News
Gov't-subsidy films join unreleased list
By Robert Marich
March 19, 2009 – More unreleased films are piling up in obscurity, courtesy of government-sector financing. A New York Times article recounts that state film commissions – which solicit productions and usually offer financial incentives ranging from a bit of money to bags of gold – find films that they support are languishing.
The article by Michael Cieply notes that Michigan forked over 35% of the $1 million budget of cannibal horror flick Offspring, which became the fifth from the same producer that has not achieved theatrical release. “So it goes with a growing number of subsidy films made in Michigan and elsewhere around the country,” notes the NYT article. “They may not be coming to a theater near you.”
The majority of states have mounted subsidy programs to attract film and TV production, with hard-pressed Michigan allocating a generous $48 million in 2008 to its effort. Like a lot of government projects, the bureaucrats managing the programs probably have only a dim understanding of the business that they are in.
Marketing to Moviegoers: Second Edition can provide them with this instructive lesson: nobody actually wants most of these films. Even before state aid exploded, literally hundreds of “movies” have been produced in Los Angeles each year with budgets at least $500,000 that get no release whatsoever. That means no DVD and no TV exposure.
So film subsidy programs from Michigan, Louisiana, New Mexico and elsewhere simply add to the pile up. The subsidy films may get a "premiere" screening at one of the hundreds of minor U.S. film festivals and then are parked in video-on-demand where they languish in obscurity. Certainly, this won't deter small producers who generate fees from their productions whether or not those movies are economic successes. For their part, the big Hollywood players are glad for government handouts to lower their production costs.
Marketing to Moviegoers: Second Edition notes that the theatrical window is the highest hurdle because “marketing expenditures in the hundreds of thousands of dollars support theatrical releases in big cities but are shore of a national release. At about the $5 million threshold, a national release is possible and should noticeably lift a film’s later sales in home video because of a halo effect.”
The state subsidy programs were created to attempt to establish a base of steady work for local crews and talent in movie, TV program and TV commercial production. Various custom research surveys indicate government money spent boosts local economies.
However, those justifications overlook that on-location production is very mobile, so if another state offers more money then the work will simply dry up. Indeed, Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino was supposed to be filmed in Minnesota, but droveoff to Michigan for a bigger subsidy pay day. Years ago, production in Texas boomed and then suddenly slackened.
Subsidies have become so generous that they are more than just tax refunds, because they actually add money in excess of any state and local tax rebate. Here’s a final shocker. Vice President Joseph Biden’s entreat that it is all of our “patriotic duty” to pay taxes is not embraced by filmmakers and state governments!
For full text, click link below:
www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/movies/19mich.html