Rodriguez seeks extras as 'Alita' begins Austin shoot

Robert Rodriguez is back in action directing Alita: Battle Angel for Fox in Austin from now until February.

According to Deadline, it's set in a 26th-century dystopian future: "The film follows the story of an amnesiac cyborg who, after being rescued from a scrap heap by a doctor (Christoph Waltz), becomes a bounty hunter tracking down criminals."

Actress and singer Eiza González has the lead role. She also stars in Rodriguez's El Rey Network series From Dusk Till Dawn. Rodriguez shocked Austin locals when he moved series production to film friendlier (as in incentives) New Mexico for season three. The cast also includes Lana Condor, Rosa Salazar, Jackie Earle Haley and Ed Skrein.

It's an adaptation of  the graphic novel series Battle Angel Alita by Yukito Kushiro. James Cameron wrote the script with Laeta Kalogridis.

Third Coast Extras is handing background roles, which include punk rocker types, Asians and East Indians, but also general folks of all ages. Get more info at the casting company's Facebook page.

The film is set for a 2018 release.

Robert Rodriguez sends 'From Dusk Till Dawn' to New Mexico

Rodriguez and Linklater (photo by Joe O'Connell)

Cuts to Texas film incentives have a new casualty: Austin-based Robert Rodriguez likes to shoot at home, but he's setting up the third season of his El Rey network's From Dusk Till Dawn series in New Mexico with filming beginning as I type this. The first two seasons shot in the Austin area, of course. But money talks and Rodriguez walks. As have other recent Texas-set shows.

This is what happens when the Texas Legislature slices and dices its two-year film incentive program budget from $95 million to $32 million. In recent years, the incentive program has been most effective at attracting TV series to the state, including Austin-shot American Crime and The Leftovers. The former shot in Austin for both of its two seasons, while the latter shot its second season around Central Texas. The Leftovers already has a third season commitment while American Crime's future is unknown. Will either return to Austin? Stay tuned, but don't get your hopes up. At least we still have Richard Linklater. Right, Rick? Gulp.

Texas ups the film incentives ante

The Texas Motion Picture Alliance members should give their lobbyists a raise. They somehow sold the Texas Legislature on a record two-year total of $95 million for the state's film incentives program. Does this mean the program now has enough bucks to attract more actual feature films and not just television shows (which aren't bad visitors either if you can get them and a drag when you don't)? Stay tuned, but it looks good. Check out The Austin Chronicle's report, which spells the numbers out.

Just two years ago it was looking like there would be no film incentives program in Texas.

And back in 2009, $60 million for the program had people smiling.

'Killer Women' to shoot in New Mexico

 

It's a show about Texas Rangers set in San Antonio and the pilot shot in Austin, but the ABC series Killer Women will lens in Albuquerque, my sources confirm.

With the television networks, the decision usually comes down to dollars and cents, and this appears to be no exception. Simply put, filming incentives in New Mexico remain much more attractive than those offered in Texas.

But at least we can enjoy a few fleeting Austin views in the trailer.

It's the same story that has another Texas Rangers story,  Johnny Depp star vehicle The Long Ranger, featuring scenic backdrops that you'd never find in the Lone Star State.

Austin is the best city for indie filmmaking?

That's the word from MovieMaker Magazine's latest ranking of the top 10 cities for independent filmmakers. Austin ranks No. 1 followed by New York City, Seattle, Los Angeles and Portland.

The criteria include: “Film Community” (scored on a 10-point scale), “Access to New Films” (10-point scale), “Access to Equipment” (7-point scale), “Cost of Living” (reverse 5-point scale), and “Tax Incentives” (4-point scale).  Austin got 32 point out of a possible 36.

New Orleans, last year's No. 1 on the list (Austin was No. 2 in 2012) dropped out of the top five. 

The reaction among Austin filmmakers on Facebook today wasn't that rosy. "Wait, WHAT? Is this from 5 years ago? I'm so confused! Or maybe it's the best place to be a moviemaker because there is so much amazing behind-camera talent looking for work here these days?" one industry insider said after Gary Bond of the Austin Film Commission posted a notice of the list. 

Another called it nothing but hype. "Actors, in particular, need to get themselves to a bigger market and fast. Great talent pool, absolutely. Opportunities for said talent to make a living in the biz... little to none."

