’s a manufactured star; a product of magazine editors like Matthew McConaughey. Except for the Ocean’s Trilogy and the special effects spectacle The Perfect Storm, none of his movies make any money. Tyler Perry’s movies make more money than Clooney’s. And even though he’s won an Oscar, it’s because he’s more well liked by the industry than talented. He certainly hasn’t turned in an iconic performance. Not like Cary Grant being chased by a plain in North By Northwest or Humphrey Bogart as Rick in Casablanca. As for his overrated charm, Clooney works a little too hard to be charming and cool. He gets press because the industry and magazine editors like him. You want someone who’s cool, charming and at ease with his celebrity without much effort, cast Hugh Jackman.

I’m being sarcastic with the title of this post as I’m sad to report that the only state production incentives offered by the state of California is a five percent sales tax exemption on the purchase or lease of post-production equipment for qualified persons. Five percent. Yes, that’s measly. And it only applies to the purchase or lease of post-production equipment.

And while there is no state hotel occupancy tax, productions can apply for a tax exemption of local city or county hotel occupancy taxes on stays over 30 days. Are you getting excited yet about filming in California?

In California’s defense, there is a bill in the Assembly to provide another meager tax incentive to qualifying new productions, but that bill has yet to be passed by the state legislature and signed by the Govenator.

The California state government obviously does not see any reason to keep film productions and their money in this state. No wonder there are so many runaway productions to Hollywood North (Canada), Louisiana and other states.

But what about the free permits, you ask? California does offer free permits and no location fees for California State properties. Good luck finding one that you want to use unless it’s in the desert. And these free permits and location fees are offset by the fact that every other location in California charges an arm and a leg for location fees.

You can get almost all of your locations for free much of the time in other states as people are happy to see a movie being filmed on their street or even in their homes. Not so in Hollywood. People here see so many productions going on that they’ll turn their stereos on real loud and claim that they always listen to their music that loud and that a nice cash gift from production is the only way to get them to turn it down.

So why do people still shoot in California? For one, California boasts the largest and most talented crew base in the world that is big enough to accommodate over 100 simultaneous productions. Secondly, California has the infrastructure necessary to support any type of filmmaking whether it’s a micro budgeted indie film or a mega blockbuster summer movie with a budget over $150 million. And finally, there’s the weather. California is almost always sunny. Productions rarely have to worry about rain and other inclement weather so that makes scheduling and producing a film or television show a little easier and more predictable.

Do these benefits outweigh the numerous production incentives offered by Canada and other states like Michigan or Louisiana? Just look at the number of runaway productions each year and you’ll find that the answer is no. Film and television production is a multi-billion dollar industry. California better get with the program and stop the hemorrhaging of production money to other states and countries.

If you’re still interested in filming in California, you can contact:

California Film Commission
7080 Hollywood Blvd., Suite 900
Hollywood, CA 90028

Amy Lemisch
Director
Phone: (323) 860-2960 xt.102
Fax: (323) 860-2972

Enter the Dragon

Now the film industry may not have such a negative view of The Wolverine State. Michigan has just passed legislation aimed at aggressively bringing film and television production with some of the most lucrative production incentives in the country to make Michigan one of the most financially attractive states in the nation to make movies.

The key bill in the legislative package gives film studios a refundable credit of up to 42 percent on production expenses in the state with a minimum local spend of only $50,000. Here is a list of some of the recently passed state production incentives for Michigan.

• 40% cash rebate, across the board on Michigan expenditures, with a spending threshold of $50,000. Michigan will add an extra 2% if the company films in one of the 103 Core Communities in Michigan. Click here for a map of the 103 Core Communites.

• Labor and Crew: 40%-42% Resident, 30% Non-resident.

• Tax credit for investment in film production infrastructure.

• Extends MEGA tax credits to production companies.

• Free use of state property.

• Gives production companies a workforce development tax credit for hiring and training current Michigan crewmembers to a higher level.

• The only cap will be a maximum of $2 million salary per employee

• *There is no other cap and no sunset.

• Allows for low interest MSF loans for qualified film industry productions.

• Hotel occupancy tax exemptions available.

Michigan has a mostly union crewbase with several hundred crew members the majority of which are in metropolitan Detroit and the remaining in areas such as Grand Rapids, Traverse City and Lansing.

For those interested in learning about filming in Michigan, contact the Michigan Film Commission.

Michigan Film Office
702 West Kalamazoo Street
P.O. Box 30739
Lansing, MI 48909

Director:

Janet Lockwood

Director
Phone: (517) 373-0638 or (800) 477-3456
Fax: (517) 241-2930

The Michigan package also covers commercials, TV shows, documentaries, video games and other film work. Good luck and see you in Detroit.