The Greater Reading creative community takes a ride

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The Greater Reading creative community takes a
ride

• into the future with the
• ideal film office

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• What is a film office?

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What is a film office?

• The common entertainment industry understanding
  of a traditional film office is a department or
  group of people who are an extension of either
• - a communitys Tourism Bureau
• a Chamber of Commerce
• States Department of Employment Commerce

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• Such a group is charged with securing
  legitimate, medium to large budgeted film or
  television to shoot a movie or television program
  (all or even a small portion of such in a defined
  community).
• The financial and creative windfall is
  invaluable on a short term basis (if multiple
  projects can be secured on a regular basis than
  that financial influx is compounded).

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• The success of a film office is completely
  dependent upon the sales savvy of the film
  office, depth of resources a given film
  community, and the health of the entertainment
  business in California, New York or abroad.
• Service of indigenous film production is often
  third potato or handled as a afterthought to
  fill in gaps in between larger projects.

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Film Offices Film Incentive Packages

• What you need to know

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• In the last handful of years, states all over the
  country have seen immediate financial benefit in
  the ability to lure large film or television
  shows to their communities when their state
  offices financial incentives (ie tax rebates,
  discounts, etc)
• Not every state can offer incentives and some
  states have better incentives than others leaving
  states to squabble over who nails the film coming
  to their state versus another

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• Filmmakers, large or small, have to navigate the
  maze of paperwork to secure the revenue from
  their financial incentive, often having to wait
  months or year to receive their monies
• Communities within a state offering tax
  incentives that have depth of production
  resources (equipment, personnel, coordination
  agility, etc) will beat out other communities in
  that state for productions shooting in their
  community versus another

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Entertainment today...

• It aint your mommas motion picture house
  anymore

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• The film business as we know it is changing
  (corporate conglomerization, eroding audiences
  from traditional viewing patters, infinite
  personal viewing with the internet
• Thus, it is harder to secure independent
  financing and distribution there for the American
  Dream of making your film is fading and thus is
  changing the role of the film office in a given
  community or state (many fighting for the few)
• If programming and content is controlled by few
  this is an issue for the independent voice or
  artist to be heard enabling the continuity of
  the independent voice to be heard is essential in
  maintaining community identity and
  individualismand culture or community heritage.

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• If you dont have content emerging from a
  community then that can be seen as a lost revenue
  stream.
• In the last 2 years personal viewing and online
  communities have been on the rise audiences
  turn to personal viewing space (youtube,
  facebook, unique postings, etc) to seek
  entertaining. For the consumer this
  low-cost(free) source of entertainment is a great
  deal but the hidden value could be in the highly
  personalized stories published on the web in the
  form of video postings, vlogs, blogs, community
  pages, etc.

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Feasibility Study

• As part of Greater Readings interest to become
  more involved with the value that entertainment
  can bring to a community both creative and
  financial a feasibility study was completed in
  2008 at the request of the Greater Reading
  Commission for A Film Office.
• The results recommended that while the concept
  of a film office would be invaluable to Greater
  Reading the effort of pursuing a traditional film
  office (sales concierge database services)
  would not be recommended.

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A new frontier

• Instead Greater Reading should take a ride
  into the future and establish a film office that
  would be a transition of the current methodology
  of a film office and the future needs of the
  community with regards to entertainmentin short,
  a more cutting edge approach in the creation of a
  film office was born

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Action!

• Following, is a snapshot of the ideal
• film office for Greater Reading
• a picture that has the ability to meet all of
  the challenges it faces as well as acquire all
  the resources necessary to complete this picture

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• The vision of the
• Greater Reading Film Office
• is three-fold

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• 1) To be the central resource, hyper-simple,
  user-friendly, single point of contact for TV,
  film and digital projects and initiatives that
  originate both in and outside the Greater Reading
  region

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• 2) to be the catalyst for working with the
  regional educational community (schools, colleges
  and universities) to grow and sustain a creative
  economy and the workforce to staff it

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• 3) to host, promote and sponsor events which
  enhance the reputation and capabilities of the
  region as a film and digital media nexus.
• Through collaboration with our partners and
  constituents, this vision will materialize when a
  revenue generating entity is established that is
  anchored by an artistic and/or technology
  business-related company and this entity and the
  Commissions goals are parlayed with the
  communitys existing economic development plan.

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• Why is this approach
• critical to our
• economic and cultural survival?

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• We desperately need to renew the cultural soul
  and enhance the economic vitality and morale of
  the community
• this is essential to the future of the people
  and region of Greater Reading.

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• One approach to this end is to cultivate the
• development of the film industry sector and
• become the source of quality storytelling that
• reinforces the most basic human values
• 
  as well as become a
  vibrant center for the convergence of
• technology and entertainment.

