#snowbate

[stoftey]

PLEASE SUPPORT COMPETITIVE SNOWBATE FUNDING

Dear Mr. Chairman and Members of the Jobs Conference Committee:

My name is Stefanie Toftey and I am a filmmaker from Minneapolis. This is the fourth time in two years that I’ve contacted you in support of fully funding Snowbate (I even waited for 9 hours in a hot and overcrowded room to testify last April 18th) so I ask that you please read and discuss what I’m sharing with you today.

One major point that I would like for you all to remember is that when our funding is at stake over even a SINGLE budget cycle, it costs us work. Film producers don’t locate productions in a place where incentives are in danger of disappearing and every time this issue is on the chopping block, our industry suffers. Please carefully consider this now and going forward.

Politicians and filmmakers are two sides of the same coin: we both answer a calling to perform the work that we do and, if we’re lucky, countless hours of hard work are rewarded with even more hours of even harder work. We both measure our success by the degrees to which our stories resonate with others. We also share a life force that doubles as the bane of our existence: fundraising. It is for that very reason that I choose to contribute money from my income tax toward political campaigns and why I ask you to choose to contribute part of yours to invest in Snowbate.

Minnesota is the only upper Midwest state currently with an incentive program. For us, it’s not like Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina battling for stories set in the south. The North could be ours for the taking, as long as we make it worthwhile for productions not to run across the border into Canada. Everything begins and ends with the list of states offering film incentives and if Minnesota isn’t on that list with competitive and consistent film incentives, we’ll continue to lose Minnesota’s local crews to Atlanta and Los Angeles and quality projects to Canada.

How would you feel if EVEN GRUMPIER OLD MEN is filmed in Canada instead?

Representative Pat Garofalo, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Representative Joe Hoppe, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Representative Jim Newberger, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Representative Marion O’Neill, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Representative Tim Mahoney, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Senator Jeremy R. Miller, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Senator Paul Anderson, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Senator Bobby Joe Champion, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Senator Gary H. Dahms, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Senator David J. Osmek, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Specifically, please support the House's position to provide $1.5M for the biennium and the Senate’s position on operations funding by preserving the current biennial appropriation at $650,000.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit my thoughts,

Stefanie Toftey, Filmmaker

cc: Governor Mark Dayton

     Lt. Governor Tina Smith

     Representative Ilhan Omar

     Senator Kari Dziedzic

[stoftey]

Minnesota’s March to Save Snowbate

Dear Governor Dayton, House Speaker Daudt, Senate Majority Leader Bakk, and Conference Committee Co-Chairs and Members:

Please vote to fully fund Snowbate.

I’ve gone over this a hundred or so times by now so I’m fairly certain that this analogy is irrefutable: politicians and filmmakers have the same spirit animal.

Most of us answer a calling to perform the work that we do and, if we’re lucky, our countless hours of hard work are rewarded with even more hours of even harder work.

We routinely reflect on our life experiences and measure success by the degrees to which our message (aka story) resonates with others.

We have that Kafkaesque life force known as “fundraising” in common that doubles as the bane of our existence.

Campaigning in advance of Election Day is a march just as pitching a feature film to the studios is a march. Maintaining the favor of your constituents after you’ve won the election is a march just like performing well at the box office is one as well.

If you’ve seen ‘March of the Penguins’ (imdb.com/title/tt0428803) then you catch my drift.

The anecdotes you share on the trail (or in brilliant demonstrations of rhetoric in the midst of budget deliberations) comprise your stature in the eyes of your constituents and colleagues. The filmmaker’s stories serve up the same result. To run for a public office is to sacrifice your privacy and to embrace a new normal where you are in a constant state of vulnerability. This is true for filmmakers, too. Perhaps you, a Minnesota lawmaker, and I, a Minnesota filmmaker, are crazy to have such undying faith in the collaborative processes of democracy and movie-making because of their enduring yet torrid affairs with conflict but engagement with dissenting voices (the other side of the aisle for you and the antagonist for me) is where the magic happens.

Conflict holds our interest and challenges us to deliver our very best work but it becomes unproductive or damaging if not tempered by its opposite. Roger Ebert, a man who made a career out of being in constant conflict with Gene Siskel, delivered expert testimony regarding the value of its antidote in July of 2005:

We all are born with a certain package. We are who we are: where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised. We're kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people. And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.

No two people see anything exactly alike and this will always be relevant at all scales of measure and enumeration. This secures our need for government and its many moments of mediation and if film-making could be granted the same value in terms of capital and operation, I posit that having the voice of Minnesota filmmakers at the table will prove paramount to our state’s status in the global economy. Media is powerful and there’s an art to influence that we should be fighting like “H – E – double hockey sticks” to have so that the world knows what we already know to be true: Minnesota isn’t a fly-over state, it’s a destination where stories are set and filmed and to which tourists flock (year-round, and even to the rural locations).

