News

Professor picked for state film board

Posted on April 26, 2010, at 1:37 a.m.

A UMaine professor has been appointed as the newest member of the Maine State Film Commission, an agency devoted to bringing film projects to the state.

Owen Smith, chair of the university’s New Media Department, is already vice chair of the Maine State Arts Commission, making this his second gubernatorial appointment. His appointment to the film commission is an unpaid three-year term, with a maximum of six years if the next governor reappoints him.

Smith said he will likely recommend to the film office and its director, Lea Girardin, that Maine help the film industry grow within the state instead of simply advertising itself as a convenient location for outside projects.

Girardin said current projects are generally smaller, low-budget independent films but that the office needs to attract more large-scale projects, such as reality TV shows or national commercials.

“One of the things that I think the state of Maine needs to do is more consistently and more strongly market itself as a location for film production,” Smith said.

Currently, the film office offers a 10 percent reimbursement for non-resident wages and a 12 percent reimbursement of resident wages for people working on a film project in the state, and Maine law offers additional tax credits for film projects shot in the state. To qualify for either incentive, film projects must spend at least $75,000 in production costs.

While the film office has attracted more than $215 million of direct and indirect spending by film projects within the state since 1996, Smith said Maine needs more incentives to entice film producers to film here.

Cameron Bonsey, an independent blogger who has been involved in the Maine film industry since the 1990s, said Smith has “done a terrific job with the University of Maine.”

Bonsey, who attended UMaine from 1978 to 1982, said the state and the film office need people like Smith. He agreed Maine needs bigger incentives to bring film producers to the state and cited “Bag of Bones,” a movie based on a Stephen King novel, as one recent example.

The producers of “Bag of Bones” came to Maine in 2009 to talk to Gov. John Baldacci about a 25 percent financial incentive to shoot their film in Maine, a policy employed by several states. Despite approval from the Maine Legislature, the proposal died in appropriations because of lack of money.

Producer Mark Sennet and director Mick Garris eventually decided to film the movie in Alaska, according to Bonsey.

“[Film producers] are not going to hang around and wait for an answer. They’re going to move on to the next place,” Bonsey said.

Georgia is a leader in incentives, with a 20 percent tax credit for filmmakers and an extra 10 percent if they include an animated Georgia state logo in their project. According to Bonsey, Maine is not doing enough to reach out to filmmakers.

“We need to explore more kinds of those economic incentives,” Smith said, “by looking at other places and finding out what works,” Smith said.

The director of the Maine Film Festival, Shannon Haines, said the film office is very helpful. She said the film office keeps filmmakers connected with the 13-year-old festival and sponsors some of its various competitions and events.

“They’ve really been a driving force behind tax credits for filmmaking in Maine,” said Haines.

Smith said he hopes the commission can help the film office generate incentives that are reasonable for the state and which work to bring film production to Maine. He said economic incentives are the focus, followed by locations and support systems such as tools and equipment.

Smith said Massachusetts is Maine’s biggest competitor for film production companies’ attention, but he believes New England as a whole should work together to attract film producers. He said that Plymouth Rock Studios, Massachusetts’ newest filmmaking facility scheduled to open this year, is an incentive Maine could not hope to match but could still be beneficial.

“If we can dovetail or piggyback on that facility in Massachusetts, and provide location possibilities and other kinds of access and use of certain kinds of additional technologies, that facility in Massachusetts can help us,” Smith said.

“Maine definitely has a lot of area locations that do attract films,” Smith said. “But they want to be somewhere where they can easily access woods, environments to shoot in or mountain scenes or those kinds of things.”

Smith already has ideas for how to improve the film office and has high hopes for his tenure.

“Without looking backwards, I think that we can do things better in the future,” Smith said.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 26th, 2010, 1:37 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.