For all of you California residents, you know how hard it is to function in our beautiful state. Poor Arnold didn’t walk into the state of the union, he walked into the state of the ruin: debt ridden, bills passing the day before he took office, and an absolute lack of leadership. Oh, and let’s not forget the energy crisis. In addition to these obvious complaints that all of us live with, I have a rant about how downright difficult California is for a small business.

I started this business with a goal to build a company and make a difference, profitable for me and for my employees. It’s getting to be pretty hard to do that. Everywhere I turn I am strangled with another tax or insurance requirement that often is more than double any other state. The EDD is out for blood, and seemingly deosn’t understand the entertainment business. The “industry” as we call it, doesn’t seem to rate much respect here. As a matter of fact, I just won a decision by a judge regarding an Independent Contractor working with me as a consultant. I won, and the consultant is considered an Independent Contractor. This is a common phenomenon in the entertainment and technology industries but it was like building a major case. Thankfully, I am within full state requirements and laws. So the good news is the right answer prevailed, but the BUT in this is that pesky little legal matter took hours of time away from my responsibilities as a business owner, cost me hours of time which equals money, and legal fees. The lovely EDD automatically audits you once you make a claim like this – even if you win the case. So now I am spending hours preparing for this audit with my time, my bookkeeper’s time and my very expensive CPA’s time. What the heck is going on in this state? Is it our arrogance as the 5th largest economy in the world or is it just bad management and stupidity by our government - both state and local - about what citizens really need. Small business is being strangled.

Now that I’ve said my piece, checkout this article. It’s just another stinking mistake that California is making. California MUST wake up – no wonder Canada (and now other states) has taken a large percentage of this production revenue. If anyone as any ideas of how I can make an impact on this silly state as a small business owner, please give me some tips as I am hard working, tax paying, honest small business owner that is disgusted with the state of California.

I will honestly be shocked if this article doesn’t make you furious.

Sacramento's neglect robs valley of its share of film production

THE ISSUE: The California Legislature allowed a bill that would offer incentives designed to keep television and movie productions from moving to other states to lapse without action.
WE SUGGEST: Legislators should approve this action when sessions reconvene. Others states are pulling productions away from the Golden State at provable rates, causing companies to run away from California.

The Desert Sun
October 17, 2006

The cast and crew of the television pilot "Hidden Palms" abandoned Palm Springs for Arizona in August, taking with them more than just the lights, camera, action of an evening soap opera being filmed on local streets. The company took thousands of dollars in retail trade and taxes away from the Coachella Valley when it moved to that other state.
Those losses are all but guaranteed to mount statewide because the California Assembly recessed this summer without approving incentives to keep film and TV production in the state contained in the proposal known as AB777. Legislators left for vacation without tending to a bill that would have offered production companies a 12 percent income tax credit to keep qualified productions from running away to other states and countries. Right now, crews are leaving California for Arizona, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, Canada and Australia to name a few. All these places have incentives that are working to drain the state of one of its primary and most exciting revenue streams.

And those incentives are working. Market data shows, California's share of feature productions that are made here completely, from "action" to "that's a wrap," dropped to 11 percent in 2006 from 23.10 percent at this point last year. The share of films partially made in the Golden State dropped to 28 percent in 2006 from 40.4 percent in 2005.

Much of two recent films about Hollywood lure were not made in historic Tinseltown at all. Parts of "The Black Dahlia" was filmed in Bulgaria while "Hollywoodland" was filmed mostly in the Canadian province of Ontario.

The Inland Empire Film Commission estimates that the nine-day shoot in Palm Springs and Indian Wells of the "Hidden Palms" pilot pumped $690,000 into local businesses. Imagine the revenues had the company continued filming here. If the pilot succeeds and becomes a full-blown series, think of the spillover revenues that would have come to local hotels, restaurants and coffee shops. Carpenters could have found jobs erecting sets. Electricians could have gotten paid powering lights. Technicians could have found posts recording sound. Beauticians could have gotten jobs, well, making people beautiful.

Legislators must know that California is leaking productions like a sieve.

Nevertheless, they passed on the measure in part because it included other types of tax credits for several other industries.

In addition to that, industry watchers say lawmakers let AB777 go because credits to address runaway production would cost $100 million a year. When the state is expecting a $4 billion to $6 billion shortfall at fiscal year's end, leaders might not want approving tax cuts on their legislative rap sheets. There also is the fear that taxpayers would be supporting the opulently rich who really don't need any more bling.