Film and television production is a business just like any other and its direct investment moves akin to water, via gravity, unless pumped and diverted to locations in need. A state’s shot at landing any given film or television production BEGINS AND ENDS with the list of states offering competitive tax incentives. The days when natural resources determined an industry’s lasting ties to a geographic place are over. In today’s economy, the birth name of 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing) would be C2M and it would be in China. If we hadn’t already coined the term “Snowbate”, in today’s film incentive climate, it would likely belong to Canada. Without your vote in support of fully funding Snowbate, Minnesota’s film and television industry WILL DRY UP. Either en masse or a constant trickle, my fellow crew community members and I will have no choice but to march against our grain and against the elements to find work in other states and countries where state and national governments understand that film-making incentives yield hefty returns. Minnesota will feel the loss if we have to leave, I promise you.

Please vote to fund Snowbate. You know as well as I do that this march is tough enough without the added obstacles and that, when presented with a better offer, this march may never return. Let’s invest in ourselves and in our ability to control our own message. Empathy can’t be exercised in a vacuum and with films ranging from ‘Purple Rain’ to ‘Grumpy Old Men’ to ‘Fargo’ on our state’s resume, aren’t you curious to see what’s next?

Most sincerely,

Stefanie Toftey

p.s. Speaking of the power of movies to evoke empathy to triumph over conflict, 20 years ago in a miraculous moment of harmony, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were in accord about the best film of 1996 and Minnesota should be proud!

cc:

Representative Phyllis Kahn (DFL) District: 60B

Senator Kari Dziedzic (DFL) District 60 (via email form)

U.S. House Representative Keith Ellison (DFL) District 5 (via Twitter)

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar (DFL) (via Twitter)

U.S. Senator Al Franken (DFL) (via Twitter)

[stoftey]

My Testimony on MN House Omnibus Jobs Growth & Energy Affordability Bill (if I make it to the hearing in time)

Monday, April 18th, 2016

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee:

My name is Stefanie Toftey and I am a cinematographer from Minneapolis. I am here representing myself to testify against provisions which eliminate FY2017 operating budgets for the MN Film and TV Board and the Upper Minnesota Film Office, or eliminate Snowbate funding and against repealing MN Statute 116U.26.

Film production jobs are 21st-Century jobs. It’s a hybrid industry with room for a wide variety of skillsets with an infinite number of paths to success. Folks coming from trades and academia are both at home on set. Film production is for anyone who shows up each day willing to learn as they go because it’s about project-driven work conducted by a team of hard-working individuals. If you’ve ever been on set, you know we work harder than anyone and have more endurance than anyone and we’re happy to do the work. We arrive early and have coffee and breakfast together, we break for lunch and eat together. We connect. We become family. Each film set becomes Minnesota’s best workplace every year but nobody seems to get the memo.  Our work keeps us healthy because it’s hands-on and we move throughout the day. Our work keeps us mentally healthy because each day on set brings new and exciting problems to solve. Our work product is for everyone and we work hard to create something that has lasting value.

Thirteen years ago, long before I allowed myself to pursue a career in filmmaking, I was just starting out as an urban planner with The City of Raleigh, North Carolina. We were in the early planning stages for light rail and transit-oriented development and we would often point to Atlanta as an example of what not to do when it came to urban sprawl and transportation planning. Atlanta grew before we did and we were able to learn from their mistakes and serve as responsible stewards of urban planning and policy. Now I’m just starting out as a freelance cinematographer and I find myself and my filmmaking peers looking to Atlanta as an example of what TO DO in terms of growing a film incentive program while we look to North Carolina as an example of how not to govern.

In a 2014 interview with the Wall Street Journal, North Carolina House Speaker Pro Tem Paul Stam made the following remarks: “I don’t blame the film people at all for wanting money. But why in the world should we be giving tax money to make movies?” He found the answer to his question the following year. The hard way.

North Carolina’s 2014 film industry was healthy: they had ‘The Hunger Games’ under their belt and film projects brought over $316 million into the state that year. They had $61 million in tax credits to offer per year and the industry was growing. That same year, lawmakers let the tax credits expire and Governor Pat McCrory signed into law a $10 million grant program in its place.

North Carolina’s loss was, and still is, Georgia’s gain. Governor Nathan Deal considers film to be an important and growing industry in Georgia worth $5.1 billion and in the summer of 2014, he convened an economic development summit to encourage state universities and agencies to better prepare workers for film jobs. Georgia has an uncapped tax credit with the support of its governor and General Assembly and in FY2015, $1.7 billion was spent by the film and television industry.

Before the close of 2015, just after they’d decimated their film incentive program, North Carolina lawmakers earmarked $60 million in grant money over two years for qualifying television and film productions. So, to answer North Carolina House Speaker Pro Tem Paul Stam’s question, states should fund film incentive programs because it is good business to do so.

