64 WINTER 2019 MOVIEMAKER.COM
Four entries into our list, a theme
is emerging: expansion. At the
Crain’s Entertainment Summit in October,
NYC’s film czar Julie Menin said one of the
city’s film-related priorities in 2018 has been
to spread production more evenly across the
boroughs, noting that city stages were already
quite full and expected to be more so. (Rough-
ly half of the 12,000 permits submitted to NYC
annually are Manhattan location permits.) In
August, the Mayor’s Office began accepting
proposals from media tenants who want to fill
space in a $136 million development project
at the Bush Terminal complex in Sunset Park,
Brooklyn; there’s expected to be workspace
for some 1,500 film and TV professionals (or
photographers, sound engineers or emerging
media artists, depending on who grabs it).
“There’s never been a better time to be
an aspiring film or TV professional in
New York City,” Menin tells MovieMaker.
“The industry is booming and opportunities
abound. The Mayor’s Office has rolled out
workforce programs to help diverse
New Yorkers gain the skills they need to work
in the industry, from post-training and free
Made in NY career panels, to our Writers’
Room program in partnership with the WGA
East.” Menin also notes that the Mayor’s Office
of Media and Entertainment (MOME) is work-
ing on addressing the gender gap in media
with the creation of a $5 million Women’s
Film, TV and Theatre Fund. So, what could
the city be doing better? There’s still room
for more infrastructure, according to
The Irishman producer Jane Rosenthal: “We
have the best and most diverse talent above
and below the line, but the additional state of
the art facilities would be a welcome addition
to the current landscape,” she says. “Movies
and TV is over a $9 billion industry to the city
and employs more than 130,000 New Yorkers.”
Now, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention a
couple of the unique offerings that put NYC
at least in the running for every moviemaker
pondering a move. An exhibit celebrating the
20th anniversary of the publication of
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, featur-
ing original drafts, illustrations, and rare
books on loan from Potter publisher Scholastic
as well as J.K. Rowling’s personal archives, is
open at the New-York Historical Society until
January 27, 2019. For those seeking a more
visceral experience, this past summer the
New York Aquarium, off the Coney Island
boardwalk, opened its decade-in-the-making
exhibit Ocean Wonders: Sharks! A year-round
exhibition featuring 18 kinds of sharks and
rays among 115 marine species, the aquatic
menagerie is in a 57,000-square-foot pavilion
that includes an immersive Canyon’s Edge
viewing precipice as well as a coral reef tunnel
where visitors are surrounded by sharks. Film
industry folk may feel right at home.5
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cin-
ema, the center of life for many cinema-
loving Angelenos, was shuttered for renova-
tions for 2018. But never one to disappoint
fans, Tarantino let his love for movies escape
onto the streets of L.A. throughout summer
and fall, dressing block after block of
West Hollywood and the area in period store-
fronts, murals, billboards, theater marquees,
and vintage rides for his ode-to-1969 epic,
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood—even
filming inside Hollywood’s iconic
Musso & Frank Grill, where movie stars have
been sampling martinis and prime rib since- The publicity over filming in the heart
of “our beautiful city,” as West Hollywood’s
Film Coordinator Eddie Robinson calls it, will
hopefully not recede soon.
“West Hollywood is known as Creative City,”
Robinson says. “It’s a welcoming home for
creative professionals. We have benefits that
support local creatives in their development,
that address affordable housing and trans-
portation, and for moviemakers that wish
to film in the city there are benefits that can
accommodate even the most limited produc-
tion budgets.” He adds that these programs
have been ongoing for years, and that the film
office is used to lending a hand to productions
big and small: “Filming in West Hollywood
means working in a dense, urban environ-
ment, and we’re always happy to work with
any production to help them get the shots
they’re looking for.”
Indie films are addressed in the state bud-
get signed by outgoing Governor Jerry Brown
in summer 2018, with non-public production
companies receiving an increase in tax credits
along with films that hire labor locally while
filming outside of L.A.’s 30-mile zone. Brown’s
budget extends the state’s tax credits to 2025
and maintains the annual rate of $330 mil-
lion, while adding in new harassment report-
ing directives and diversity bonuses. On the
latter, it creates a pilot program called the
Career Pathways Training Program for prepar-
ing Californians from underserved com-
munities for careers in below-the-line craft
occupations. Major productions that filmed in
L.A. and were incentivized in the third quarter
include Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,
the Kristen Stewart-as-Jean Seberg thriller
Against All Enemies, and Netflix’s
Sandra Bullock-starring thriller Bird Box.6
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
“I found Chicago to be invigorating,”
says writer-director Travis Stevens,
who after building a rep as an indie producer
with titles such as Buster’s Mal Heart and
Jodorowsky’s Dune, directed his debut horror
feature, The Girl on the Third Floor, in 2018.
Trendy Chicago suburb Frankfort was chosen
as a prominent location due to its “haunted”
Victorian-style mansions, one of which the
crew made their own. “Having made films
in Los Angeles, New York, Louisiana,
Montana, Canada, the U.K., and Mexico,
I grew accustomed to struggling to find the
balance between budget, resource availability,
and experience,” Stevens recalls. “Often that
balance can handicap the creative vision and
become taxing on the crew. The further you
travel from cities with a healthy film infra-
structure, the cheaper many of your day-to-
day costs are, but your access to equipment
and experienced crews becomes limited.”
Stevens adds that Chicago and its surround-
ing environs have struck a balance, nurturing
both a robust slate of TV production and a
thriving indie film scene, which support each
other. “The high-volume needs of a TV pro-» DIRECTOR CHAD STAHELSKI (L) ON THE SET
OF JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 IN NEW YORK, A CITY
PRODUCER ERICA LEE SAYS IS PART OF THE FILM’S DNA