Finally, some may not be convinced that runaway production is real. So the state would be spending money to keep what it already has.

That thinking may be politically sound. But fiscally, it's terribly shortsighted.
Supporters of the bill say that for every dollar invested here, there is a $5 return to the state in economic impact through hotel stays, meals, fuel purchased and such. There also would be all manner of jobs retained and created when runaway production is stemmed.

Sure, banking on costly tax cuts seems like a gamble. But it must have darn good odds because so many other states are using them.

New York enacted the Empire State Film Production Credit Program in 2004 and named California as a key competitor for film and television productions. Hawaii recently passed an income tax credit amounting to 15 percent of qualified production costs incurred up to $8 million. According to Hawaiian legislation, production spending in New Mexico increased by $162,000,000 since the state's incentive legislation passed in 2002. Legislators believe their islands can do at least as well.

With all these states fishing in California's stream, what's the state waiting for?

To be sure, caution must be taken in these types of endeavors. Incentives should be well targeted. They also can be coupled with analysis, to be sure money is well spent, and timed to expire once a certain goal is reach. However, legislators would be well advised to take action as soon as the next session convenes.

I have been reviewing the panels and panelists we’re presenting at HD EXPO on November 2 at the Universal Hilton in LA. It’s a great and varied group, I must say, and after working on these topics for the past few months, I’ve arrived (again) at a broad conclusion. It sounds simple, but it’s actually very serious. The creative world and the technology world must work even more closely, hand in hand, to gain a deeper understanding of each other. I see this so strongly as more productions cut back on the camera crew; insisting that the Director of Photography do his primary job and then also look after the camera and its technological demands. What does this job shift really mean? There’s less time for planning and crafting the work of the camera? Ultimately, as budgets go down and the crew gets smaller, does it mean that cinematography will suffer a drop in craft and quality? I would never point fingers, or at least not publicly, but when you ask a Director of Photography, there is a clear response: it puts real challenges on their ability to be committed to the look, shot and feel of a program. And, yet, there are phenomenal budgetary and technology issues that weigh heavily on the productions that cannot be ignored.

How do we deal with this issue? Simple: by illuminating the issue with education. If there can be an understanding, from both sides of the debate, of the choices and the impact that these choices make, then we can start. With honest information out in the open about how to get what is needed visually, and consideration from the producer and the network or studio, then an educated choice can be made – how important is the shot, look and feel of the program and can the Director of Photography serve both masters – the creative and the technical?

I hope that I serve the community by creating a platform to discuss and be informative around these issues. Almost every choice made from the first script meeting to the end of post production ripples through a movie, game or television show. If HD EXPO can provide an open forum and viable options by opening the discussion and educating the community, we are serving our goal. We will do our best to tackle this important discussion on November 2.

Well here we go again with the NASCAR stuff. I find it fascinating all the attention from corporate America that NASCAR receives. A friend that heads up marketing for Sharp Electronics in New Jersey sent me these pictures of the sponsored car.

They want to jump on board of the NASCAR marketing influence. HDTV is sexy and NASCAR is sexy - good match. Following are his comments:

It was rookie driver David Ragan - he has been driving the truck series, and he's part of the Rousch Racing Team. I think they're trying him out. He qualified on Friday. He drove on Sunday, got spun out on lap 16 and was able to recover and then hit the wall on lap 20 and was out of the race - while we were disappointed that the car didn't get to run all 400 laps, the TV coverage of both of his crashes was great coverage of our logos.

We are discussing a 2007 program, but nothing solidified yet. We'll be running a co-branded (Sharp as associate sponsor) car in Phoenix on November 11th (Busch race) and 12th (Nextel Cup race) and there are 12 of us from Sharp going - including our Chairman and President - I worked with 3M to set this up. We're going to be on the rear quarter panels in the Miami Busch race on November 18th as well.

It has been a lot of fun working on this, and the exposure is great.

You gotta give it to Mr. George Lucas. His innovative creative sprit is at it again. All of the Star Wars movie are being remastered in HD. Just imagine the first couple of episodes in HD, never mind the last two episodes that were shot entirely digitally. A real treat to the eyes. Take a peek at the complete story that TV Technology covered.