But the comment that got the most notice came from major Hollywood producer Lynda Obst, who brought Hope Floats to Smithville in the late '90s and Heartbreak Hotel to Taylor before that. "It's certainly my favorite place to make a movie but it's rebates are too far below the norm to compete with the bad places to make a movie," she wrote on Facebook. "If you match NM everyone, but everyone will be back in tonnage."

So why is Austin No. 1? Bond points to the currently in action at the Sundance Film Festival which is teeming with Austin (and Dallas) filmmakers this year, both fairly new faces and the old standbys of Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez.

Perry's new film commish marks a shift in focus

Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced Monday that Heather Page is the new Texas film commissioner. She's got an interesting mix of background: she's worked for the Texas Film Commission (which is housed in Perry's offices), she's an actual working camerawoman and she's an at-large member of the industry lobbying group the Texas Motion Picture Alliance.

Her predecessor Evan Fitzmaurice, as well as his brief temporary replacement David Morales, is an attorney from Perry's staff. His legal background was seen by many as a desire to focus on cleaning up the process of distributing film incentive payments aimed at attracting film, television and videogame projects to the state. It was also a means of keeping the commission quietly chugging along--emphasis on quietly.

To mention the obvious, Page is also a woman, which is a plus considering allegations of sexual harassment involving former film commish Bob Hudgins just prior to his stepping down in 2010.  Hudgins, who had worked actively in the film industry, was instrumental in getting the Texas Legislature to approve a film incentives program. He was dynamo who pulled the state's many different regions together.

So the latest announcement can be seen as an effort to move back to the original role of the Texas film commissioner: attracting projects to the state.

Just one question: will Page  talk to the media? Hudgins saw that as part of his job. Fitzmaurice began referring all calls to the Perry's press office where they mostly died a slow death of despair.



Here's the press release from Perry's office:

Gov. Rick Perry has named Heather Page of Austin director of the Texas Film Commission. The commission supports Texas' growing and diverse media industries, and helps increase Texas' competitive position worldwide as a production destination. Page is an accomplished motion picture camerawoman, having worked on major feature films and television shows such as Revenge, Friday Night Lights, Armageddon and The Green Mile. She is a former workforce training administrator for the Texas Film Commission, where she helped implement the Workforce Training Program created in 2007 by the Texas Legislature. She is a board member of the Society of Camera Operators, chair of the International Cinematographers Guild Scholarship Fund and co-founder and director of Beyond the Lights Celebrity Golf Classic.

Page received a bachelor's degree in cinema from Denison University, a master's degree in cinema studies from New York University, and a certificate in graduate cinematography studies from the American Film Institute.

'Machete Kills' seeks extras

Machete is back in Robert Rodriquez's Machete Kills starring the ultra-cool Danny Trejo, and they need extras. An open casting call is slated for Saturday, June 2, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Austin Studios' red building. Men and women ages 18 and up are sought and there is money (though don't expect a lot) involved. Knowning Rodriguez, you'll end up signing some sort of confidentiality agreement.

Some interesting names have joined the cast including Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard and Mel Gibson.

Now the big question is whether they'll seek Texas filming incentives...

'Lone Ranger' lives, but not in Texas

Jerry Bruckheimer has managed to revive Johnny Depp-starrer The Lone Ranger with its budget tightened, ahem, from $260 million to $215 million.

There were rumblings earlier of a joint New Mexico-Texas shoot for this tale of a TEXAS Ranger, then talk of Utah, but the final words is New Mexico and possibly Louisiana. Why? Do you even need to ask?

Here's what Bruckheimer told The Hollywood Reporter:

"We found that Louisiana gave us a better tax incentive than New Mexico -- that was another $8 million. We're still shooting in New Mexico, and we might [also] go to Louisiana. We're asking New Mexico to come closer to the Louisiana incentive.
We dropped our California location not because they didn't offer a tax break but because it was another production office that we had to open. Every time you have a new location, you have to use crew time setting it up for you. There are a lot of expenses."

Early rumblings had the film shooting some in the Alpine-Marfa area, which goes completely unmentioned here. Granger was also scouted for train scenes, probably because they were shot there for True Grit.

