It’s an election year, and film tax incentives are in the news. Among small government types, state government tax dollars in the form of tax credits and rebates for film and television production will always be controversial. A September 2019 report by Michael Thom, associate professor at the University of Southern California Price School of Public Policy, adopted a “quasi-experimental” research approach to throw doubt on the role that incentives play in improving a state’s employment rate. The report, noted David Robb in Deadline, was “funded by the Koch Foundation, whose billionaire brothers—Charles and David Koch—virtually destroyed the Florida’s film […]

In 2010, Eric Austin made a bold choice. The Texas-based father of three quit his day job as a sales rep to focus solely on his side hustle, flying unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)—commonly known as drones. He had a three-month job lined up on a Disney-produced show in Hawaii piloting his single-rotor helicopter adorned with a Canon 7D. In those few months, he would earn more than in a year at his old job. But before Austin ever spun his blades, he was grounded. Inundated by aerial permit requests and unable to get definitive guidance from the Federal Aviation Administration […]

In the 1910s, movie moguls built the major Hollywood studios to control every aspect of film production. Rather than succumbing to unpredictable weather and transporting an army of workers across the globe, they built massive sets, stages and large backlot settings like Western streets and jungles. Hundreds of employees churned out movies with near assembly-line efficiency. These studios created strong barriers to entry for independent filmmakers, who made do with inferior rental studio lots. However, a dramatic location, creatively captured, could rival any Hollywood construction. On location, low-budget and independent filmmakers sought production value on the cheap. Westerns proved to […]

Dear filmmakers, surveillance capitalism is your friend. Like every other thing we purchase nowadays, movies have been subsumed into the new digital economy, where behavioral data, influence campaigns and social media marketing are an integral part of doing business. Morally, you might have a problem with Mark Zuckerberg’s corporate practices, but there’s no getting around the fact that Facebook and Instagram hold some of the most powerful tools to reach people and manipulate their decision-making—including their choice of which movie to see on a given weekend. “It’s definitely been a help for smaller filmmakers,” says Stephen Metzger, director of marketing […]