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The vision of getting there ---

• Step 1
• The Greater Reading Regional Film Commission
  develops and supports a creative economy that is
  integrated and consistent with the established
  community economic development plan

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• Step 2
• By garnering resources and collaborating with
  partners, we create ongoing awareness for media
  artists and professionals in the local and global
  marketplace about Greater Reading as a fresh,
  economical and versatile location and home for
  TV, film and digital media projects

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• Step 3
• At the same time, by incubating and mentoring
  future talent, we augment a professional skilled
  workforce to accommodate and staff these
  projects.

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• Consequently
• the quality and prosperity of the cultural
  and economic life of the Greater Reading region
  will flourish.

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How do we physically accomplish this task?

• Following is a thumbnail sketch of how this
• could be accomplished in a real world scenario
  --- an approach not much different than building
• a manufacturing business.

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Build it and they will come

• In an office park complex or in a manufacturing
  campus or in a mixed-use-retail setting, set up
  the following departments or divisions

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• Administrative office group
• Educational Training divisions
• Small scale production space turnkey production
  coordination office space
• Equipment rental facility including equipment
  brokerage
• Incubator work space
• Revenue generating project space

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• Administrative office space
• To be the center, the hub provide traditional
  film office services (database, concierge,
  sales), marketing of overall project, and oversee
  operations of other divisions
• Educational space
• Classroom(s) wherein training is offered on
  variant current subjects (follow UCLA Extension
  model) bring in guest speakers pay as you go
  for first few year this is non-accredited.
• Training space
• Equipment training lab space where students can
  intern or co-op on new technolgoy projects as
  part of hands-on training or have hands on
  training time (Vo-tech model)
• Equipment rental
• House a small, current pool of available
  equipment to rent to local filmmakers or outside
  productions and if not available broker to
  bring it in from area companies (third party
  rental) or NY or NJ.
• Production support
• Provide production office space to rent if you
  are in production in the area turnkey

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All this sounds rather noble but to survive
this ideal film office will need to monetize
itself

• Revenue projects
• Project(s) owned by Greater Reading program in
  conjunction with other PA companies
• wherein company will be an allie to help complete
  the project (ie distance learning programs,
  training videos for online, etc). The PA
  company and the GRP would work to secure a
  contract or create a project to fuifill a need
  and secure funding. This would be the
  think-tank space and manufacturing space
  (production, editing) and would utilize talent
  pool of the region and bring in people from the
  outside (with the understanding that they would
  need to be part of Education pice)
• Rentals and fees from other projects coming to
  shoot in area
• Revenue from material produced here if no 3rd
  party distribution self distribute (ie Imax or
  web)
• And proceeds go to the GR program
• Investment - Local VC would need to underwrite
  year 1 to get overall project started. Addl
  funding raised or invested for years 2 3 with
  hope that years 4 5 would be some receivables
  enough to support the overall project
• -

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Okay - weve got a physical plan outlined, but
what are our priorities?

• The following priorities were culled from our
  committees Report. They are listed in the
• order in which the group felt they should be
  implemented

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• location photo management
• inventory of artistic and technology
  business-related organizations to identify
  potential future partners
• marketing/promotions to producers of motion
  media content (i.e. filmmakers, ad agencies,
  large corporations)
• production concierge service (i.e. finding
  discounts on hotels, gaining access to various
  community resources)
• production coordination (i.e. location permitting
  and scouting)
• innovative, state-of-the-art educational
  programming (i.e. to develop a workforce in the
  motion media industry)
• incubating and nurturing indigenous filmmakers
  and motion media projects
• motion media property distribution
• monetize entertainment properties for the web

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Who will shepherd us to complete this picture?

• Following is preliminary list of key partner
  organizations.
• Obviously, this does not include the many
  individuals who are playing such a vital role in
  this process and whose partnership is also very
  integral
• Berks Arts Council
• Berks Economic Partnership
• Chamber of Commerce
• City of Reading
• Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Lancaster Film Commission
• Lehigh Valley Film Services

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Who will be part of our team?

• There are many constituents that ultimately need
  to support the operations of the Greating
  Readings ideal Film Office, many are identified
  and categorized below
• Business small and large area businesses
  (technology, media, manufacturing, research
  development), venture capital firms
• Education BCIU, colleges/universities,
  elementary and secondary schools Higher
  Education Council
• Government Economic Development Berks
  Economic Partnership, City of Reading, County of
  Berks, ICGR (Initiative for a Competitive Greater
  Reading), Reading Redevelopment Authority, urban
  and rural economic development organizations,
  workforce development organizations

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Constituents continued

• Media Cultural Berks Arts Council, BCTV,
  Channel 69 WFMZ, Comcast, Exhibitors (Carmike,
  Cinema Center Fox Theatres), GoggleWorks,
  Historical Society of Berks County, Service
  Electric
• Special Interests agriculture, waterways and
  railroad preservation and advocacy organizations

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Lets work together to make this picture a
reality

Mission Statement Insert here