'Machete' Incentives Whacked by Texas Film Commission

This was bound to happen under Texas' flawed production measures that offer state incentives to producers of movies, television shows and game programs.

As reported by Charles Ealy in the Austin 360.com movie blog, Robert Rodriguez's controversial 2010 movie "Machete" -- which took a fictional whack at some of Texas' and Austin's images -- has had its state grant application rejected by the troubled Texas Film Commission.

The film commission's head recently announced his resignation, and Texas' production incentives will be easy political targets early in 2011. That's when the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature returns to session and faces a massive $24 billion, two-year state budget shortfall.

Specifically, "Machete" was hit by the "negative fashion" clause in the incentives statutes. A Republican-ramrodded clause enacted into law in 2007 forbids Texas state incentives to any kind of film, TV or game project that contains "inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion, as determined by the [Texas Film Commission] office, in a moving image project."


Apparently, Utah is the only other state that takes a similar, thin-skinned approach to try to "protect" its image and how its people and places are portrayed in movies, TV shows and electronic games.
 
Charles Ealy reported that Rodriguez's Austin, Texas-based Troublemaker Studios could have reaped a refund of about $1.75 million on the estimated $10 million spent in Texas to make "Machete."  

For more background on the "negative fashion" (also known as "negative light") controversy, here are links to my previous blog posts about the flawed and troubled state production incentives in Texas:

http://datelineoblivion.blogspot.com/2010/04/texas-production-incentives-will-they.html

http://datelineoblivion.blogspot.com/2009/07/texas-needs-to-rework-its-movie-tv-game.html

http://datelineoblivion.blogspot.com/2009/06/fiction-is-as-fiction-does-waco.html

http://datelineoblivion.blogspot.com/2009/06/censorship-issue-remains-alive-in-texas.html

http://datelineoblivion.blogspot.com/2009/05/waco-movie-controversy-takes-new-texas.html

http://datelineoblivion.blogspot.com/2009/05/texas-movie-incentives-censorship.html

http://datelineoblivion.blogspot.com/2009/05/texas-movie-incentives-texas-movie.html

http://datelineoblivion.blogspot.com/2009/05/waco-production-company-on-texas-we.html


-- Si Dunn

Texas Needs to Rework Its Movie, TV and Game Production Incentives

The Austin American-Statesman gets it, and that newspaper doggedly is staying on the Texas Legislature's case, even if many Texas politicians and entertainment people seem to be paying scant attention.

"State officials shouldn't be cast in roles of movie producers, scriptwriters or fact checkers, yet that's exactly where Texas legislators have put them," the Statesman editorialized in its July 3, 2009, edition.

A Republican-ramrodded clause enacted into law in 2007 forbids Texas state incentives to any kind of film, TV or game project that contains "inappropriate content or content that portrays Texas or Texans in a negative fashion, as determined by the [Texas Film Commission] office, in a moving image project."

Apparently, only Utah takes a similar, thin-skinned approach to attempting to "protect" how that state and its people are portrayed in movies, TV shows and electronic games. The other 48 states apparently are happy just to encourage any and all entertainment companies to spend money inside their borders and let courts, lawyers and lawsuits handle any controversies arising over "accuracy" or portraying anyone "in a negative fashion."

The July 3 Statesman editorial stated: "Legislation that denies tax incentives to movies that put the state in a negative light puts Texas Film Commissioner Bob Hudgins in a situation that is as uncomfortable as it is untenable."

The Statesman called for the law to be rewritten "to remove the negative light criteria that Hudgins used to deny tax breaks to a movie about the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco."

The Waco movie project might have brought an estimated $30 million to the state economy and created dozens of jobs for Texas movie workers who now have to commute to Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico or other states to earn paychecks.

But the project about the disasterous 1993 Branch Davidian standoff in Waco should not be the only focus of opposition to the "negative fashion" clause in Texas' moving-image production incentives.

The bigger issue is how much the restrictions -- and the ongoing controversy over them -- may chill the overall movie, TV and game production business in the state.

Producers looking to spend money on entertainment projects that have Texas subjects or Texas settings may decide to go to other states, just so they can avoid all risk of running afoul of overly protective Texas legislators or a state film commission subject to political pressure and narrow-minded laws.

After all, with current movie, TV and game technology, "Texas" can be created almost anywhere. (Remember the controversy over the Civil War movie Cold Mountain, which partially was shot in Romania, with Romanian army troops serving as "Yanks" and "Rebs" and the Carpathian Mountains doubling as North Carolina?)

Some opponents of the Texas Film Commission ruling, including this writer, have voiced opinions that the Waco movie would be a work of fiction, no matter how truly "based on real events" it is, and the Texas Film Commissioner thus has been tasked by state legislators to censor fiction.

