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A city film office could spark local movie industry
By Dennis Quick
Quick Notes
Tupelo, Miss., has one. So does Fresno, Calif. Ditto for Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Stroudsburg, Pa.; and Youngstown, Ohio. Even my former stomping grounds, Buffalo, N.Y., cold and gray as it is, has one.
What they all have is a film commission office. Charleston could benefit from having one, too.
True, we have a state film office in Columbia. But state offices concentrate mainly on luring Hollywood to the state, which is fine. Hollywood productions bring big bucks to the state.
However, a local film office could offer the Hollywood folks more personalized, single-point-of-contact care, such as directing moviemakers to the city’s best shooting locations, finding whatever equipment and crew the studios need, making sure noise ordinances and other regulations are straightened out, setting up police protection, arranging hotel accommodations and so on.
For local filmmakers, the office could keep a database of local actors, technicians, equipment and just about anything else that would interest the big Hollywood studios when they look our way. Also, a film office could be instrumental in securing a sound stage—a big warehouse would do—for local filmmakers and Hollywood hotshots alike.
In other words, the office would act as a liaison between the film production company and the city. It would be the go-to place for whatever it is anyone needs to make a film in Charleston, or North Charleston, for that matter. Or in Berkeley or Dorchester counties. Call it the Tri-County Film Office.
That’s what film industry consultant Ken Conner suggests. I recently chatted with Conner, a former economic development consultant in the New Orleans film office, at GryphonPix Entertainment’s headquarters in West Ashley. GryphonPix is a moviemaking company with two feature films in the works.
“Hollywood productions are looking more toward local services: good hotels, good food, good crews,” Conner said.
A local film office provides that much-needed local touch, he added.
In Louisiana, there is a state film office and a New Orleans film office. When Hollywood filmmakers want to shoot a movie in New Orleans, they skip the state office and go directly to the Big Easy’s office, Conner noted.
The same most likely would happen in Charleston.
Another advantage of having a local film office is that the office, specifically the film commissioner, can serve as a liaison between local investors and local film production companies, and between local businesses and local film production companies, Connor said.
If local money is invested in local film production companies that buy equipment from local businesses and hire local talent, the money stays local. That’s what you call a local film industry, and if you have one of those, you don’t have to be dependent on attracting Hollywood moviemakers, Connor said.
I agree. If Hollywood comes knocking, fine. If not, fine. We’d have our own Hollywood, which probably would be more ethical and less cutthroat than the notorious West Coast version.
How nasty can Hollywood’s business ethics get? Look up Buchwald v. Paramount, in which the late humorist Art Buchwald sued Paramount Studios for stealing his idea for the 1988 movie “Coming to America,” starring Eddie Murphy. Paramount optioned the script from Buchwald in the early 1980s but gave Buchwald no credit for the film. The movie made $350 million for Paramount, but the studio claimed it made no net profit from the flick. Buchwald called that kind of accounting “unconscionable.” That’s Hollywood.
We’ve got film production companies here, we’ve got actors, we’ve got scriptwriters, we’ve got technicians, we’ve got scenery and plenty of sunshine and warm weather. The potential of a thriving, vibrant local film industry is pulsating in front of our faces.
A film office can help turn that potential into a reality.
It’s certainly worth considering.
Even though Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley says a full-time film commissioner is a position fiscally out of the cards for Charleston (apparently, the city already has someone working with the state film commission), the idea is still worth considering for the tri-county area.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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