By Andy Szal
WisBusiness.com
Film Wisconsin, the public/private partnership group promoting the state’s nascent moviemaking industry, is hoping a letter-writing and e-mail campaign from its supporters will save the state’s tax credits for film production that were axed in favor of a grant program in Gov. Jim Doyle’s budget proposal.
The group has placed a banner at the top of its Web site claiming that the incentives bring both jobs and revenue to the state when it sorely needs both. It asks supporters to contact the governor about restoring the incentives and includes talking points touting 759 jobs it says were created as a result of the credits in the program’s first year.
Film Wisconsin is also hoping to enlist members of its Facebook group to contact Gov. Jim Doyle and members of the Joint Finance Committee.
The group also criticizes Doyle’s grant program alternative, which would allot $500,000 annually to the Department of Commerce for Wisconsin-based film and other media production companies.
“Long-term film and video infrastructure will not develop in Wisconsin because there will no longer be an industry to support them given the absence of financial incentives to lure the industry to the state,” the group counters.
