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B'ham-Jeff |
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April 22, 2005 A Birmingham-Jefferson County Film Office was created
by the Metropolitan Development Board. You can check the news at the
Reelscene News Index, http://reelscene.com/news/newsindex.html
or you can read these pages.
MDB creates Film Office Interview with Ted VonCannon,
MDB,about the Film Office Birmingham City Council funds film
commission amid controversy Interview with David Ricker,
Birmingham Film Commission member. The previously discuss plan is listed below as a research guide. |
| Since the Salon started in 1997, there has been a continuing discussion about a film commission being set up in Birmingham. With some of the recent events we revisited the topic (from our earlier Salon meetings) of establishing a larger Birmingham-Jefferson Regional Film Office. A larger Regional Film Office is favored because the resources of the entire county is greater than what any one town or city can offer. At the April 8, 2004 meeting the details were discussed again. As we continue discussing this topic additional points will be added. Note: This plan comes out of the approximately 72 meetings with the several hundred filmmakers and business leaders who attended, each of their comments were incorporated into this plan. |
| Purpose
The purpose of the Birmingham-Jefferson
Regional Film Office is two fold; At this point it's not certain if the Regional Film Office needs to be part of the Jefferson County Commission or organized as a separate semi-autonomous board authority. A data base of talent, production services, locations and more can be collected by the Regional Film Office. This could be reviewed by those seeking assistance with crew, talent or equipment. Locations for scenes could be indexed in a computer to ease scouting. Note: Some have advocated that the Film Office manage a film training program for middle and high school students; this idea is ok in it self but would be too cumbersome too implement. Training programs are best handled by educational institutions as a separate matter. |
| Participation
It would be best if all the municipalities in Jefferson County participated. Many of the smaller towns have excellent exterior locations for filming that could prove to be more valuable than Birmingham. |
| Structure
Each municipality would have one person to serve as a film liaison representative. Each 'rep' would be knowledgeable about the local governmental departments, permits, personal, et al. The 'rep' would need to collect the information about the local talent, production services, locations, in their respected areas. The 'rep' would serve as a local contact point for the rest of the Regional Film Office. The 'rep' could serve as needed as supplemental staff as needed for productions being filmed in other parts of the county. This 'rep' could be a full time position or be part of someone's current duties (may need to be decided by each municipality). The film liaison representative would work with the Regional Film Commissioner/ Director and with other 'reps' within the area served by the Regional Film Office. All of the participating municipalities will need to agree to structure their Film Liaison Rep' along this format. This will provide the ease of unity and communication between all the towns. In case someone in Sylvan Springs needs to film in Tarrant, the Film Liaison Rep's will know how the other is set up and can expedite matters. |
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| The Commissioner or
Director
Because of the problem of in-fighting, favoritism, conflicts of interest and ethics violations, a board of media business people will need to be avoided in favor of a single Commissioner or Director to run the Regional Film Office. The Commissioner will need to be knowledgeable about the film industry but will need to have no production business of their own nor dealings with their family members. This will need to be a full time salaried position. The Commissioner will oversee and coordinate the information about the local talent and services. The Commissioner will work in concert with the Alabama Film Office to attract outside productions to this area. A central office space will need to be set up. This could be in a municipal building or since this is a county wide agency, a shopping center could be used. Their would need to be a staff to assist the Commissioner and offices for meetings with all the liaison reps and other people. Computers would used to organize and provide access of the talent and services database. Computers would also tie in with each of the liaison reps in their respected areas. |
| Fees, permits and
tax exemptions
An exact fee for permits hasn't been determined at this point. It would be helpful would be for fees to be all the same for all the municipalities. That way the cost of having the police block off a street could be easy to calculate. One thing that was a major issue was too much of a tax exemption for outside companies that don't employ any local crew. The current film incentive bills pending in the legislation may sound good on the surface but without a way for our residents to get hired on these productions they could produce an economic loss instead of a gain. If a production company comes into the area, brings in all the crew form outside and gets a tax break from the State then who benefits? The local people are out a job, the State is out the tax revenue. Our discussion reiterated this fact and pointed out that the Alabama Point System discussed at an earlier meeting would be good to couple with the tax incentive (basically, the more Alabamian residents hired on a production, the bigger the tax exemption). Without something like this we would be giving away the barn with the horse. Alabama Point System http://reelscene.com/law/alapoints1.html |
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