A Very Brief Thought

Jay Villwock and I were talking yesterday about our Iowa film community. In our regular visits to the Iowa Capitol Building we always see many lobbyists who are there to make their pitches for various industries in Iowa. They are paid to be the spokesmen and spokeswomen and meet with legislators in order to influence bills and funding to their clients' benefit.

Jay and I are lobbyists who speak for the Iowa film industry. We also meet legislators, sit in on committee meetings, and also meet with members of the governor's staff - even the governor himself on a couple of occasions. The difference is that we don't get paid. We do it for the actor, the crew member, the communities that benefit from movie-making.

Neither of us made much money in the films we worked on, but we have friends and family who were doing rather well before the movie program was killed and those people need to get back to work. We want our voices to keep the ball rolling, and to make sure the Iowa Film Office is revived and re-strengthened.

We have reason to believe that the Iowa Film Office may likely return this late summer, and that tax incentives won't be talked about for a couple of years, although when the new Iowa Partnership for Economic Progress (IPEP) is put in place, it may facilitate a return to some extent of moviemakers coming back to our state.