Lights, Camera, Inaction!
I always look forward to my daily IBJ updates and our subsequent subscription, but in last week’s edition, there was an article about the Heartland Film Festival and the featured film Home Of The Giants that I simply have to comment on.
What I didn’t see alluded to anywhere in this story – or in any of the press this week about the festival – is how very little support (beyond Heartland), the film industry (or the broader production community/communications industry) get from the state of Indiana. In fact, the producers of Home Of The Giants wanted to shoot the film entirely in Indiana, but North Carolina offered the production millions in incentives while Indiana offered them $10,000. As a result, the film, with the exception of a couple of days of shooting exterior key locations, was shot in North Carolina. This, and the Governor’s recent veto of a film incentives bill that would have meant hundreds of millions in revenue a year (a YEAR - versus the $250 million one-time Super Bowl revenues the state fell all over itself to secure - and spent more than $1 million on in the process) is the real story behind Home Of The Giants. A story that really needs to be told since so much of the current efforts to bring production to Indiana centers around an industry that means more than $650 annually to the state (when you include commercial production, radio production, music production and corporate communications).
Indiana has one of the most respected film festivals in the nation, yet the industry as a whole gets absolutely no respect or real support from the state. That a one-time event like the Super Bowl is more important to the state than an entire industry - an industry to which we are all connected in some way shape or form – is a real shame.
For what it’s worth, Home Of The Giants is just the tip of the iceberg with regard to how myopic this state is on this particular issue – a clean industry that (no kidding) means $650 million annually in taxable revenues. Indiana has lost an additional $55 million in film business the last couple of years with films that had looked at Indiana and then went to more progressive states like New Mexico, North Carolina or Illinois. Included among the films lost is American Crime - a story about a high-profile murder in Indianapolis. The film stars Catherine Keener, it’s getting the kind of early Oscar buzz that could have lent some luster to Indiana’s production reputation and it is a uniquely Indiana story that is being told in California because the state wouldn’t support it with production incentives.
Add to this other uniquely Indiana stories that are slated to be told elsewhere, the veto of a bill that would have supported an industry whose annual contribution to the state would be 3 times that of a one-time Super Bowl windfall and a general dismissal of and disregard for an industry important to all of us, and you see how much more the IBJ could have said.
It appears the IBJ will be following up on the issue further, if the state allows. So stay tuned. And support your local film community. Visit www.imindiana.org for more details.