Minnesota is the only upper Midwest state currently with an incentive program. For us, it’s not like Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina battling for stories set in the south. The North could be ours for the taking, as long as we make it worthwhile for productions not to run across the border into Canada. Canada offers both national and provincial incentives that can reimburse up to 50% of production costs. Everything begins and ends with the list of states offering film incentives and if Minnesota isn’t on that list with competitive and consistent film incentives, we’ll continue to lose Minnesota’s local crews to Atlanta and Los Angeles.

This past fall and winter, I was fortunate to work as associate producer on ‘Cold November’, an independent feature film shot up on northern Minnesota’s beautiful Iron Range. I learned first-hand that nearly all film production work is conducted face-to-face, fostering a sense of community. I learned a lot about deer hunting, I adopted blaze orange as a new favorite color, I learned how to properly pronounce “sauna”, I heard packs of wolves howling in distant woods for the first time and I fell in love with Minnesota all over again. Our state has breathtaking beauty that deserves to be captured on the highest quality of visual mediums to be shared with the world. This film couldn’t have been made anywhere else by anyone else and it could not have been made without the help of the MN Film and TV Board, the Upper Minnesota Film Office, or without our beloved Snowbate program.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, movies matter, moviemakers matter, and funding tax incentive programs to enable Minnesotans to make movies in Minnesota matters because you can’t afford to lose us.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I would be happy to answer any questions.

[stoftey]

Senate File 2101 -- Film, Television and Snowbate

Dear House and Senate Conference Committee Members:

Last night I had the great privilege to spend the evening as an audience member as film director Christopher Nolan shared insights into his experience as a filmmaker. He spoke about making movies on his father's 8mm film camera and learning what it is that a director does. He shared anecdotes tied to the chronology of his film career and to his creative process. Today, his is one of the most prominent voices in the world regarding the future of film and members of our local film community had his ear over the last couple of days. He knows about Snowbate and if we can grow this financial incentive, perhaps we can remain on his radar (in case you need some numbers, his film, "The Dark Knight" saw a domestic gross that has exceeded $530,000,000 and its foreign gross, more than $469,000,000). Yes, that's over a billion dollars total.

Films can be big business if their creators are provided the key inputs needed to create quality work.

I'm writing to you today to ask for your support in providing a favorable investment climate here in Minnesota for film and video production.

I'll soon graduate from film school here in Minneapolis and, although my original plan was to move to Los Angeles to foster my career, after living in the Twin Cities for three years, I see many reasons to stay.

We have a truly amazing community of film folks comprised of members who support one another and mine what few local resources we have for earning an income performing this work locally. It's a challenge and I don't know if there's room for a newcomer (me) to have a piece of that very small pie.

With financial incentives for production companies and studios to bring movie and television production to Minnesota, we may see what was at one point our film economy’s adolescence gain what is necessary for it to fully mature. With your continued support, a successful film production climate in Minnesota could see great longevity.

What a wonderful legacy this would be for you, your children, and your grandchildren. It will always be on the record that you played a key role in making Minnesota a destination for filmmaking, facilitating the documentation of our great state's many beautiful landscapes, cityscapes, and personalities on the finest recording mediums in the world: 35mm film, 65mm film, and the ever-growing resolution found in digital motion picture formats.

That's history folks can see now and forever and it could be history recorded in our very state. Images are powerful (just look at the popularity of Instagram, Vine, Tumblr, etc) and video is perhaps even more-so.

I want that for us and I urge you to, too.

Representative Pat Garofalo District 58B, and House Chair of the Conference Committee, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Representative Joe Hoppe (R) District: 47B, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Representative Jim Newberger (R) District: 15B, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Representative Bob Gunther (R) District: 23A, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Representative Kim Norton (DFL) District: 25B, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

Senator David J. Osmek (R) District 33, Minority Whip, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate. Senator Dan Sparks (DFL) District 27, please support Minnesota by supporting Snowbate.

I see that many of you are Republicans and I realize that, historically, the Republican party doesn't support Hollywood. For me, movies and television are our great common denominators, promoting the distribution of a wide variety of perspectives, histories, experiences, and moments. Please consider putting aside any political stereotypes you might have regarding the film and television industry and accept the value of film and television for its inherent worth TO US ALL. This can be an opportunity to work TOGETHER and we can set an example for the country.

Since I'm required to contact Senator David J. Tomassoni (DFL) District 06 (Senate Chair of the Conference Committee), Senator Vicki Jensen, and Senator Richard Cohen using the form provided on the Senate's web site, I will address these members using that route.

I trust that you will thoroughly discuss this matter at the committee level and if questions should arise regarding this program, please allow for due diligence and seek out those from the community who can provide you with the facts and figures you require.

I am grateful for the opportunity to submit my thoughts to you as you debate this issue and manage the allocation of funds.

Sincerely,

Stefanie Toftey, Film Student

p.s. I always vote