Better and Better

There are three general areas competing for us as the shooting location: Texas (Houston mainly), Louisiana (Shreveport), and Michigan (Oscoda - home of the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base).

Each have merits.

Houston: is home for the company and principals. Shooting here would be VERY easy and would allow most of us to sleep in our own beds every night. However, we still would have chores to do. :D Houston is a great place to shoot. Good crews (many of whom I know and have used), superb locations and a helpful Film Commission. The problem in Texas is that the current Film Incentives are only about 5%. We lobbied in Austin for the new regs but that won't get decided for another month or so.

Shreveport: has amazing facilities and some really helpful people. Everyone I talk to says crews are EAGER and helpful. PLUS - Louisiana has a 25-35% tax credit Film Incentive. That means that after all brokerage fees and so on - we get about 20% of our non-actor budget BACK in a check about 6 weeks after we finish shooting. Hard to ignore.

Oscoda, Michigan: This little community has a great location but no crews. We'd have to put everyone up for the entire time and move to Detroit for interiors. The 40% Film Incentive on non-actor expenses SHOULD net us about a 30% check back for our expenses - but, we hear that it is very difficult to comply with their regs and you can't fix it if you didn't do it right to begin with. That old air base will have to be a SUPERB location to compete with Texas and Louisiana.

Tomorrow, Susan and I will be putting together the offering paperwork. Our financial team is already beating the bushes and we expect financial action and commencement of Development very soon.

More later - Steve

Moving right along.

Monday, March 16, 2009

My Executive Producer, Susan Fowler, and I went to Austin to finalize the legal paperwork for the film. Along the way we scouted several locations for the Texas-as-Missouri outdoor sections of the picture and found a number of excellent candidates... including Smithville - the site of Hope Floats. VERY accommodating community and eager to have us there. Looks like Appleton City, Missouri without even squinting. :D

The paperwork only lacks a bank account number so we're very close to handing it all off to the financial guys.

Also had a long discussion with a source for Air Force Uniforms for the period. Things are looking promising there as well.

More as it 'goes live.'

Steve