Call Theresa Murray if you want Movie Studios in Mass! 617-722-1500 I have posted this blog because I want everyone to be aware that Senate President Theresa Murray is trying to stop a Film Bill that the Mass. House has approved and that Gov. Patrick is supporting.

http://www.patriotledger.com/business/x1816443894/Massachusetts-House-OKs-tax-breaks-for-film-companies-to-build-studios-measure-moves-to-Senate

I want everyone I know to please call her office and voice your support. This Bill will allow a Tax Incentive for the construction of Soundstages and Video Games in Mass. One being the Movie Studios Proposed in Weymouth, Ma (Please read my BIO on my website www.chuckslavin.com to see why I am in support) so, please if you have anytime (even if you already have) Email/Call Theresa Murray's office and Tell her you support this Bill and want to see it passed.

617-722-1500

Therese.Murray@state.ma.us

http://www.mass.gov/legis/memmenus.htm

Also Please Email the Senators if you have time!

In Rhode Island a Tax-Cap was passed regardless of many attempts to stop it by many of my friends. Recently a DVD series "The Clique" has decided to film elsewhere after filming the pilot in R.I. due to that same Tax Cap.

The writing on the wall is clear! If do not make our support vocal we stand to lose much more than we gain.

Here is very interesting Blog on The Video Game portion of the Film Bill Senate President Theresa Murray is deciding to STONEWALL!

 

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/07/25/not-happening-massachusetts-tax-breaks-game-developers

CALL/EMAIL SENATE PRESIDENT THERESA MURRAY AND TELL HER YOU WANT THIS BILL VOTED ON! CALL EVERYDAY IF YOU FEEL LIKE BECAUSE I KNOW I WILL!

617-722-1500

Therese.Murray@state.ma.us

http://www.mass.gov/legis/memmenus.htm

Also Please Email the Senators if you have time!

Thank You in advance for your time, and I hope to see you on The Studio Lot! Chuck Slavin "DotCom"

If you need advice please email me. chuckslavin@hotmail.com

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Bill to help planned studios moves ahead

The Patriot Ledger Posted Jul 25, 2008 @ 09:38 AM

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BOSTON -

After a fierce and lengthy debate, the state House of Representatives voted Thursday night to give new tax credits to the film industry.

The bill, which passed on a voice vote, would offer tax breaks to film companies that build studios in Massachusetts and is intended to solidify Hollywood's growing presence here. The measure now moves to the Senate.

Rep. Ronald Mariano, the Quincy Democrat who sponsored the bill, said the tax credits would be capped at $60 million.

The developers of a planned $300 million studio complex at the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station could be the first beneficiaries of the construction tax credit if the bill is passed. The developers have said their plans for SouthField Studios depend on getting tax credits of up to $60 million in from the state.

The legislation would represent the third round of tax incentives for the film industry on Beacon Hill. Lawmakers first passed a package of film and video production credits in the fall of 2005. They lifted a cap and made other changes to broaden the incentives last summer.

Gov. Deval Patrick recently touted the impact the financial incentive has had, telling a crowd in Hull that 14 films were shot here last year compared with just one or two the year before.

Critics of the tax breaks call them a waste of taxpayer dollars, saying the money winds up lining the pockets of wealthy Hollywood stars. Supporters argue that they generate economic activity and create jobs.

In an 84-68 vote, House lawmakers voted to an amendment to expand the tax credits to the video game industry.

http://www.patriotledger.com/business/x1816443894/Massachusetts-House-OKs-tax-breaks-for-film-companies-to-build-studios-measure-moves-to-Senate

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Recently, GamePolitics reported that the Massachusetts legislature was mulling the idea of tax incentives for the film and video game industries.

Game developers who were considering a move to Massachusetts based on that news may want to re-think their position, however.

The Boston Globe reports that, although the State House approved the tax breaks, the head of the State Senate, Sen. Therese Murray (D, at left), has nixed the idea:

Senate President Therese Murray said her chamber had no intention of taking it up before the end of the legislative session next week.

