Fresno Production Studio News 1-27-2009
Some detailed business discussion
Posted by Michael R. Barnard on January 27, 2009 at 10:52am in The Fresno Production Studio Project
Back to The Fresno Production Studio Project Discussions
The following is a response to some questions from a businessman in Fresno who is interested in the Fresno Production Studio Project:
1. What is the market demand?
In the City of Fresno, the Film Commissioner estimates that currently we lose at least a dozen production days a year solely because we don't have facilities to handle larger shoots. These would mostly be commercials and large-scale industrials. In raw numbers, a sound stage charges about $5,000.00 per day. Beyond that, we cannot attract large budget movie productions from out of the area because we cannot even compete for them. A small scene was shot here for the recent Indiana Jones movie, but it was small because we couldn't offer the needed resources for additional shooting. The Fresno Production Studio will be competitive on a large scale, and productions will be required to become aware of Fresno as a resource for their movies, TV shows, and other large productions. A Production Manager who is not aware of and familiar with resources of this size and quality would likely lose their job.
As a brief primer on the motion picture and television industry, there are several factors at play.
A) The industry--especially crew and talent--wants to stay in California but is wooed by out-of-state incentives. For instance, New Mexico has a very successful tax and loan incentive that draws a lot of large-budget productions to New Mexico. Because of the economy, the State ordered a review of its incentive program to find out if it was working or not. The Ernst & Young report was released last week, and shows that the State of New Mexico earns $1.50 in tax revenue for every $1.00 in incentives it offers. For a list of films that have taken advantage of New Mexico's strategy, go to http://www.sic.state.nm.us/PDF%20files/NM_Film_Investment_Program_1... and for the Ernst & Young report, go to http://www.taxcreditsllc.com/EY_EconomicFiscalImpactNewMexico.pdf
Also view http://austinstudios.austinfilm.org/ which is a similar project, retrofitted from an abandoned air strip in Austin, Texas. I will forward to you an e-mail from Adam Tate of Austin Studios in case you would like to do a bit of research on your own.
B) When a motion picture or television program or industrial video or other large-scale production requires a soundstage, there are limited options. A world-class competitive facility will attract the attention of the industry and is very marketable. I have personal experience with this, as I helped bring online, and market to Los Angeles and New York, Prince's Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis. Because it was a world-class facility, we had the attention of producers worldwide and we were able to market, and compete with others, the facility, which brought in a lot of business to Minneapolis.
C) The plan for the Fresno Production Studio is to make it very competitive by including special features that are unique. For instance, Stage A will be a "rain stage" with a large pool, so that it can be used for large-scale water shoots (think, for example, "The Perfect Storm"). There are few rain stages in the world. If you need one for your production, you will go wherever the available one is. (Many productions can just blow into town and use an empty building--I personally worked on a movie that shot scenes in an abandoned supermarket outside of Lake Tahoe, for instance--but when you NEED a soundstage, you need one that is available, accessible, and meets all your needs.)
2. Are small production studios in LA 100% occupied 100% of the time?
Large motion picture studio lots are few--Sony's Columbia Pictures lot in Culver City, Disney's Burbank lot, Universal Studios in Hollywood, Paramount in Hollywood, 20th Century Fox in Beverly Hills, and Warner Bros. in Burbank. MGM is no longer a "motion picture studio." By the way, I have worked on every one of these lots, including having had an office at Warner Bros. until a couple years ago, and am familiar with their operations. There are several independent companies that have stages, including Raleigh Studios, Occidental Studios, The Production House, Valencia stages, and many others. They are busy. A few years ago, there was a major shortage of soundstages in Hollywood, and many were built. It is a viable, successful business model.
Also, the Fresno Production Studio is not a "small production studio." At 12,000 square feet for Stage A (and I'm considering the possibility of making it larger), it will be among the largest category of soundstages, competing to meet the needs of most large productions.