Texas film incentives survive; 'Lone Ranger' lurks

UPDATE: LONE RANGER IS OFFICIALLY DEAD AS A PROJECT!


My column from today's Dallas Morning News.

SHOT IN TEXAS: Legislature approves $30 million in film incentives

By JOE O’CONNELL Special Contributor

Published 09 June 2011 04:48 PM


The Texas film-incentives program appears to have survived the
legislative session, but with a lot less cash to throw at potential
projects like Johnny Depp’s Lone Ranger.

The incentive program, which is aimed at attracting film, television
commercial and video-game projects to the state, will have $30 million
to spend in the next two years. That’s exactly half of what the
Legislature approved two years ago. Another $2 million will fund program
administration and a state film archives program.

“It’s a big victory and something that we’ll have to build back up on in
the future,” said Don Stokes, president of industry lobbying group the
Texas Motion Picture Alliance. “At least it keeps the program alive at
this point.”

Most film-industry leaders are keeping their lips tight about the
allocation, perhaps concerned about unlikely changes to it during the
Legislature’s special session. But it could have been worse: An original
plan had two-year funding at $10 million and at one point the Senate
considering cutting all film-incentive funding.

The funding uncertainty kept at least one unnamed network television
series pilot from filming in Texas, Stokes said. North Texas did land
two pilots — Dallas-set Good Christian Belles , which will shoot as an
ABC series primarily in Los Angeles, and TNT’s version of Dallas, which
the network has yet to pick up as a full series.

The incentives program has been less successful competing for feature
films with other more incentive-rich states such as Louisiana and New
Mexico. The next big-name film in Texas may be a remake of The Lone
Ranger , with emphasis on the character Tonto to be portrayed by Johnny
Depp. The Disney film is expected to have a fall shoot and has been
scouting locations in West Texas, Austin and the small town of Granger
where much of True Grit was shot in 2010, Gary Bond of the Austin Film
Office confirmed.

The alliance group estimates the incentive program has generated more
than $600 million in new in-state spending and 56,000 jobs since it was
first funded in 2007.

“These incentives will keep our crew and talent working in Texas and
economically impacting our entire state,” said Waxahachie-based talent
agent Linda McAlister. “Talent live and work all over Texas, not just in
the metropolitan areas. The money is filtered throughout the communities
through production as well as individual spending.”

The Legislature clearly wants to see bottom-line results. The Texas Film
Commission has until November 2012 to come up with a 10-year plan for
the film industry to “grow beyond its traditional funding.” That
includes asking cities to get involved financially and asking colleges
and universities to bolster crew training.

“Our goal is to leverage the assets we have in the state — our talented
crews, infrastructure and location variety,” Stokes said. “We can do it
all in Texas.”

Last year the incentive program was instrumental in attracting a lot of
television series to the state — The Good Guys, Chase and Lone Star in
North Texas and My Generation and Friday Night Lights in Austin, but all
of those shows have since closed shop.

To keep either television or films from gobbling up much of the
incentives allocation, the legislation requires no more than 40 percent
of funds go to either TV, film, video games or commercials and
industrial films.

“We want to make sure all segments of the industry have a chance to grow
and prosper under the program,” Stokes said.

Alex Jones inspires zombies to action!

First radio conspiracy theorist Alex Jones took on the Robert Rodriguez film Machete leading the Texas Film Commission to deny film incentives for it, then he helped kill TV's Two and a Half Men (or at least the Charlie Sheen version), now comes word that his radio rants actually led to the creation of a Zombie movie from fine musician Jesse Dayton. Here's what Jesse says about his film Zombex, which wraps filming today in Austin and features appearances by both Corey Feldman and Malcolm McDowell:

While on a 40-city arena tour opening for horror director/rock star Rob Zombie (a close friend who cast me as Capt. Clegg in his Harvey Weinstein-produced film Halloween 2 for which I also wrote and recorded an original soundtrack which Rob was the executive producer), I was listening to a radio show by libertarian conspiracy theorist host Alex Jones. This was purely for entertainment on the tour bus. On the third of the tour, Alex shouted “Don’t people understand that big pharmaceutical companies are in bed with the health insurance companies and the government and this Xanax is turning our country into zombies”!

