Here's My Letter, Where's Yours?

I just sent a letter to all of our representatives and senators in the Iowa legislature requesting that they re-establish the Iowa Film Office with adequate funding, adequate staffing, better supervision, and away from the disfunction of the Iowa Department of Economic Development. I'm not really sure if my letter will be very effective all by itself. When it comes to swaying legislators numbers matter. If I'm the only one writing letters it is possible that they might think I'm the only one interested in this issue and that they can safely ignore me. If all of you write them, on the other hand, it might get their attention.

There really isn't any excuse not to write, not if you care about working in film without having to take up residence in another state. The film tax credits might be in suspended animation right now and possibly remaining so until the court trials are over with but there is certainly no reason why we can't have a film office to support what little film production activity can happen. And it is not necessary that you write each and every legislator like I did. All you need to do is to write the state representatives and senators who work for you. Who are they? Perhaps these two links will help. Both of these pages contain the email addresses of those who represent you in the legislature.

Representatives
http://www.legis.iowa.gov/Legislators/house.aspx

Senators
http://www.legis.iowa.gov/Legislators/senate.aspx


So here is my letter (Where's yours?):

Dear Representative/Senator __,

During the previous terms of Governor Branstad, the Iowa Film Office helped to increase the number of motion picture and television projects brought into Iowa. Before it was established, hardly any productions were shot here. After it was established this number increased noticeably but not as much as it could have, given that, even then, the office was understaffed and underfunded.

Under the last Film Office director we got a good idea of the promise of film in Iowa as well as the potential pitfalls given poor management and underfunding. While there may be no incentive program operating right now, there is still a need for an Iowa Film Office in its role as a representative of Iowa to producers, both out of state and locally.

Film in Iowa is not necessarily bad and the Iowa Film Office can definitely do good for the state under the right circumstances. For this reason I am asking you to consider reinstating funding and staffing for the Iowa Film Office. With adequate funding and staffing it might be possible to iron out the problems that existed and more closely focus on the role and services that it can provide. I'd also ask that it be moved to a different department than the Iowa Department of Economic Development (perhaps the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, as Governor Branstad had suggested) and that it be directly supervised by the Governor's office for maximum accountability. We all know what happened when IDED supervised it and I would hope that we could avoid a repeat of that.

My hope is that you will restore enough funding to the Iowa Film Office so it can operate efficiently, staff it with enough people for it to function, move it to another department so it is not tampered with and put it under the governor's direct supervision so that it is accountable.

Respectfully,

David Thrasher