 

"I just don't think it's something that's affordable," Murray said yesterday in an interview. "It's not the top of our agenda."

 

She said lawmakers' time would be better spent on assessing a package controlling healthcare costs, approving bond bills, and reviewing the governor's budgetary vetoes.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/07/25/not-happening-massachusetts-tax-breaks-game-developers

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Weymouth News

By Maureen Walsh

Correspondent

Six years ago, actor Chuck Slavin took off for Hollywood with a high school pal, determined to break into movies. He returned, broke, six months later, having achieved one second of small screen time pushing a gurney down a hallway in the TV show, "Six Feet Under."

"Needless to say, when I came back here, I felt defeated," said Slavin, who grew up in Pembroke and now lives in Weymouth. "My friend is still out there, but the irony is, he's not working as much as I am. All the movies are coming out here."

Slavin, 28, has hitched his star to almost every recent film project coming through Boston, including "The Departed," "Game Plan," "21," "The Lonely Maiden" and "Pink Panther II." His current project is "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past," starring Matthew McConaughey.

Slavin is one of the few local actors working full time, but he believes that would change if a modern studio complex were built at SouthField in South Weymouth. The former naval air base is one of several sites that have been suggested to movie industry executives interested in building a regional studio.

"Last year, they made four major films in Boston. This year there are already 15," said Slavin. "We've moved into second place behind New Mexico now as the most enticing place to film."

But while film companies are coming to Boston for the new tax incentives and the locations, they are also leaving part way through production to take advantage of soundstages and other top-grade facilities in New York and Los Angeles, he said.

"The few places they've turned into soundstages here you wouldn't consider adequate when you think of a $50 million film using an old K-Mart as a holding area."

He said shooting on "Pink Panther II" in a converted warehouse was repeatedly held up by the sounds of rain, overhead helicopters and even shots fired down the street.

Slavin is part of "the New England film movement," a network of actors and production workers trying to raise awareness of local talent and opportunities in the movie industry. On his website and through a Facebook group, he urges colleagues to make their voices heard on laws that would affect plans for a local production studio.

Economic boost

The legislation backed by State Representative Ronald Mariano, D-Quincy, would redefine "manufacturing" to include the production of movies and extend the sunset provisions on tax credits in consideration of the time involved in completing most major film projects.

Slavin provides links to published articles about the studio proposals and e-mail address links for local and state legislators on his website at www.chuckslavin.com.

"What I've been trying to do is raise awareness. I don't want to step on the toes of the legislature," he said. "It's something that will happen if they know they have a lot of support from the film community and around Massachusetts and New England."

A studio complex at SouthField would boost both the local entertainment business and the regional economy, said Slavin.

"We don't want a studio where all New York people come in and run it. We want them to hire local actors and production crews. There are so many great, talented people here. It's only a matter of time till it trickles down and creates a benefit for the residents of Massachusetts and New England."

When film companies come to town, they turn to local businesses for everything from lunches to flowers to set-building materials, he said. "Money gets spread around as long as the movie is in production."

Movie companies may continue to bring in Hollywood actors-including homegrown stars like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Mark and Donnie Wahlberg-but Slavin is confident they will soon discover a wealth of local talent.

"There's a misconception that you can't be a serious actor unless you're in New York or L.A.  Anybody who watches TV and movies knows there's a spot for everybody," he said. "They're always looking for diversity, for a different look. They're looking for regular people. Everybody can have a chance to shine."

Living the dream

 

 

 

When movie producers first came calling for Slavin in Boston, they were more interested in casting his beat-up '71 Lincoln in "Mystic River" and its successor, an '89 Camaro, in "The Departed."

It was on the set of "The Departed" that Slavin first met casting director Jodi Purdy-Quinlan of Weymouth.