Boom! Light bulb! I immediately wrote the outline for Zombex. A film that would be mostly set in New Orleans, LA but ending in Austin, TX about a greedy pharmaceutical company CEO who sells a Xanax-type pill to post Hurricane Katrina stress victims which turns them into zombies. An hour and twenty minutes fun ride with a big idea behind it. A down and out local Zydeco music star, lead character Charlie Thibideaux, brings down this Gordon Gekko-type greed head and his whole empire while zombies are simultaneously destroying everything around them.

SHOT IN TEXAS: ‘Dallas’ pilot begins 12-day shoot

My Dallas Morning News column (which actually runs Saturday but is already up on the Web site--oddly minus my byline).--Joe

NOTE: Larry Hagman on Sunday at 8 p.m. will be at the Texas Theatre, where the original Dallas series is being screened two episodes at a time weekly.

SHOT IN TEXAS: ‘Dallas’ pilot begins 12-day shoot here next week

BY JOE O'CONNELL
filmnewsbyjoe@yahoo.com
joeoconnell.com
@joemoconnell on Twitter

The TNT series pilot for Dallas begins a 12-day North Texas shoot next week. The pilot follows the next generation of Ewings led by Jesse Metcalfe, Josh Henderson and Jordana Brewster. Larry Hagman, Charlene Tilton, Steve Kanaly, Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy from the original series are also on board.

“Just because a pilot shoots here doesn’t mean it’s going to stay if picked up,” warned Janis Burklund of the Dallas Film Commission. She has seen network shows such as Fox’s Good Guys come and go. Indeed, most of the original Dallas series was shot in Hollywood.

Dallas-set and Dallas-shot ABC pilot GCB, starring Leslie Bibb, Kristin Chenoweth and Annie Potts, recently wrapped production. Word of a series pickup is expected by mid-May.

A couple of canceled series shot in North Texas are also staging small-scale comebacks. The five unaired Chase episodes shot in Dallas will be broadcast beginning Saturday on NBC. And Lone Star creator Kyle Killen is staging a free screening of the fourth through sixth episodes of the canceled Fox series this Sunday in Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse-Ritz.

In 2009, Hagman, Dallas’ J.R. Ewing, wandered the Texas Capitol giving out fake $10,000 bills with his photo on them, successfully prodding legislators to increase filming incentives funding. But incentives are no longer such an easy sell.

With six weeks to go in the session, the Texas Legislature is hashing out the future of a filming incentives program that in 2009 awarded two-year funding of $60 million — with another $2 million for operating expenses and funding of a state film archive. This time the Senate is looking at two-year funding of $10 million, while the House is considering increasing that two-year figure to $30 million plus that spare $2 million for operations and film archive. The decision will likely be up to a House-Senate conference committee.

The industry, in a study expected to be released next week, contends the film, television and video-game industry has had a $1.1 billion impact since incentives were first funded in 2007, and a direct in-state spend of just less than $600 million. The study commissioned by the Texas Association of Business with the help of the University of Texas considers spending through 2010.

“It shows how effective we are at creating jobs,” said Don Stokes, president of the lobbying group Texas Motion Picture Alliance. “It shows the Texas program is the most efficient program out there.”

Competing states also are looking at either cutting back or eliminating filming incentives in this tight budget year. Still, New Mexico is considering a $45 million per year cap, far more than ever offered in Texas.

“Our program was designed from the beginning to be very conservative,” Stokes said, noting Texas’ strengths in trained film crews and varied filming locales. “As other programs across the country pull back and come back into reality, it makes Texas that much more competitive. We hope we end up with enough to keep Texas in the game.”
Burklund agrees. “We all know we’re going to take a cut,” she said. “I’m not panicking about it. We’re doing the best we can given the circumstances.”

Bonus footage

Dallas filmmakers Barak Epstein, Adam Donaghey, Jason Reimer and Eric Steele, working together as Aviation Cinemas, are launching what they term “crowd-funded” indie films and producing them directly from Oak Cliff’s Texas Theatre. The first project is The Verdigris, a music documentary executive-produced by Bradley Beesley (Okie Noodling) and featuring music by Beau Jennings. A donations-only performance by Jennings opened the effort at the Texas Theatre on Friday.

