Letter From Newton's Frank Liebl on Film's Impact!

The following was an e-mail I received today, exactly what I was hoping for.... be sure to send YOURS!!!! Thank you to Frank Liebl for sending this!

Gene,

Here’s some information that I gathered from my files pertaining to the film that was shot mostly in Newton.

Underground Films shot a movie in Newton in August of 2009. They filmed about 4 weeks and actually were in town 2 to 3 weeks prior to that getting things set-up and arranged. Our office assisted them in many ways:

· We helped them find lodging (both apartments and motels)
· They catered about 70 meals 2 times daily to the site.
· We arranged for them to rent a facility for most of the shoot, (They were so impressed with site they were talking about possibly shooting another film here.)
· We put them in touch with businesses that provided some of the following services:
1. Security
2. Phone/internet service
3. Air Quality Testing
4. Power Washer service
5. Rental Cars
6. Dumpsters
7. Portable Air Conditioning
8. Seamstress
9. Cleaning Services
10. Bookkeeping
11. Not to mention the cast and crew also spent money at Restaurants, night clubs, hardware stores, supermarkets, gas stations, lumber yards, rental equipment places, auto parts stores, Goodwill and Salvation Army Thrift stores.
12. They also interviewed and hired some local and area people to fill positions such as:
a. Prop master
b. Prop assistant
c. Set decorator
d. Swing gang
e. On-set dresser
f. Set construction
g. Art PA

· They also cast a lot of local people as extras in some scenes for the movie.

Even though we don’t have a figure on how much money was spent in the 4 to 6 weeks they were in Newton, you can see by the services they needed it was significant. We found it to be a positive experience.

We even had a couple of calls from University of Iowa graduates, one who is currently working in Hollywood wanting to know if the film industry was going to “take off” in Iowa, because he would like to move back to Iowa and continue working in the field.

Hope this information helps.



Frank Liebl
Executive Director
Newton Development Corporation