What NOT to do with the Iowa Film Incentives

There's been a flurry of activity lately behind the scenes regarding bringing the Iowa Film Incentives back. With the scandals that caused the current program to be suspended there's a strong effort underway to get things right this time. This would be by replacing the current program with a new and improved one. The hope is to eliminate the omissions and remove loopholes that allowed the program to be abused. Many of the steps to take or not take are obvious. But there are a few things to avoid that look good at first glance but are likely to prove troublesome in practice.

Here are some things to avoid doing:

Shifting most of the film credits to higher budget ($25 million and up) productions.

On this surface this idea looks really good. The bigger the production, the more people hired, right? When you look closer to the wide range effects, some problems emerge. Because so much money is at stake on these higher dollar projects producers will tend to cover their bets by hiring already established industry professionals for the more important and high paying positions. For the most part these people will be those from the major production centers (Hollywood and New York, mostly). Because of their proximity to these locals these people are going to have much longer resumes and deeper experience than the average Iowan can hope to get right now. The result of this is that for most Iowans the most likely areas they will be hired for is for the low end and low paying jobs such as Production Assistant or Extra. This would hardly bring in the influx of income that a film program would be expected to bring in.

Smaller productions, although lower paying and requiring closer supervision, do offer a greater chance of advancement than the big films. This can translate into better jobs on the larger budget shows when these people get hired there. It also improves the quality of Iowa's film talent pool making the state a more attractive place to shoot a motion picture or television production.

Another potential benefit of supporting smaller productions is that some of these can be locally originated. If some of these become successes it is possible that some of these producers may want to put down roots, building infrastructure so they can continue to make films in Iowa. Why? Because we as a state supported them, hardly the situation they would find out in L.A.

Big films can be good and they can be exciting but let's not ignore the big producers of tomorrow.


Giving film incentives for using an Iowa-based pass-thru company

A producer can't find the people or equipment they need in Iowa. So they are allowed film credits if they use an Iowa-based pass-thru company to act as a go-between to procure what they need. Sounds like a way of getting things established, doesn't it? Since Iowa doesn't have a sufficient talent pool built up to staff these film jobs the state can still make itself attractive by offering a way around. And therein lies the problem.

Tell me if I'm wrong but isn't the idea of the film incentives to create film employment for Iowans, in addition to the purchase of goods and services - to build an industry, not just to simply bring films into Iowa?

Pass-thru companies are perceived by the public to be a financial shell game - a cheap accounting trick - because, if you look closely, that's exactly what they are - a way of laundering money paid out so that companies can still receive film credits that they would not otherwise receive. Because they are using an Iowa-based go-between to do their procuring of crew and equipment they are rewarded. Outside of the very few Iowans running these pass-thru companies, no Iowans benefit from these transactions.

Instead of training Iowans for important jobs, pass-thru companies allow producers to be still rewarded for not hiring our citizens. Instead of encouraging Iowa-based film support businesses to develop and grow, these pass-thru companies instead
benefit the established players in other states.


Keeping information about films that are set to shoot a secret

While it might be understandable to keep some information about a film production confidential - contracts, casting decisions, budget information (except perhaps that which which involves film credits) - it is not so understandable that the existence of a film and its contact information should be hidden from the Iowa public. Somehow this issue has never come up, but when the typical Iowan, the kind without personal industry connections, finds out about a production being shot, it is already too late. The crew positions are already filled and the film is already cast. The Iowa Film Incentive Program is supposed to give opportunities to all interested Iowans, not just a few select insiders, right?

If any of the above things are included in a new Film Incentive Program there is sure to be trouble ahead and we might not have a chance to recover again.