Making movie millions

Michael B. Styer on film production's tough odds: "90 percent of [film projects] stay in development forever and never become a film. But you have to approach each one like it might." (Sun file photo)

Michael B. Styer wants to make Maryland a star. As director of the state-funded Maryland Film Office, Styer markets the state to movie and TV production companies looking for locations to film. Credit his office with the state's leading roles in "Runaway Bride" and "The Replacements." In a recent SunSpot interview, Styer discussed film economics, homegrown directors and, of course, upcoming attractions.

How much does film and TV production mean to the state in terms of revenue and jobs produced?

It means a lot. It’s newfound money basically. What we do here is promote the state outside of the state to try and get producers to come here to do their movie or TV projects. So, it’s new money to the state and it’s quite substantial. A feature film, depending on the budget, will spend anywhere between $100 thousand and $200 thousand a day in the state. About 50 percent of that goes toward labor for people who live here. That’s everything from technicians and craftspeople to actors -- although that’s not the biggest portion -- most goes to the highly skilled labor force we have here.

What are your latest dollar figures? I saw a 1999 estimate of $76.2 million.

We’ve been averaging about $75 million a year for the past three years in economic impact.

What about job numbers?

We don’t keep job figures because every project is different. But basically, on most of the projects that come here, they hire about 150 to 200 people for the length of time that they’re here. That can be anywhere from a month to three to four months.

What is it that makes Maryland attractive for film production?

Several major things -- one is a large, highly trained, skilled workforce. That’s very important because they don’t have to bring as many people in. That saves them a lot of money. Then it’s our really rich area in terms of diversity. We are a compact state and we can be the look of anyplace from New England to Georgia through the Midwest. We use the old tourism slogan: America in Miniature. A third item is our geographic location, which is close to New York and Washington. Being so close to the entertainment capital of the world is very important to some producers since they know they can visit their friends while they are here. Another thing is that we do sell the climate. The fact that we have long, nice springs here, a long autumn, short winters and our summers here are not too bad, at least compared to some places south of here.

You lobbied for a film production tax break that was passed last year. Has it been a boon?

So far. Just this year we have done about 180 projects. The vast majority of those are commercial or industrial videos, and some music videos and documentaries. Most are not feature films. So, it’s taking hold.

How does the tax incentive work exactly?

It’s very simple. They apply to this office and we qualify them as a legitimate production. Then they are given a tax-exemption certificate specific to their project for a certain amount of time. They present it to the vendors who they are either buying or renting goods or services from. Then the vendor will not charge them the 5 percent state tax. It comes right off the top, right from the first dollar.

What could the state do better?

Some states are starting to think about filmmakers as an important, indigenous part of their community. And some are starting to think about creating funds with seed start-up money for filmmakers. I don’t think we are there yet, and I don’t think it’s something we’re going to pursue right now. You have to be careful with that. You have to set up quite a system to make sure the talented, legitimate people are the ones that are getting the funds. That would be a wonderful thing, if that could happen somewhere down the line.

Speaking of homegrown talent, how important have John Waters and Barry Levinson been in what you do?

Oh, it’s been very important. First of all, John and Barry literally started the industry here. The fact that they started making a lot of films 25 years ago is what built the crew base here. It brought some attention to the area. And they have continued to make movies here. We in this office, 7 1/2 years ago when I became director, made our goal to build on that -- to make a real aggressive attempt to attract others.

What are you up to now in terms of people and budget in the office?

Our total budget is $1.3 million. We now have seven people in the office and we have one Los Angeles person who works half-time for us. He runs the Los Angeles operation that we started last July.

Have you seen a lot of business from that?

Anything that we do you can’t point and say, that has brought this project here. It’s the kind of industry in which you are building a cumulative effect. What the L.A. office has done is open up the doors to a lot more opportunities than we’ve had before. We’ve been scouting more projects. We’ve come into contact with more people. The fact is, the more contacts you make the more they know you are really a highly responsive and very professional organization to work for them. You are often just laying down the groundwork for another project when they’ll say, you know, we should really check Maryland out. There are 7,000 feature film projects in development at any time in Hollywood. Probably 90 percent of them stay in development forever and never become a film. But you have to approach each one like it might, because you never know. There’re a lot of blind alleys there to go down. But he’s been very helpful in helping us sort those out and spending our time on the real possibilities.

You've said that the state needs a large sound stage to be more competitive.

You had asked what would we wish for, that is absolutely the last big piece of our puzzle here. All of our nearest competitors have them. Pennsylvania has two. Down in Richmond there’s a sound stage. North Carolina has quite a few. It’s the one area we can’t really market. We have one complex of two small sound stages that is used by an awful lot of films that come here. But a large, 20,000-square-foot sound stage is something that would be great. A number of private people have come to us and expressed interest over the last five years. Most of them saw it as an investment thinking they could get a fast, big return. I think they were a little starry-eyed about being in show biz and all that. When they crunched the numbers and found out there are hundreds of businesses that they could put their money in to get a much faster return, they sort of drop by the side. We’ve got a couple of serious people now who are moving along. We’ll see what happens.

How much of a hole was created by the loss of "Homicide"?

Everybody was very down for a while. It was a blow in a lot of ways. You have something for seven years -- 122 episodes -- that’s a long run in television. Nothing goes on forever. It broke a lot of ground for us and it paid off. No, we haven’t had another series like that but there are only two or three of those that are done completely on the road. Shows like "Chicago Hope," "ER" and "Providence," they shoot 10 days in a place then they shoot the rest of it in Hollywood. But we are trying. There’re two different businesses in Hollywood. There’s the TV business and there’s the movie business. And the twain doesn’t meet very often, quite frankly. The TV people don’t have much respect for the movie people, and the movie people don’t have much respect for the TV people. Our breakthrough with TV has proven that we can do both. We’re doing well in both areas.

Any Maryland films we can expect to see in theaters soon?

We’re just finishing up a Disney film right now that’s been here all spring. It’s called "Tuck Everlasting," based on a pretty well-known kids book. They shot in Berlin, although Berlin looks very different than it did in "Runaway Bride." This is a period piece, early 20th century. They put dirt on the roads down there and they took down all the modern signs. They’ve also shot out at Loch Raven. The movie is staring Ben Kingsley, Sissy Spacek, William Hurt -- three Academy Award-winning actors -- and a young woman who is the star of a WB network show that is called "Gilmore Girls." Her name is Alexis Bledel. She’s the lead in this thing. She’s very big with the kids.

Related topic galleries: Film Festivals, Barry Levinson, John Waters, Cinema Industry, Consumer Electronics Industry, Television Industry, State Budgets

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