3. Why not adaptive reuse a cool large industrial property in downtown (i.e.. South of Ventura)?
The factors against this include:
A) A commitment to have an impact on reducing the poverty of the city. I am appalled that the city is host to the largest concentration of poverty in the nation. West Fresno needs a project like this to help it help itself. This is a two-way street: the need is great, so offers of help are great. Therefore, a non-profit organization is in a unique position to pursue grantsmanship under the nearly half-dozen "empowerment zone" entities that exist in West Fresno, as well as many other community development funding opportunities.
B) West Fresno has a lot of vacant land that the city owns. The vacant land is, frankly, a blight and an insult to the community. Filling it with an iconic landmark (to be designed by Arthur Dyson) will have symbolic as well as aesthetic value, and building 'from scratch' gives us the opportunity to create a world-class facility with everything necessary to be competitive, rather than merely adequate. We are committed to making a showcase for environmental efficiency and sensitivity, and indeed retro-fitting an existing building has many positive impacts, but building from scratch allows complete flexibility to employ the most cutting-edge options.
C) Trains. West Fresno is far from the railroads. Trains are nasty to productions; they blow loud whistles and make buildings rumble. Most residents are used to them, but they would be difficult to avoid in a soundstage, and the construction necessary for sound-proofing and rumble-proofing would be extreme.
D) The "front half" of the studio could be some kind of retrofit, but my initial search for a suitable existing building didn't reveal anything that would allow a retrofit for soundproof clear-span 120'x100'x35' and 80'x80'x25' spaces.
I am meeting with city and community leaders to gauge enthusiasm and commitment to the project. Enthusiasm is sky high; many people are excited. I have always explained that the community needs to get together and "PULL this through the system" for it to work. I am a volunteer, unpaid (and, sadly, unemployed) and can only do so much. I am also working on building leadership in the business community in order to get the skills, talent, and resources necessary to "PUSH this through the system."
We clearly need to create some kind of public/private operation in order to build the Studio.
We clearly need your participation.
Posted by Michael R. Barnard on January 27, 2009 at 10:52am in The Fresno Production Studio Project
Back to The Fresno Production Studio Project Discussions
The following is a response to some questions from a businessman in Fresno who is interested in the Fresno Production Studio Project:
1. What is the market demand?
In the City of Fresno, the Film Commissioner estimates that currently we lose at least a dozen production days a year solely because we don't have facilities to handle larger shoots. These would mostly be commercials and large-scale industrials. In raw numbers, a sound stage charges about $5,000.00 per day. Beyond that, we cannot attract large budget movie productions from out of the area because we cannot even compete for them. A small scene was shot here for the recent Indiana Jones movie, but it was small because we couldn't offer the needed resources for additional shooting. The Fresno Production Studio will be competitive on a large scale, and productions will be required to become aware of Fresno as a resource for their movies, TV shows, and other large productions. A Production Manager who is not aware of and familiar with resources of this size and quality would likely lose their job.
As a brief primer on the motion picture and television industry, there are several factors at play.
A) The industry--especially crew and talent--wants to stay in California but is wooed by out-of-state incentives. For instance, New Mexico has a very successful tax and loan incentive that draws a lot of large-budget productions to New Mexico. Because of the economy, the State ordered a review of its incentive program to find out if it was working or not. The Ernst & Young report was released last week, and shows that the State of New Mexico earns $1.50 in tax revenue for every $1.00 in incentives it offers. For a list of films that have taken advantage of New Mexico's strategy, go to http://www.sic.state.nm.us/PDF%20files/NM_Film_Investment_Program_1... and for the Ernst & Young report, go to http://www.taxcreditsllc.com/EY_EconomicFiscalImpactNewMexico.pdf
Also view http://austinstudios.austinfilm.org/ which is a similar project, retrofitted from an abandoned air strip in Austin, Texas. I will forward to you an e-mail from Adam Tate of Austin Studios in case you would like to do a bit of research on your own.