"She gave me some advice on what I should do, classes I should take, and some of the local people-information I wouldn't get unless I was hunting for it," he said. "I thought, ‘Wow. Maybe there is an underground film community here.'"

Slavin's movie roles haven't been glamorous, but they are paying the bills: a museum guard with a funny mustache in "The Lonely Maiden"; a wedding guest in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"; Andy Garcia's stand-in for "Pink Panther II."

The added bonus for him is the chance to observe up close the making of major motion pictures and the techniques of such actors as Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman, William H. Macy, Steve Martin and John Cleese.

"I can pick up on their motivation and listen in on the little decisions they make with their characters," Slavin said. "I could go to school and not learn that. I can see them figure it out on the set, I can see how they do it. It's priceless."

Slavin is working on both sides of the camera now producing short films. His comedy, "The Clueless Guy," is being edited into a ten-minute film he plans to broadcast on the web to showcase local acting and production talent. He is co-writing a horror film to shoot later this summer.

In addition to his steady work as a movie extra, Slavin currently appears as an auto mechanic in a commercial for Porter & Chester Institute.

"I've always had the acting bug," he said. "As a kid in my backyard, I'd create stories and play pretend to get away from my family. My dad was an abusive parent. I'd go out to the woods and make up stories and be somebody else. I'd do millions and millions of characters."

Slavin took theater classes and acted in productions at Silver Lake Regional High School. After "a patch of trouble," he graduated from Middleboro Night School, and he's been taking community college courses towards an associate degree. Acting remains his passion.

"So many people share that passion," Slavin said. "Anything I can do to help move this studio project along is more important than anything, even the dreams I have."

"This is a huge opportunity that we may not have again. This is the moment," he said. "It's the right location, the tax incentives are working now. The fact is we're a lot closer than anybody else to getting this accomplished."

For more information or to contact Slavin, visit his website at http://www.chuckslavin.com/.

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Studio plans give local actors hope, reason to get organized

By Jack Encarnacao The Patriot Ledger Posted Feb 22, 2008 @ 08:33 AM

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WEYMOUTH -

In one way or another, Chuck Slavin has found his way onto the set of just about every movie that has been shot in Massachusetts in recent years, from "The Departed" to "Pink Panther II."

"It seems like the timing for me has been perfect," Slavin said, talking about the boom in film shooting in the state.

He moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and "when I came back, I thought it was over. I thought the dream was gone. And in the last year, I've managed to go from working at a restaurant to basically being one of the few people in Boston who can say they worked full time on films."

Slavin, 28, a Pembroke native who lives in Weymouth, knows he's not alone in his enthusiasm for taking advantage of the local film shooting. And as talk of movie executives looking to create soundstage facilities in Plymouth and Weymouth heats up, Slavin and others like him are getting active.

Through social networking Web sites like Facebook, Slavin and others like him are organizing New England-area actors to prove that the region isn't just ripe place for movie-making facilities, it's also ripe with acting talent.

"As these film companies come in, they're looking for the tax breaks," Slavin said. "They're not coming here because they want to discover talent. But as it moves forward, they are going to start to realize that there is an organized, underground film community here. Hopefully the jobs will start trickling down to us."

Executives with Hollywood ties are talking about building soundstages and other filmmaking amenities on town-owned land in Plymouth, on the former air base property in Weymouth, and in Hopkinton, R.I.

As buzz about the projects intensifies, local actors like Slavin are taking to the Internet to let their presence be known. They're calling it the "New England film movement."

On the Internet, Slavin is circulating a form letter in support of legislation that would establish tax incentives for the Weymouth project. The letter includes the e-mail addresses of state legislative leaders. A group Slavin formed on Facebook to spread the word has 700 members.

State Rep. Ronald Mariano, D-Quincy, is pushing the Weymouth legislation. He said local actor advocacy can't hurt, but the project can only be sold in terms of economic development.

