Milwaukeewood

Earlier this month Film Wisconsin—a group dedicated to bringing movie productions to the state—co-sponsored an event celebrating the grand opening of RDI Stages, Milwaukee’s first motion picture studio complex. Now that local governments appear to be stepping up their efforts to bring Hollywood movies to Wisconsin—including the Johnny Depp/Michael Mann film Public Enemies that was shot in Milwaukee this summer—Decider met up with Film Wisconsin executive director Scott Robbe to talk about the future of Wisconsin’s “creative economy.”

Decider: What does a facility like RDI Stages do for Wisconsin's arts community?
Scott Robbe: It completes the last piece of the puzzle for Wisconsin in terms of what we need to grow the film and television industry. And that means a multi-stage studio complex that is located in Milwaukee. This makes it possible to not only come and do films on location in Wisconsin, but also to film the interior scenes at RDI Stages. So now you can capture a full film in terms of both exteriors and interiors without the company having to convert a warehouse or other space.
D: Film Wisconsin is a vocal advocate for giving tax incentives to film production companies that make movies in the state. Why is that important?
SR: The tax incentives are vital, because, in a global economy, Wisconsin competes with the incentives that exist in Canada, incentives that have been luring business out of Hollywood for 20 years because the Canadians did it so well. They built a major industry in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, based on such incentives. And we have to compete with them in the global marketplace. Of course, it’s cheaper to make in film in India, in Bollywood, than it is to make a film here. But we turn out a better product. The industry is inherently American, and we want to keep it inherently American. The incentives made it possible for Wisconsin to, in 2008, make nine feature films. Sixteen televisions shows were shot here, and a lot of new international and national commercials were filmed here as well. Those international projects now highlight such Wisconsin and Milwaukee landmarks as the Calatrava for the rest of the world. This brings in tourism dollars and it projects a positive image for Milwaukee and Wisconsin all over the world.
D: Are you afraid that the current economic crisis may cause state legislators to rethink such tax incentives?
SR: I think that’s an absolute possibility and I think the challenge is not to embrace a mentality of fear. If we react with a fear mentality in terms of the growth of economic sectors then that’s going to be the last nail in the coffin. And that’s our challenge right now. We should be in a period of reinvention, not in a fear mode.
D: How do you begin to gauge the success of that reinvention process? Are you primarily concerned with the economic ramifications of such programs, or is there something else at stake? How, ultimately, do you measure the success of Film Wisconsin’s efforts?
SR: I would argue that from a financial standpoint [tax breaks] absolutely work. I’ve just put a chart up on our website, and you can see what the incentive amount was, and what the dollar amount was in terms of what came into the Wisconsin economy. It almost acts like a rebate. If you go into Best Buy, for example, and buy a camera, send in the rebate coupon, and get $25 dollars back—that’s what Wisconsin does. It gives a little bit back. Then you look at all the revenue in the “everything that’s new” column that’s come into Wisconsin—that’s all new revenue. And the next column is all new jobs. Those thousands of jobs? They weren’t here before the incentives.
D: 2008 saw the demise of the Milwaukee International Film Festival. Do you take that as an indicator of the state of art consumption in Wisconsin and Milwaukee?
SR: Wisconsin now has eight major film festivals. And right down the block from this office, Milwaukee Film just opened new offices with a staff of four. That’s one good indicator. Another good indicator is that of the nine features that were shot here, a large number of them were done by Wisconsin people, or people who have recently returned to Wisconsin. When you talk about reinvention and reinventing the economy—or what the arts do in terms of the creative economy of the state—the group Americans for the Arts notes that there are over 50,000 people employed in arts-related activities in the state of Wisconsin. You look at these new studio facilities, which used to be World War II manufacturing spaces. When you walk through these studios you see that they have been reinvented and repurposed. The gantry trains that run across the tracks of the studios that will now lift lighting grids? They used to lift engines. So we are reinventing ourselves through the creative economy.