A brief spotlight
Places to spot a movie star: Hollywood, Manhattan and, for a short while, the state of Michigan.
IF you don’t know much – or anything – about Michigan, who could blame you? It is one of 50 states in the United States, and not a particularly glitzy one. If you do know something about Michigan and think about it in terms of what it makes, your first thought, correctly, would be cars.
The state is the birthplace of the automotive industry.
Michigan is located 3,000km east of Hollywood and 800km west of Manhattan. The state itself is one of the more populous in the country so simply based on the law of averages, some celebrities had to have been born or raised there. Michigan gave us James Earl Jones, Lily Tomlin, Steven Seagal, Tom Selleck and Madonna. Gillian Anderson and Robin Williams were born elsewhere but both moved to and grew up in Michigan.
Several top directors and producers also hail from the state, including Jerry Bruckheimer ( Flashdance, Coyote Ugly, Black
Hawk Down, Pirates Of The Caribbean), Francis Ford Coppola ( Patton, God Father, Apocalypse
Now), Sam Raimi ( The Gift, Drag Me To Hell and all three Spider-man films) and Michael Moore ( Bowling For Columbine, Fahrenheit 911,
Sicko).
It may be where they were born, but except for Moore, they all headed elsewhere for fame and fortune. According to the Michigan Film Office, only one film per decade was made there between 1940 and 1970. Seven were made in the 1970s, and starting in 1980 at least one film was made per year but that figure never climbed much in the 20th century.
Even though a handful from that handful won awards (notably: Bowling For Columbine,
American Beauty, 8 Mile and Dreamgirls) few knew or cared that these had been filmed in Michigan.
It took quite a bit of imagination, or vision, for someone to look at the state that once made cars and say, “we could make lots more movies”.
And yet, someone did and for a brief three years between 2008 and 2010, many American filmmakers eschewed California or New York as their primary film locations, choosing instead this quieter but growingly vibrant middle ground.
Consider this: The start of the 21st century followed Michigan’s trend for barely being a pinprick on the movie map. While the Michigan Film Office shows that 2002 was a particularly good year with nine films made, 2004-2006 only saw between four to six each. In 2007, only three films were shot there. Then, in 2008, it skyrocketed to 32 movies. Picture that as a plotted graph. Four, four, six, three, thirty-two. A fluke? Check out the next two plots: 41 in 2009, matched and even bettered with 42 the folowing year.
Among others, Clint Eastwood, Hugh Jackman, George Clooney, Jack Black, Miley Cyrus and Sean Penn all left their coastal cities to come here and film, bringing with them star quality and something far more important to the people of Michigan: hope.
This was what Jennifer Granholm, serving her second term as Michigan’s first woman governor, had planned all along.
Michigan’s automotive industry had been ailing for quite a while. Unemployment was high, morale was low and it suffered, as such places do, of brain drain.
The young and creative headed east or west where they could find not just jobs, but jobs that challenged them.
So Granholm took a bold step. She offered very generous incentives to film studios if they opted to film in her state. It was the best deal in the country and filmmakers flocked in. This created not just thousands of jobs but thousands of fun jobs and jobs that used local expertise.
There were jobs in film crews. There was a need for extras and location scouts, for rentals and repairs. Training was available to laid off auto mechanics and electricians. New graduates had a reason to stay and departed talent had a reason to return and work on more than 100 films that were made in Michigan during that time, including: Grand Torino, Up in the Air, Cedar Rapids, Conviction, Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, Real Steel, Gulliver’s Travels and A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas. Films were getting a good deal, but so was the local economy as Hollywood money paid for hotels, food and numerous other necessary local services. In one case, the tax rebate went directly back to the people of Michigan as Michael Moore used his rebate (reported to be Us$1mil (Rm3mil)) to refurbish a historic old cinema, turning it into a volunteer-run non-profit theatre that primarily shows art films and documentaries.
For many, this was just the beginning of Michigan’s bright future.
But then last year, The Avengers was supposed to film in Michigan, but didn’t. Starbright bypassed Michigan. Iron Man 3 chose a different location, as did Freelancers and countless other potential projects.
There was a new guy in charge. By law, a person can serve a maximum of two terms and Granholm had already been re-elected once.
The new governor, Rick Snyder, is a Republican (the political party that “gave” the world both George Bushes) and argued that there weren’t enough benefits to justify cost. (The Republican party is also infamous for giving more financial help to the rich than to the poor).
Numerous studies have been conducted, from the one cited by Snyder claiming that for every dollar Michigan spent it only received 17.5 cents (52.5sen) in return. He claimed that the number of jobs created for the people of Michigan was not high enough for what they were paying.
However, it has been pointed out that he was basing his decision on the number of full time jobs in film. Taking into account part time jobs (which paid very generous hourly salaries), jobs in services including hotel and food and beverage, not to mention a spike in these existing industries, put the figure closer to US$6 (RM18) returned to the state for every dollar it spent.
Furthermore, many felt this was just the beginning of a new era for Michigan, that the number of opportunities would grow and the state would become reenergised. Instead, the hope that once flamed bright has all but been extinguished. Many who invested in the future they had been promised are now struggling to survive.
In interviews with the Huffington Post several people who found this new hope speak of it wistfully. “It really seemed to inspire people,” said Sean Doerr, who had found work as a location scout in Detroit, Michigan’s largest city. “... the city was more vibrant because there were film crews everywhere.”
Dayna Polehanki, owner of Detroit Casting Company, echoed the sentiment: “Finally, something we could be proud of.” But now, “I have resigned myself that it might completely go away.”