"It's a regional economic development issue," he said. "It's great jobs for the region. Actors are a small part of it. When a movie comes in and books a soundstage for six months, that's 120 to 135 jobs - good-paying jobs, union jobs."

Slavin said actors are realizing that they have to let their presence be known; they can't just sit back and wait to be discovered.

"In New York and L.A. it's about ‘me' - everybody is about ‘me,'" he said. "In Boston and in New England, if we want to make this work, we have to make it about ‘we.'"

Lindsay Shah of Beverly manages the Beanywood Web site, a place where local actors can find out about local workshops and film shooting.

"There's kind of a renaissance going on," she said. "People are starting the (online) communities. They're more energized now. It's definitely coming together."

Slavin said he worries that shoddy facilities could eventually keep producers from bringing movies and acting opportunities here.

Offering an example, he talked about an old Chelsea warehouse that had been turned into a soundstage. He worked there when "The Departed" was being filmed.

"Any time it rained, on the roof you could hear it," he said. "We would have to stop production.

"At one point, a guy was robbed on a bus and there were shots fired or something in Chelsea. Helicopters were buzzing around and we had to stop production for half an hour."

Actors like Slavin, who recently worked as a stand-in for Andy Garcia when the forthcoming "Pink Panther II" was being shot, clearly want a piece of the action.

"I'm a big marketer," Slavin said. "I threw up two banners on the highway just to get my name out. I'm diehard."

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BackStage Article...

May 21, 2008
By Andrew Salomon
In summer 2002, Chuck Slavin moved to Los Angeles to work as an actor. He lasted six months. "I couldn't make it out there," said the Massachusetts native, who returned home and now lives in Weymouth, a town about 15 miles from Boston. "I didn't have a car; I wasn't set up; I couldn't make any money."

The setback, however, might prove to be the turning point of his career. Because of state tax incentives enacted in New England and New York, film and television production is booming in the region, and Slavin is benefiting. "I've pretty much landed on every movie that's come to Boston" since early last year, he said. "If I haven't worked on one, it's only because I've been working so steadily on the others."

Several of his jobs were background work, but he has also earned speaking parts and featured-extra roles in projects such as The Lonely Maiden, Pink Panther 2, and The Bronx Is Burning. No matter the quality of the jobs, they were good enough for Slavin to quit working as a waiter 18 months ago. He is also close to qualifying for health insurance from the Screen Actors Guild for the first time.

Tax credits have changed other actors' lives substantially. Beth Campbell of Old Lyme, Conn., has been working as a full-time actor for the past two years, a period that roughly coincides with the start of tax rebates for production in her state. She said she hopes to have her SAG card by the end of the month.

Ellen Becker-Gray and her husband, Rob Gray, are also working exclusively as actors. Four years ago they sold their house in Massachusetts and moved to Rhode Island, which at the time had the most generous tax incentives in New England. "We're so busy, we haven't had time to go to a movie," Becker-Gray said. "And when we do go, we're so distracted by our friends up on the screen that we have to watch it again to remember what the film was about."

Follow the Money

Tax incentives targeted at film and television production have been enacted in 40 states and Washington, D.C. -- nearly half of them within the past three years, largely in response to the incentives offered in Canada and overseas. New York City and New York state started incentive programs in 2005; the state tax credit was recently tripled and, partially as a result, Gotham lured the series Ugly Betty from Los Angeles and picked up two new shows as well: Fringe and Life on Mars.

The tax breaks are politically popular because they offer states a return on their investment, one of the best examples being New York's. In the first two years of its state and city tax incentives, $42.5 million in credits were issued and $2.45 billion in direct economic activity resulted, said Julianne Cho, associate commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting.