As the Statesman and others have noted before, some of the most successful and enduring movies about Texas, including Giant and The Last Picture Show, have not portrayed Texas and Texans in a positive fashion. Neither have movies such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and TV shows such as Dallas. But Giant and Dallas particularly have brought tons of tourism dollars to Texas and are still infusing cash decades later. And other movies and TV shows, including the definitely inaccurate Walker, Texas Ranger, also will pay tourism and "image" dividends to Texas for many years to come.

"Tax incentives should be given to projects that will have a positive impact on the state's economy," the Stateman declared in its July 3 edition. "The criteria ought be clear, and producers should understand that not everyone is going to get an incentive. Decisions on incentives should be based on the economic benefit to the state -- not on someone's slippery notion of what's negative and what's not."

The Statesman gets it and is keeping the ball rolling. Now, do any of the leading lights within the Texas movie, TV and game industries get it, and are they doing anything to help get the "negative fashion" clause eliminated as soon as possible?

Texas entertainment jobs are on the line at a time when every new job definitely counts.

-- Si Dunn

Fiction Is as Fiction Does: The 'Waco' Movie Controversy Rolls On

One essential point –- fiction -- keeps getting missed as criticisms and free publicity continue for the screenplay for Entertainment 7’s Waco movie project.

No matter how “accurate” anyone thinks it should be, a screenplay –- any screenplay -- is a fabrication, a “play” for presentation on a “screen.” And any movie made from the screenplay will be even more of a fictional representation, once the director, actors, crew and post-production specialists have added their own contributions to the finished product.

The ex-FBI agent who lashed out at the screenplay on the front page of the June 24 Austin American-Statesman certainly is free to criticize the “accuracy” of how he thinks people, places and events are depicted in the script. However, anyone who witnesses or takes part in an event will have his or her own memories, interpretations and opinions of what happened -- or did not happen. Even if a million video cameras had recorded every moment of the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff from all sides and angles, there is absolutely no way to create a screenplay that could get the standoff “right” in every person's view.

A screenplay compresses people, places, things, images and circumstances into a stylized structure with three acts. A screenplay tells a story, and that story always is fiction, even when it is based on “real” events.

Even unscripted “reality” TV shows are unreal. They are just one more form of fiction (bad fiction).

Speaking of “real,” the real result of Texas' controversial "Ogden provision" (ironically named, since Utah is the only other state with a similar, thin-skinned restriction) is that State Sen. Steve Ogden of Bryan, Texas, can take credit for creating new moving-image industry jobs…in Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico and elsewhere. Those states, and almost any others including Utah, likely will have no qualms about hosting -- and profiting from -- movie, TV or game projects that portray “Texas or Texans in a negative fashion.”

Sen. Ogden got the "negative fashion" provision added to state law in 2007, the Austin American-Statesman says, "after controversy erupted around the Texas-filmed 2006 sports drama "'Glory Road,' which tells the story of 1966 Texas Western Miners, and, according to school supporters, exaggerated racism at East Texas State University."

It has been noted in the Statesman and elsewhere that classic “Texas” movies such as Giant and The Last Picture Show and TV shows such as Dallas probably could not qualify for current production incentives, because they sometimes depict Texas and Texans “in a negative fashion.” Yet those productions continue to bring tourism dollars to Texas and expand the state’s aura around the world many years after they disappeared from theaters and networks.

The Ogden provision puts the Texas Film Commissioner in the unenviable position of trying to verify the “accuracy” of fiction, a writing form in which anything goes, and to use that "accuracy" as one of the criteria for judging “negative fashion.” Some call this censorship or a state legislative attempt to override free speech provisions in the U.S. Constitution. Others just call it "dumb" and "bad business." Texas has had dubious reputations since at least 1835, yet it has managed to do quite well for itself, thank you very much.

Any movie version of the Branch Davidian standoff would be fiction. The standoff could even be staged in a parallel universe on the planet Yargon in the year 3456. But if the script portrayed “Texas or Texans in a negative fashion,” the project still might not qualify for state production incentives.

At the very least, the continuing controversy over Waco may cause many movie producers to consider spending their money and shooting their “Texas” movies anywhere but Texas, so they won't run afoul of state restrictions and state lawmakers.

As long as the 2007 “negative fashion” restrictions stay in place, perhaps the state’s famous “Don’t Mess with Texas…” slogan should be expanded. It could now include “…or We’ll Diss Your Screenplay and Keep Making Our Moving-Image Workers Cross State Lines to Find Jobs.”

-- Si Dunn