Itchy Trigger Finger

There's a new sheriff in town... well, at least there will be sometime in the near future. It's an odd time for the Ohio film industry as Christina Grozik is leaving the still-in-diapers Ohio Film Office while at nearly the same time Ohio finally passed into law a modest tax incentive for film work in the state. In the meantime, Nehst Studios in Cleveland is now poised to make a huge investment in that city thanks to the incentives, Cincinnati has a fully funded film office as well, and in Columbus... crickets.

Oh, there's stuff going on. Good stuff, too. "Aidan 5", last year's winner of the 48 Hour Film Project is becoming a web series, "Randomocity", a feature length first time effort filmed in Findlay in 2006 has been doing well in festivals and is now poised for a minor theatrical release in Carmike Cinemas around Ohio, Actor Fyvush Finkel recently appeared in one of Arbor Avenue's films, "The Other Men In Black", the Ohio music video challenge was well received and of course, the 48 Hour Film Project is on the way soon too. But what else?

A had a discussion the other day about this with a friend who told me that Columbus is being overlooked because of a couple of blunders when "Traffic" came to the state for production. Rumor has it that there were a few less-than-pleasant boo-boos that occurred, and we all know that bad news travels faster than good news, and that's a whammy for Central Ohio.

So. How do we overcome this? I see a few things we can do.

1.) Fund the Greater Columbus Film Commission. From the intel I got, the nastiness on "Traffic" occurred as the previous director was leaving the Film Columbus post. After that happened, support for films in central Ohio dwindled, Taft pulled the plug on the Ohio Film Office, and the industry in Ohio was left for dead. Basically, the ick ran downhill.

With the Greater Columbus Film Commission funded as the the other city commissions in the state, we give that office a fighting chance to court new productions here, promote the incentives to existing Ohio companies with the means to support Ohio films and gather the right people in the right place at the right time and ask for support. Without a fully functional film office in Columbus, we may never climb back up the ladder and out of the sewer.

2.) Get someone in the Ohio Film Office that's dedicated to film, dedicated to enhancing Ohio's film industry, experienced with film and all that goes with it and resolved to working hand-in-hand with all of Ohio's city film commissions to get productions moving here. There's some political junk going on when the film commissions are concerned; some unnecessary and ridiculous competition in regards to territory, accolades and whatever. As Obama likes to say, "we all need to come together for the common good" and stop marking our territory. For a new office with new incentives, the Ohio Film Office has been pretty darn quiet since it got underway, other than the music video contest they sponsored earlier this year. Our film office needs to get a whole lot noisier if we want another "Traffic" or "Shawshank Redemption" to come here and, as icing on the cake, put our people to work on the production.

3.) Make some noise. There is some awesome stuff being created in Columbus and the area. We have the RED in several rental houses now, including Scott Handel's Ohio HD Video. The guys at RAVE have been working hard on a RED pipeline as well, and Phil Garrett's latest work was also filmed on a RED. That aside we have some great DPs that are using film, and we have some folks who are amazing with graphics and animation too. For smaller works, Peter John Ross's "The Relationship Card" is not only fun, but very cool as far as the effects go.

So, once we make this great stuff... then what? What do we do with it? Show it at MOFA, SOFA and IndieClub?

This takes the conversation back to steps one and two to a point. We need FilmColumbus to be set free so Gail can work with our filmmakers to not only get their films made, but to get them seen! Furthermore, the Ohio Film Office has got to rev it up and pop the clutch! They need to get our films out there, get them marketed and get people looking at Ohio again.

But most importantly, it's important for us to step up OUR game as well. We can't expect others to do our work for us. We need to get excited about our work, we need to get serious about getting our work seen in places that will raise some eyebrows and get some press and we need to coalesce our creative community into one dynamic machine with one goal... to get the world to see what we can do here.

That in mind, I want to make a movie. I want to gather Ohio's best together to make something that will blow people's minds. I want a big budget, and big cameras, and big ideas, and big excitement, and big crowds, and big staging - and I want the State of Ohio to help me pay for it.

We're going to get through the 48 Hour Film Project. Then, we're going to start the engines.

...and that's the way I see it.