Local film maker Don C. Mays is pretty stressed out these days. He’s about two-thirds of the way through making a feature film about gang violence, AIDS and prejudice that he wants to premiere in June at the Newport International Film Festival. Problem is, he’s shy some post-production money needed to complete the nearly $200,000 project.
As Rhode Island’s first African-American to write, direct and produce a film on location in Providence, Mays is a stand out. But among independent filmmakers who max out credit cards and borrow from family and friends to pay for their projects he is hardly alone.
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It’s for people like Mays and the greater state economy that some legislators and officials are pushing a bill that would give a 25-percent tax credit to taxpayers who invest in films. The credit would apply to movies shot primarily in Rhode Island at a cost of $5 million or less.
”The philosophy behind the legislation is very simple,” said Paul Campbell, head of the Providence Film Commission. “We occasionally get large studio films in here but they come on a sporadic basis. We’re specifically targeting the independent film community to produce a larger volume of independent films that in turn would employ local crew and talent.
”Right now that kind of employment can be feast or famine,” he said.
The legislation, reintroduced in the General Assembly by Rep. Steven Constantino, a Providence Democrat, got nowhere during the last legislative session. Currently, it is in the House Finance Committee and awaiting a hearing.
”I think it probably has a better chance this time,” Constantino said. “I think the idea was so novel last year plus there were some really major moves in reducing taxes in other areas, like the auto and inventory taxes being phased out. That was the major focus of the assembly (last year), as it should have been.”
Campbell, too, is hopeful the bill will make it to a vote this year.
”Last year it was introduced late in the session. So this year we feel it has a better chance.”
What’s more, “the tempo is there and a degree of success (in film making) is already there,” Campbell said.
Robert Hofmann, director of a multi-media business incubator called Media City Providence, said the legislation could spark the kind of investment that creates jobs and otherwise fuels the economy.
When the Hollywood studios come to Rhode Island to shoot “they pump some money into the economy but they bring their own people,” Hofmann said. “Independent films use much more local talent and local vendors.”
Mays, who grew up in the Midwest and moved to Newport in 1984, said Rhode Island already has a lot going for it as a film destination.
”The Providence Film Commission opened all kinds of doors in terms of permits,” Mays said. At one point, the city even postponed the demolition of the defunct Gorham silver factory in Providence’s Elmwood section to accommodate shooting, he said.
In New York City, where part of “Same Difference” were filmed, “we had many set backs and everything cost us,” Mays said.
Still Mays has his doubts about finding many private investors who will risk their money on an unknown talent like himself.
”Everybody wants a piece of success but no one wants a piece of potential,” he said.
