I own a small scene shop, it's part of the 'enterprise' that is Etico Productions. Currently we are building a show for Tipping Point Theatre in Northville, Michigan and we couldn't do that job without the Film Tax Incentive program currently in place in Michigan.
Tipping Point wants us to build their next show for an amount of money that wouldn't remodel kitchen cabinets. I'm not disparaging this great up and coming company, EVERY theatre we work for wants us to build and install shows for ridiculously small amounts of money. We make it work, we barter, we use our own stock materials and then get some back, I donate my own time or borrow from another show we've built. It's a growing business model and part of the reason this 'arm' of our business exists; to share resources, to help theatre's that are struggling financially and do not have the ability to maintain a scene shop or carpenters or tech staff. Since we started doing this type of work 10 months ago we've built eight shows and been involved in at least five others and we've broken even or lost money on every single one. Next season we'll break even more if we're lucky and after that who knows hopefully we'll continue to grow. We've stayed open because I've been able to invest my own money and the only reason I've had that money is the film work I have done since the Tax Incentive Plan was in place, without that income we close our doors it's that simple.
Brian, Ben, Phill, Lindsey, Maria, Alex, Craig, Andy, Nan, Bob, Karen, Brent, Brett, Ron, Andrew, Sarah-these are the names of people that have drawn a paycheck from work with us (not including the 20 or so actor types) If I were not fortunate enough to book the film work that I have none of these people get paid, none of these jobs exist, and that fact is not showing up on any of Governor Snyder's spreadsheets. I get my health insurance through my SAG work, that means I don't buy my own; money back into the business and more people employed in the theatre. I was on location for almost 4 weeks last summer, someone had to run my shop, build my shows; more people employed in the theatre-no film work and those theatre jobs are gone. There are at least four of my employees that I know for a fact would have left the state if not for the work we generated for them last summer-without the ability for me to invest in my business more of our young and talented folks leave this state. I am able to invest because I am able to make money from the Film Incentive program and a 6% flat business tax is not going to accomplish that Mr. Governor.
I don't know, maybe that won't be the case this year, maybe I won't book as many films and we'll close our doors after all, but I am shooting three days on "Ides of March" with George Clooney next week and three guys will be working in my shop building a show for Tipping Point THEATRE while I am gone. What I do know is, it's a guarantee that if the Film Incentive program goes away so will my company and so will all those jobs in the theatre.
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Not only will jobs go away, the continued "brain drain" from Detroit will accelerate. Richard Florida (whom Detroit hired as a consultant at one time) has written extensively on what makes healthy cities and healthy communities and there is a positive correlation to the "creative class" (defined as workers dealing in work that involves itself in the creative process) and dynamic cities. There is heavy criticism that Florida's logic may be circular (which it may be - he doesn't seem to have a causative mechanism for assessing his hypothesis) but his indices do show that a quality of a dynamic environment is a population of people whose work is inspired by and draws upon a collective creative process. I think any argument I might make to the necessity for a creative class to drive economic growth in Michigan would suffer from possible tautology but, it does seem that a feature of successful cities is a class of workers drawn to collaborative creative processes. Film and theater allow people to make their living pursuing the creative process or inspire knowledge workers in other fields to spend their money filling their leisure with the products of that work. We need to get back to the soft assets of imagination if we are going to make it out of the morass we are in and tax breaks don't ensure the process of creation. Inviting people who believe in the process to be part of your city leads to a community that understands imagination as a bankable asset.
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