'Spy Kids 4' sends post production to Michigan

Want to know Robert Rodriguez's reaction to the Texas Film Commission denying incentives to Machete? Read this from The Detroit News:

Spy Kids 4 has been approved for post-production work in Michigan and has qualified for the Michigan film incentives, the Michigan Film Office announced today.

The film, which already has been shot, will be converted from 2-D to 3-D at Speedshape, a post-production facility in Birmingham. The Film Office reported that around $4.5 million will be spent on the process, and the production will receive around $1.8 million in tax credits.

Moviemaker mag names Austin #4 best film city

In its yearly tradition Moviemaker has named Austin the fourth best place to "live, work and make movies." Boston leads the list this time, followed by Albuquerque, NM, and a resurgent New Orleans, La. Last year, Austin was fifth on the list, and has been known to claim the top spot in previous years. Gary Bond of the Austin Film Office said he believes the Capital City may well have been on the list more than any other city, but don't quote him on it. Oops.

The usual suspects are credited with the Austin praise: Robert Rodriguez, Richard Linklater and a strong crew base. Also heaped with praise in the Texas film incentives program, which may not get so much lauding next year if the Legislature follows through on talk of scalping the program.

Dallas did not make the list this year.

Incentive nix for 'Machete' marks major policy shift

I'm frankly a little shocked by word that the Texas Film Commission has denied incentives for Robert Rodriguez's Machete. And even more interested by what it says about the future of both the Texas Film Commission and the state's film industry.

A letter from the film commission is signed by Carol Pirie, the deputy director, and denies the incentives based on either "inappropriate content" or "content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion." It doesn't specify which. The letter is dated Dec. 1--the day after Bob Hudgins left as Texas film commissioner amid sexual harassment allegations that he says were unrelated.

Gov. Rick Perry's office seems to be giving credence to access televsio/radio conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who raised this issue earlier this year.

What's fascinating about all of this is the change of course it illustrates. Now former Texas film commish Hudgins had said a planned film about the Branch Davidian siege in Waco would likely be denied (filmmakers never actually applied for incentives and the film has yet to be made).

Hudgins' response to critics at the time was that the content provision only applies to films based on actual events. That was his clear take, so the move by Perry's office (I sincerely doubt Pirie made this decision on her own) is a sea change.

Hudgins told me in 2009: "If they are depicting real events and they don't do it accurately, we've got to say no to them. They can show scoundrels as long as they are accurately portrayed."

Machete is fiction. It's been termed "Mexplotation." It's not based on anything factual. The incentives denial seems more of a reaction to an early trailer for the film than the film itself. That trailer, released on Cinco de Mayo 2009, has star Danny Trejo speaking directly to the camera with a "special message to Arizona." The reference is to an immigration law passed by the state. The law was passed AFTER Machete was filmed.

The big question now is which policy will the next Texas film commissioner follow--Hudgins' or Perry's?

Alex Jones vs. 'Machete'

As a longtime fan of Austin's version of access television (I haven't seen it in years since moving to the sticks where we are cable-less), I'm excited to see Alex Jones jump into the Texas film incentives fray. Specifically, he's decrying Robert Rodriguez's upcoming film Machete as too racist to merit those state bucks. Of course, Machete is suupposed to be a "brownsplotation" film, but, please, discuss...

Should 'Waco' film get Texas incentives?

That's the subject of my latest Dallas Morning News SHOT IN TEXAS column. Your thoughts?

Texas film in a new year

It's an interesting commentary on newspapers that though I have a film column that runs in two newspapers, a lot of people see them only through list serves that post them and assume it's a blog I do. Nope, I prefer to be paid, and I haven't found a way for the Web to do that for me yet.

You can see my Top Ten Texas Film Stories of 2008 in The Austin Chronicle FILM NEWS column and some thoughts on the upcoming Texas film incentives push in the Dallas Morning News SHOT IN TEXAS column.

Film news times two

Check out the latest in my film indusrty columns in The Austin Chronicle and Dallas Morning News.

Incentives pass with funding

Read all about it in my latest column in The Austin Chronicle.

Film news from Austin and Dallas

Vheck out my latest columns from The Austin Chronicle and Dallas Morning News with info on film incentives, projects shooting and Oprah cracking the whip.

http://www.guidelive.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/movies/stories/DN-shotintexas_0413gl.ART.State.Edition1.3678aca.html

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid%3A465127