In case you live in New Jersey, and haven’t heard: The production company that produces MTV’s Jersey Shore has received a tax credit of $420,000 from the Economic Development Authority (EDA) for their 2009 season today. People are up in arms, and there are already calls for the Governor to veto the credit.
I was talking with a friend, and fellow video producer MadBrad Smith a few days ago about a piece he was producing for the USO of Illinois.
I’ve often pontificated about the importance of the script in the video production process on this blog; today I’m contradicting myself, sort of…
The Good News: the New Jersey Economic Development Authority will not loose money during the current recession because of bad investments on mediocre films.
The Bad News: They already lost $2,000,000.00 on Gracie.
According to this article on the Star Ledger website:
At their regular meeting today, members of the state Economic Development Authority wrote off $2 million in loans and loan guarantees they had extended four years ago to help bankroll production of “Gracie,” a feel-good movie about a Central Jersey soccer player.
Apparently they made direct “loans” to the film’s financiers, a first in NJ… and well, the rest of the story kind of writes itself, doesn’t it?
Best quote:
“We realized we’re not good at financing movies,” said Caren Franzini, the authority’s chief executive.
While this is a bad day for the big studios, who can always look to other funding sources, it’s a day of smug satisfaction for us little video guys. The State already provides a 20% Tax Credit for filmakers who meet certain criteria: 60% of the total expenses used or consumed in New Jersey, Principal photography commences within 150 days after the approval, and directly from the Definitions section of their application:
Film – a feature film, a television series or a television show of 15 minutes or more in length, intended for a national audience. “Film” shall not include a production featuring news, current events, weather and market reports or public programming, talk show, game show, sports event, award show or other gala event, a production that solicits funds, a production containing obscene material as defined under N.J.S.2C:34-2 and N.J.S.2C:34-3, or a production primarily for private, industrial, corporate or institutional purposes.
The $2M in Gracie was above and beyond this tax credit.
There are no (Zero, Zilch, Nada) tax incentives available for smaller films, videos, web-based video projects, internal training videos, corporate promotional videos, or any of the other thousands of video/film projects that might, you know, cause economic development to actually happen!
Sorry to the folks at Picturehouse (aka TimeWarner), but you already got your money. Hey New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission: it might be time to overhaul your definitions and guidelines to help us non-feature-film makers out a bit, we know you’re not going to be investing in any movies anytime soon.
Any other NJ film/video pros have any thoughts?