11/19/09

Hello everyone,

Mike here.  Woody and I made the drive up to Lansing yesterday in the early am to attend the latest hearing on the MFI in front of the Tax Policy committee in the house of representatives.  

The room was pretty packed with people who support the MFI and we got a chance to testify in front of the reps.  A big thanks to Harvey Grace, David Karp, Nathaniel McClure, Derrick Farraci, Jack Binder, Mitch Albom and all the rest who voiced their opinions to the committee.

I do believe that we made it very clear that ANY reduction to the MFI in its current form will drive the industry out of the state due to the complete lack of stability by the legislature toward the business community.

Let's hope it makes a difference.  Many of the reps seem to support the MFI.  But some still just don't get it and it looks like they never will.  Pete Lund and I got into it for a brief moment.  I'm sure the guy really cares about the state but like Cassis, they speak in complete generalities about "40%!" while we all know that the state gives hundreds of millions in credits to other industries continually.  I think Representative Lund believes that movie, tv and game jobs are just not that important.

Now look, we know that no one here is curing cancer or stopping the hole in the ozone layer, but in this economy, with this unemployment, a job is a job is a job.

And if Representative Lund wants to step up to a working man or woman in the film industry in his district of Shelby Township and tell them that their career and wages just don't mean that much to him, well, good luck with that.

And if the likes of Lund and Cassis want to continue to make noise and scare Hollywood away from Michigan, we'll keep making more noise.  And we'll also exercise our voices at the voting booth.

Mike


10/27/09

For everybody who made it out the the Crofoot last night to attend the rally to save the MFI, THANK YOU!!!!  For those who couldn't make it, hopefully you were working!

Please get those postcards out to the House Reps on the Tax Comittee.  We need to bury them in mail so maybe they'll understand that they are possibly destroying the future of the industry in this state.

We're working hard on getting some video up on the site from the rally. 

We also want to thank Mitch Albom for making time in his ridiculously busy schedule to come out and give a terrific, impassioned speech!  Hats off to State Senators Gilda Jacobs and Hansen Clarke as well.  Ditto to Than McClure, Harold Cronk and his partner Matt from 10 West Studios in Manistee, Harvey Grace, Roderick Casey for delivering a statement from gubernatorial candidate Alma Smith, Jim Dingeman for representing L Brooks Patterson, and the Crofoot's Blair McGowan for driving it home.

You all rock.  Now let's get something done!

10/25/09

Hey everyone,

Mike Manasseri here.  We're working away, prepping for the rally and hoping to see as many people as possible who care about the MFI at the Crofoot tomorrow night.

Just thought you'd like to know how all of this started.  If anyone told me six weeks ago that I would have anything with leading a rally for the film incentives I would not believe them.

My partner and friend, Woody Robertson had a little idea in the beginning of September that we should go visit some film sets in the area and put together a 2 or 3 minute piece for the local news.  We ended up going out to visit Red Dawn and decided to focus solely on Michiganders who were working on the film and asked them how the Film Incentives have affected their lives.

The stories they told were quite remarkable as you can all see in the testimonials area of the site.  Woody and I both knew within 2 days that this is a much bigger story than "what's filming in Michigan," and we realized that these people's stories needed to be seen/heard.  They were the living, breathing proof of the effectiveness of the MFI and we decided then and there that this was a battle we had to fight with all of the recent grumblings from the anti-MFI folk.

We understood that if we allowed the legislature to change/repeal the MFI and we did nothing about it then we would have no right to complain and bellyache if we just sat idly by and observed the process.

So here we are, about eight weeks later, on the eve of a RALLY!  Holy cow....

So that's the story.

Want to give a massive shout out to Woody Robertson, the man behind the camera on most of the interviews on our site for coming up with this darn idea in the first place and causing me to lose countless hours of sleep over the past six weeks. (Sebo, props to you as well.)

All of it has been well worth it.  Thanks Woody.

We'll report in tomorrow night after the rally if we have enough strength to type.

Mike

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