Once renovations are complete and the money is found to purchase the last of the five buildings (currently being used as a church and the asking price is somewhere in the 1.5 million range) the grounds and the five buildings will be turned into a community center, museum, and during the summer an at risk youth film camp.
The Norman Studios are the only still standing complete "Lot" Silent Film Era Studios still standing in the United States. What that means is, while there may be a building here or there, the Norman Studios is the only complete studio, all buildings still standing, in the country. Additionally, the Norman Studios has a special place in history being the only silent film studio to make films for the African American Market in those days. Mr. Norman was know for portraying African Americans as more than "Slaves" and "Natives" in films often casting them as Doctors, Laywers, Cowboys, and Pilots.
Jacksonville is steeped in early film history with over 20 studios making Jacksonville their home at the turn of the 20th century. Sadly, the local citizens of Jacksonville, while enjoying the output of those studios greatly, didn't think much of having those "Movie Folk" about and even elected a Mayor whose campaign was to drive the dirty movie people out. Goes to show the short sightedness we complain about in modern times has some very deep roots.
Regarding Incentives; They are a necessary evil in today's film industry. One only needs to watch the industry tabliods to see the effectiveness of them as places like Louisianna and Michigan lure huge number of films to their state with their incentives (Michigan and Louisianna offer over %40 incentives to film companies to shoot there, effectively getting into "Film Financing" and not incentive). What we here in Florida need to do, if we want to bring some of the filming "heyday" back here, is to model our incentive after places like North Carolina.
North Carolina uses a "Transferable Tax Credit" incentive to lure both film and television production to their state. They have set their annual allotment in the 35 to 40 million dollar a year range and their state legislature has passed the incentive for a 7 year period. This lets production companies, film and television, know that they will have that money for years to come. Television shows often make decisions on where to shoot based on the longevity of the incentive ("As long as I get picked up, I'll qualify in your state").
Currently we have a "Cash Incentive" in which we as a state provide up to 22% of a productions qualified expenses back to them in a cash payout (15%, plus an additional 5% shooting during "Season" {Hurricane}, plus an additional 2% for Family Friendly). This cash allotment comes from the money put aside by the legislature each year when they meet and the state budget is put through. The money often depends on how the state did the year before. For example, this past session the state was taking a hit from the ill advised Property Tax legislation and our allotment fell from $25 million to $5 million this year. Another small flaw in the "Cash Incentive" is, out of town productions can "Take the Money and Run". There is no incentive to stay here and spend it.
Currently a new plan, originally proposed by Paul Sirmons and being championed by Lucia Fishburne, is the "Transferrable Tax Credit". This plan gives an out of state production money in the form of a transferable tax credit. It is not a cash payout and wouldn't be a budget line item needing approval each year. It could be approved for a number of years in advance like in North Carolina. This helps because it gaurantees money over a long period which really incentives productions to come and stay here. The tax credit would help to entice some production companies to form "Permanent" offices and productions here to use the credit. Likewise the transfer ability of it would allow those "one time" productions to sell what's left of the credit to other in state companies (CSX, St. Joe, Bombardier, etc.) through a broker for about 80 cents on the dollar, providing additional benefits to the state and it's other companies.
For more information regarding the Florida State Film Incentive go to
http://www.filminflorida.com/ifi/incentives.asp or if you wish to dialog more about Filming in Jacksonville and the First Coast contact me at
macmcdonald@fmptajax.org
