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The second question is that even in Los Angeles, the Studios and their producers sometimes skip their own studios (while cheaper than renting someone else’s studio, they are still costly) and run to Long Beach and set up temporary studios in the shipyard warehouses or warehouse centers in Santa Clarita Valley or City of Industry. And they can still get home for dinner.

Thirdly, for the local film industry in Massachusetts? Well, we need to do what L.A. does so well: show we can have both a steady union production slate and thriving, but financially successful, non-union industry co-existing here. I’ve worked in L.A. and a lot of great union talent came from the non-union industry there and many of the learning came from union members working on non-union shows to fill time and extra money. It is a process with keeps people working, fresh blood circulating through the business, and balances needs of the audience through a financially stable industry. Until we can show this for Massachusetts, it is unlikely we need big studios here.

If anything, we could use a couple of studios, situated near high class food and lodging (and not self-contained like the proposed PRS), within sight of a major airport, as cover sets for Hollywood films which shoot here when the weather is unreasonable for shooting. And these would still not get a lot of use. For the moment, there is no great need from Hollywood for us to have studios and little need for our independent film industry to have much more than we already have through facilities like Kramer and High Output. What we need to do is show we have the film product to support studios when Hollywood is not using them, and we haven’t really done that to date. Hopefully we will.

Geez! Enough with the hollywood east crap. What New England need is NEW ideas, new movies, a NEW NAME!!

Hopfully a name that is borne of creativity, and not mimicry. If you all just want to be like hollywood when you grow up, why not just pack your bags and move to California, and stand in line waiting to be the next great piece of furniture, and work as hard as you can to become a STAR along with the other twenty or thirty million sheeple that want to be just like hollywood only to be completely crushed when someone gets a part in a film, when you, and everyone else knows that the person did not have one tenth the talent that you did, and got the part only just because of the color of their skin.

Or maybe you all like the fact that someone from hollywood can totally insult the intelligence of women,
by glorifying rape, and promoting the special feeling that comes from being called names that not even an animal should have to endure. Oh! Oh! Perhaps you like when holywood sees it fit to have someone in history, or ledgend that is obviously greek portrayed by someone with an austrailian, or english accent, and I quote..

THIS IS SPAHTAH!!!

NO! I say that until the actors of the east start seeing that calling anything a branch of hollywood is a mistake we are doomed to be ever reaching for a brass ring that is really made of plastic. But then what do I know, I’m just someone that understands hollywood for what it is, and want NO part of it. I will create my own film empire, and will challenge anyone with a creative mind and strong will to do the same. Perhaps if we stop thinking about the tax breaks, rebates, and money, and start thinking about the art, the reputation, and buildings will come. I have news for the person that wants to be hollywood east. You are only giving your power to a beast that sees you only as a thread in the red carpet, and will be happy to walk all over you.

Peace. Ahura Z.

Sounds like another Wilmington, NC! Just more high tech, modern and bigger, but stuck out in an out of the way backwash.

A studio was built in a hillbilly backwash in Western North Carolina many years ago, they did the studio work for THE ABYSS there, then the work dried up, and it sits pretty well empty today. A grim lesson to consider!

“But the plot thickens: Even those states report varying levels of success since building sound stages — and it seems until this fledgling film industry evolves further, the numbers regarding impact will continue to be somewhat mysterious.”

Reality is, the states that have invested in infrastructure, like sound stages, and studios, here in the East, most film crew people I know are having to go to those locations to get work, like Louisiana for instance. The same goes for New Mexico, its working for them.

As for mystery, its no secret, most producers will fly around like butterflies, from one flower to another, which ever one has the most tax incentives at the moment.

So its important once you have the studios and sound stages in place to make the incentives as permanent as possible, show that your in for the long haul.

California was a super film friendly place for decades, that anchored the industry [ and the weather helped more then you can imagine don't forget,]and it has taken a number of years for the film un-friendliness to start driving the industry away. These are all important facts to remember in your quest to establish an East Coast Hollywood.

What it comes down to is this, and I like the one guy’s comments, so true, to have another Hollywood, you need to see what made Hollywood what it is.

To create Hollywood East, you need ALL of the following,

1.] Tax Incentives,

2.] Infrastructure, studios, sound stages,

3.] Great film crew and technical base,

4.] Real Producers and screen writers to originate film projects,

5.] A distribution network for the created films.

Once this is accomplished, you have created a new Hollywood!

But its the points 4 and 5 that are really important in the long run. As long as you just depend on the L.A crowd to bring their projects out to film, you will only get a limted amount of work. I just read the other day that production in L.A. has gone up 16% since the new California incentives have been implemented. It looks like most of my fellow Californians are awakening out of their stupor and realizing that their business base is blowing away, which means they are going down the toilet unless they do something, and something drastic and effective,……. and quick!

So, New England, get on the stick and get busy if you want your share of the film business!

Florida has a lot of film industry infrastructure, but does not have the tax incentives, but they are “getting it” now, and when they pass competitive incentives, look out. Film makers like that sunny climate, like California, so get busy guys and girls!

He’s practically a lobbyist for filming in the state of MA. In order words, he’s the voice of all of us in film, a voice that’s been listened to plenty of times.

Only so much can be gleaned from just reading an article, a lot more can be learned from correspondence with the man himself.

All I’m saying is, if he wanted to have a studio built in Andover, he could draw enough support to have it done, but it’s too far away from where he lives.