Ahney Her is a new star in the film industry. The Lansing Sexton High School junior made it big in Clint Eastwood’s 2008 blockbuster movie, “Gran Torino.”
The starring role, her first, has opened many doors for her. She first thought that when she graduated from high school, she would head for New York City or the West Coast. But she’s heard about an art institute that may be developing in the Detroit area, so she’s thinking she might stay here in Michigan.
“That’s the thing,” says Jeff Meyers, film critic for Detroit’s Metro Times. “The growing film industry creates a secondary aspect. It grows a creative culture.”
People wanting to get into the film industry are learning that if they go to Los Angeles and try to work their way up at Paramount, in 10 years they could still be working as a waiter. They can get in on the ground floor in Michigan in a newly developing industry in a place where the cost of living is lower, Meyers says.
But it is the Michigan tax incentives, with a 42 percent return on production expenses in the state, that have spurred the growth in 2008, bringing in $25 million in direct wages and $40 million spent on goods and services.
However, a move in the Legislature to cap those incentives has sent fearful ripples throughout the industry.
“Word gets around,” says Ken Droz, of the Michigan Film Office.
Matt Martyn, a principal in Ahptic Film and Digital of Lansing, says the uncertainty caused by the drought in lending and the incentive-limiting legislative proposal has made challenging Ahptic’s plans for the $9 million City Center Studios in downtown Lansing, but the owners are still looking for various opportunities.
Still, his company pursues its award-winning documentaries, shopping now for a national broadcaster for a documentary on the Bath School disaster of 1927, when a disgruntled school board member dynamited the Bath Township school, killing 45 people, mostly children, and injuring 58.
Martyn’s Ahptic partner, Dominic Cochran, has an idea to lobby the legislators. He’s working to get a big movie made in Lansing this summer. Then, lawmakers would see the spin offs to the economy, the income to the hotels, car dealers, restaurants—even the hardware stores.
“It would be right here in their backyard,” Cochran says.
Meanwhile, Cochran is helping develop the curriculum for the 60 film production assistants Capital Area Michigan Works!, Michigan State University and Lansing Community College will begin to train in May.
Source: Ken Droz, Michigan Film Office
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.
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