MOVIES

Leaders discuss what Texas needs to do to save its film industry

Texas Motion Picture Alliance is throwing a fund-raising bash for its lobbying efforts.

By Chris Garcia
AMERICAN-STATESMAN FILM WRITER
Friday, October 31, 2008

As movie production scrambles to New Mexico, Louisiana, Michigan and New York, where filmmakers enjoy generous tax incentives ranging from 20 percent to 40 percent, Texas' once-robust movie and television industry is hemorrhaging. Insiders are hearing a chilling "sucking sound," as Austin filmmaker Robert Rodriguez puts it, and are taking up political arms to stanch the bleeding.

The Texas Motion Picture Alliance was formed in late 2006 to lobby the state Legislature for tax incentives on behalf of the film, video, television and gaming industries. The group won a 5 percent incentive, but it's not enough — "just a foot in the door," Rodriguez says.

As Texas loses multimillion-dollar projects to states with more aggressive incentives, the alliance is working at full force to approach the Legislature in 2009 and raise incentives to the 15 percent or 20 percent range. In Austin alone, movie spending was $38.6 million last year, compared with a recent high of $95.8 million in 2003.

On Nov. 7, the Motion Picture Alliance is throwing a spaghetti Western-themed fundraising bash, with hopes of raising $20,000 for lobbying efforts. Featured guests at the event include host Ray Benson, Gary Clark Jr. and his band, Rodriguez, producer Elizabeth Avellan, game designer Warren Spector and filmmakers Richard Linklater, Terrence Malick and Mike Judge.

We recently conducted a casual round-table discussion at the Austin Film Society with Jeannette Scott, an Austin-based set decorator and the Central Texas representative of the alliance, and honorary alliance chairs Rodriguez, Avellan and Rebecca Campbell, director of the Austin Film Society. The conversation veered from hard numbers to focus on anecdotal evidence of what has become a dire talent-drain from Texas to other states.

Considering that the state Legislature convenes only every two years, "This is a critical time," Rodriguez says.

Chris Garcia: Is the state of Texas filmmaking worse than ever? Ten years ago, it seemed so flush.

Jeanette Scott: It's absolutely grim. Local animal wrangler Bobbi Colorado tells me that they've had their best year ever, and it's all been in Shreveport, La. She just finished two movies there and she's going back. I've been working in Texas film for almost 25 years, and I used to turn down jobs. I watched the industry in Austin grow with this wonderful excitement and energy. Now it's just gone. It's so alarming. Lots of my friends in the business have sold their homes and moved to Santa Fe, N.M.

Robert Rodriguez: I go to Los Angeles a lot and studios and producers don't even look at the details of your movie anymore. They hear that Michigan is giving 40 percent incentives, so everybody flocks to Michigan. And Michigan doesn't even have crews. People run out there like lemmings because it's more savings.

Rebecca Campbell: They won't even look here. Like Drew Barrymore's "Whip It!," which is about Texas roller girls in Austin. She didn't even scout Austin. People didn't want her to see (Austin), because they knew they weren't going to be able to say yes to it. They went straight to Michigan and only came to Austin to shoot exteriors for about five days. It's heartbreaking.

Elizabeth Avellan: Some people who worked on that film in Michigan said it was just awful. There's nothing there — no infrastructure, no crews.

Campbell: It's very hard to make the argument to out-of-town producers that, look, you're going to have a better time in Austin. You're eventually going to be able to bring it in more or less comparably (financially), and you might even make a better movie. What happens when you go to these places that have no infrastructure?

Avellan: They have to bring everything from outside, and the people don't even know what's readily available there. It ends up costing more in some ways. Even though they're getting all that money back, you have to make sure all your equipment is shipped in because there's nothing there. You're building an industry like we did here.

Garcia: Shreveport seems to be in that stage. A lot of the crew I spoke with there said things like, 'I can buy a house that would cost $1 million in Los Angeles for $100,000 in Shreveport.' But then I'd ask crew members who are passing through Shreveport what they did at night for fun, and they would shrug. Some said they'd drive three hours for a nice dinner in Dallas — a six-hour round-trip for dinner. In that regard, Austin's like a mini-New York City.

Campbell: And they have no film culture there, either. They were recruiting for an executive film director for some sort of cobbled together film society/studio thing that just sounded like a mess. It was like 30 people from the Chamber of Commerce trying to create a film culture. You don't buy culture. It comes from the ground up. That's the indigenous thing Austin has.

Scott: I'd say that the A-team crew people in Los Angeles are not moving to Shreveport, because they're making a good living in L.A. Given the choice, I think people would rather come here. That's why we had so much business. People love it here. This is a film-lover's town. There's so much support and synchronicity. All things being equal, I think everyone would come here before going to Michigan or Shreveport. As far as infrastructure, New Mexico passed incentives and they had nothing. Everybody was coming from Austin to work there. But because of the incentives, they don't need our people there any more. They have a training program to train their own homegrown crew. Lionsgate put up a sound stage. They've grown an industry in five years that really rivals what we have here.

Garcia: Robert, you're a special case, because you have a studio and crew here and you work cheaply.

Rodriguez: I can argue (with Hollywood producers) that because I have the studio and crews here I can save, and that replanting a production somewhere else isn't cost-efficient. But on a bigger-budget movie, it would be hard to convince a studio why I was shooting in Austin for a 5 percent rebate when I can go somewhere else for 40 percent. It's irresponsible filmmaking at that point.

Garcia: Have you been pressured like that?

Rodriguez: No, because I haven't taken projects like that yet. We're a Third Coast, and we should keep that going.

Avellan: Robert and I have spent years training people to become great crew, but now there's a huge brain drain. It is so sad to see our guys leave.

Rodriguez: I did "The Faculty" before I did "Spy Kids" to get my crew ready, because "Spy Kids" was a bigger movie. "The Faculty" was sort of a testing ground. It had some special effects, and that's really how we began Troublemaker Studios. After that, we went right into "Spy Kids" and our other movies. These guys have grown with us, including going into digital and 3-D. These are people we trained in areas in which they're probably the most experienced in the world. No one else has done all that stuff. So to see everyone flocking to other cities hurts.

Campbell: What a slap in the face from the State of Texas to Troublemaker Studios.

Scott: I'm ready to cry myself to sleep at night. All my friends are trying to find other jobs. As far as the feature film industry in Texas goes, it's just about over.

Campbell: Austin proper is doing its part by upgrading Austin Studios , but without the state doing its part in matching the incentives, one city can't stand up to Michigan, New Mexico and Louisiana.

Avellan: If they would pass something that can compete, all of Texas would be working, because films that were supposed to be in X, Y or Z would arrive all over Texas. People would rather come here. I just know that. There are too many producers who have shot here and want to come back. Our rates for equipment rental are much lower than other areas.

Scott: What's outrageous is that we've spent 25 years building up this industry and good will and getting our name out there. And now we're just letting it dissolve. It's a viable industry; it's not a fluff industry. People come from somewhere else with tens of millions of dollars and they put it into your economy, and then they go away, all in a very short time. It's a great business. It's great for Texas.

cgarcia@statesman.com; 445-3649