The incentives are not without their problems. Mark Smith, former Louisiana film commissioner, pleaded guilty last year to accepting bribes from an unidentified person who stood to benefit from the program. In Rhode Island, regulations were tightened May 12 after The Providence Journal reported that Hard Luck, a straight-to-video movie starring Wesley Snipes and Cybill Shepherd, received a $2.65 million credit on the $11 million the production company reported spending in the state, though only $1.9 million of that money went to Rhode Island vendors. (Most states require that companies purchase a majority of goods and services in-state.) Last November, Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal began an investigation into the possible steering of film contracts to one company in Stamford.

However, incentives are here to stay, at least for a few more years. The growth has been so rapid, it is difficult to monitor. Two months after it was posted, the list of state incentive programs on the website of the Producers Guild of America's FilmUSA Committee (www.filmusa.org) is obsolete: Georgia's and Michigan's tax incentives have more than doubled and New York's has tripled.

"It's an economic boom in so many ways," said Kathleen Courtney, chair of FilmUSA and a producer based in Los Angeles. "There's a big trickle-down effect. Not only is it employing more people in those individual states...the resources are being developed with every production that comes to town. The more people learn, the more people grow, and the infrastructure gets stronger."

And actors such as Becker-Gray and Slavin are trying to strengthen their states' film markets. Becker-Gray was one of 150 people who recently testified against a cap on incentives before Rhode Island lawmakers. Slavin, in addition to acting, auditioning, and making short films for the Internet, is lobbying a Massachusetts state lawmaker to ensure that sound stages planned for Weymouth and Plymouth get built.

Fierce Competition

Many of the state programs involve only hotel tax rebates for stays longer than 30 days and sales tax rebates on goods and services purchased in-state. But since 2002, when Louisiana began offering a dollar-for-dollar tax credit (up to 25 percent of a production's budget), other state governments have opened their wallets substantially to attract work. In 2005, New York's combined credits totaled 15 percent of a production's below-the-line budget if 75 percent of shooting took place in the city. In two years, the number of shooting days in the city jumped nearly 50 percent.

Last year, though, Connecticut countered with a 30 percent tax credit on all expenses, including some of the salaries of above-the-line talent: actors, writers, directors, and producers. More than 20 big-budget productions shot there in 2007, while New York production fell about 17 percent. Some of the decline is attributable to the writers strike, but according to a February report in Crain's New York Business, New York state lost $400 million in feature film production to Connecticut last year and a combined $350 million to Rhode Island and Massachusetts. To stem the losses, New York tripled its state tax incentive from 10 percent to 30 percent this spring.

The State of California

While states in the Northeast, as well as Louisiana, New Mexico, and Arizona, reap the benefits of incentive programs, Southern Californians are losing work as production migrates. The number of shooting days in Los Angeles has dropped by more than 40 percent in the past 10 years, according to FilmL.A., a nonprofit production coordination company, although TV shooting days have more than doubled in that time and commercial shooting has increased by 9 percent.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger railed against California's diminishing production at a news conference May 9, shortly after the announcement that Ugly Betty would return to New York (its pilot was shot mostly at Silvercup Studios in Queens in 2006). Speaking of other states' incentive programs, he told reporters, "Their business is booming, they're making a lot of money, and they're putting everyone to work and we don't."

Though he has been criticized for lagging on the issue in the past, Schwarzenegger is again pushing for a tax-incentive program for California. Assembly Bill 1696 passed the lower house in 2007 but failed in the Senate. While the measure enjoys bipartisan support in Sacramento, it also has opponents at each end of the political spectrum, said Assemblyman Paul Krekorian (D-Burbank). "The folks on the left will say, 'Don't give any kind of corporate subsidies at the same time that we're cutting services to the poor,' " he told Back Stage. "And then the folks on the right will say, 'Why should this be limited to the entertainment industry? It should apply to the oil industry as well.' "

Complicating the drive for tax incentives is the state's record budget deficit, which could reach as high as $20 billion. But despite such a climate, Krekorian said a tax break for the film and television industry isn't impossible. "The governor gives me some hope," he said. "I wouldn't say cautious optimism, but I would say cautious hope."

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