Tagged: film industry

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Michigan film producers and Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville say they will lobby to maintain the state's $50 million film credits cap.

Gov. Snyder is calling for a $25 million dollar cap in film incentives in the budget he has proposed. The amount is the same he proposed last year, but lawmakers raised the cap to $50 million during budget negotiations.

An annual festival of movies from the Middle East is screening films rarely seen in the United States.

The Arab American National Museum in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn is hosting the 2013 festival that runs from Jan 24-26.

Firefighter Walter Harris was killed in 2008 while attempting to put out a blazing abandoned building.

The headlines surrounding Harris’s death caught the attention of Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez.

Both filmmakers agreed a story deserved to be told about Harris and other Detroit firefighters.  

“Tom and I knew there was a story here that hadn’t been told about firefighters,” said Sanchez.

The story manifested into the new film, "BURN."

Michigan’s days of filling films’ frames are far from over. Carrie Jones, executive director of the Michigan Film Office, foresees a steady increase in the state’s film production.

Cyndy spoke with Jones in what was a continuation of Stateside’s look at Michigan’s film industry.

Once the top film incentive program in the country, Michigan now ranks within the top 10.

With a budget increase to $58 million for the 2013 fiscal year, Michigan expects to enjoy an increase in film production.

Not long ago stars like Mila Kunis, Ryan Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman were spotted in Michigan. For a brief moment the streets of Ann Arbor resembled those of New York or Los Angeles.

That was when Michigan offered the nation’s best subsidies for film and television production.

But to Governor Rick Snyder, these generous production tax incentives were not viable for our struggling state.

The incentives program was given a $25-milion dollar cap for the 2012 fiscal year.

Michigan’s tidal wave of film and TV production has slowed to a trickle.

People are making a lot of movies about Detroit these days. More than 60 of those films will be screened this weekend at an outdoor film festival in Detroit's Perrien Park.

Organizers hope to spark conversation about how Detroit is seen by Michiganders, and the rest of the world. 

25 hours, 15 minutes and 45 seconds of film, documentaries and music videos - all about Detroit.

“It’s kind of wild how many [films] have been made in the last 3 or 4 years...I wasn’t aware it was on this scale,” said filmmaker Nicole Macdonald.

Well, we are heading into the holiday weekend, and if the weather holds up, many of us will be barbecuing or going out on the water. But some of us will be going to the movies.

And your odds of seeing a major motion picture made in Michigan are a lot smaller than they were a few years ago.

That’s because the film incentive established by the Granholm Administration ended when Rick Snyder became governor and Republicans took over both houses of the legislature.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival wrapped up less than a month ago…they’ve barely packed up their film reels.  And already the Michigan Theater is prepping for yet another festival to open next month called Cinetopia.

This new, international festival will feature more traditional narrative film and documentaries, rather than the experimental films that dominate the Ann Arbor Film Fest.

Lots of news packed into this week's Artpod!

We learn about Michigan's burgeoning garment industry, and we get an update on how one of the state's biggest movie studios is doing (hint: not too well.) Plus, we talk with the director of the new documentary, After the Factory.