B) When a motion picture or television program or industrial video or other large-scale production requires a soundstage, there are limited options. A world-class competitive facility will attract the attention of the industry and is very marketable. I have personal experience with this, as I helped bring online, and market to Los Angeles and New York, Prince's Paisley Park Studios in Minneapolis. Because it was a world-class facility, we had the attention of producers worldwide and we were able to market, and compete with others, the facility, which brought in a lot of business to Minneapolis.
C) The plan for the Fresno Production Studio is to make it very competitive by including special features that are unique. For instance, Stage A will be a "rain stage" with a large pool, so that it can be used for large-scale water shoots (think, for example, "The Perfect Storm"). There are few rain stages in the world. If you need one for your production, you will go wherever the available one is. (Many productions can just blow into town and use an empty building--I personally worked on a movie that shot scenes in an abandoned supermarket outside of Lake Tahoe, for instance--but when you NEED a soundstage, you need one that is available, accessible, and meets all your needs.)
2. Are small production studios in LA 100% occupied 100% of the time?
Large motion picture studio lots are few--Sony's Columbia Pictures lot in Culver City, Disney's Burbank lot, Universal Studios in Hollywood, Paramount in Hollywood, 20th Century Fox in Beverly Hills, and Warner Bros. in Burbank. MGM is no longer a "motion picture studio." By the way, I have worked on every one of these lots, including having had an office at Warner Bros. until a couple years ago, and am familiar with their operations. There are several independent companies that have stages, including Raleigh Studios, Occidental Studios, The Production House, Valencia stages, and many others. They are busy. A few years ago, there was a major shortage of soundstages in Hollywood, and many were built. It is a viable, successful business model.
Also, the Fresno Production Studio is not a "small production studio." At 12,000 square feet for Stage A (and I'm considering the possibility of making it larger), it will be among the largest category of soundstages, competing to meet the needs of most large productions.
3. Why not adaptive reuse a cool large industrial property in downtown (i.e.. South of Ventura)?
The factors against this include:
A) A commitment to have an impact on reducing the poverty of the city. I am appalled that the city is host to the largest concentration of poverty in the nation. West Fresno needs a project like this to help it help itself. This is a two-way street: the need is great, so offers of help are great. Therefore, a non-profit organization is in a unique position to pursue grantsmanship under the nearly half-dozen "empowerment zone" entities that exist in West Fresno, as well as many other community development funding opportunities.
B) West Fresno has a lot of vacant land that the city owns. The vacant land is, frankly, a blight and an insult to the community. Filling it with an iconic landmark (to be designed by Arthur Dyson) will have symbolic as well as aesthetic value, and building 'from scratch' gives us the opportunity to create a world-class facility with everything necessary to be competitive, rather than merely adequate. We are committed to making a showcase for environmental efficiency and sensitivity, and indeed retro-fitting an existing building has many positive impacts, but building from scratch allows complete flexibility to employ the most cutting-edge options.
C) Trains. West Fresno is far from the railroads. Trains are nasty to productions; they blow loud whistles and make buildings rumble. Most residents are used to them, but they would be difficult to avoid in a soundstage, and the construction necessary for sound-proofing and rumble-proofing would be extreme.
D) The "front half" of the studio could be some kind of retrofit, but my initial search for a suitable existing building didn't reveal anything that would allow a retrofit for soundproof clear-span 120'x100'x35' and 80'x80'x25' spaces.
I am meeting with city and community leaders to gauge enthusiasm and commitment to the project. Enthusiasm is sky high; many people are excited. I have always explained that the community needs to get together and "PULL this through the system" for it to work. I am a volunteer, unpaid (and, sadly, unemployed) and can only do so much. I am also working on building leadership in the business community in order to get the skills, talent, and resources necessary to "PUSH this through the system."
We clearly need to create some kind of public/private operation in order to build the Studio.
We clearly need your participation.
