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ON SET: INVESTING IN FILM WORKERS
ONSET
BY JENNY CALLISON
UNCW film students work at the university’s new soundstage. The school this year added graduate programs in film to train more students for the industry.
EAST HOLLYWOOD’S CONTINUED GROWTH COULD DEPEND ON TRAINING MORE FILM INDUSTRY WORKERS
TWO MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENTS AFFECTING THE AREA’S FILM INDUSTRY CAME WITHIN DAYS OF EACH OTHER IN EARLY NOVEMBER.
The Wilmington City Council approved a grant of $400,000 in American Rescue
Plan funds to finance a five-week workforce training program for up to 90 people who would like to learn a
PHOTO C/O UNCW
trade in the film industry.
And Hollywood Reporter announced that an independent fantasy adventure film starring Mel Gibson will begin production this month in Wilmington. The movie, Boys of Summer, will cap off what Wilmington Regional Film Commission Director Johnny Griffin calls “the biggest year in our history,” with an estimated spend by projects in the Wilmington area alone of about $350 million.
The two developments are closely related. With a
high level of demand for new feature films, television shows and streamed content, and the soundstages and offices on the EUE/Screen Gems Wilmington lot are booked solid: just ask Executive Vice President Bill Vassar.
Wilmington-based film crews are stretched thin – there have been as many as 1,200-1,300 people working on local films daily recently, Griffin said.
Add to that the studios’ calls for a more diverse film workforce, and you have a clear need for a steady, well-trained pipeline of behind-
the-scenes talent that looks more like the ”audiences the studios’ productions hope to capture. The rise of streamed content, with its hurry-up approach, has added impetus to expand the available talent.
Top officials in many studios have committed themselves to finding and hiring a more diverse workforce, according to Susi Hamilton, interim board chair for the newly formed Film Partnership of North Carolina, whose primary aim is to help people of many backgrounds, especially women and minorities, train for jobs in the industry.
“Most film-related jobs are behind the scenes,” she said. “Traditionally – like any other trade, because most jobs are tradeoriented – those skills are handed down from generation to generation. So, the trade is a group that looks like each other. It’s time now to pull all interested parties to the table and give (lots of people) the opportunity to train for a rewarding career. The more hands-on the experience you offer, the better.”
Members of local 491 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) will be front and center of this initiative.
“We’re excited about it,” said Darla McGlamery, business agent for Local 491, which represents many craft film workers. “Netflix, Warner Brothers, Universal – they’re talking to us specifically about ‘let’s do better; let’s look more like the communities we work with.’ We’ve spent a lot of time at the bargaining table talking about this, and Wilmington is a great place to do it. Now there are financial opportunities.”
Since Wilmington’s program will pay participants $15 per hour to train, with the possibility of overtime pay if needed, the local film industry could attract people
who could not otherwise afford to take time off to learn a new trade. Enrollees will be matched with seasoned professionals who will teach and mentor them, according to McGlamery. IATSE will manage the training. “Our intent is to have passionate teachers who have been doing their crafts for 25-to-30-plus years. Maybe they are not polished professors, but they are consummate professionals,” she said, adding that the program does not require a college degree, but rather is looking to include people coming WE’RE EXCITED from a variety of backgrounds. “If there are people out there
ABOUT IT. NETFLIX, who are just a tad bit creative, who
WARNER BROTHERS, have serious critical thinking skills, film and TV production is certainly
UNIVERSAL – THEY’RE a viable career option that they TALKING TO US might not have had in the past,” she said. “If we don’t reach out, (the
SPECIFICALLY ABOUT film trades) stay homogeneous.”
‘LET’S DO BETTER; LET’S It’s not just film industry specialists, like grips and gaffers,
LOOK MORE LIKE THE that are needed as the work piles COMMUNITIES WE WORK up in this region. Shortages extend to skills as diverse as accounting
WITH.’ WE’VE SPENT and welding, McGlamery said.
A LOT OF TIME AT THE “We’ve lost a lot of accountants,” she said. “If you like
BARGAINING TABLE working with numbers and can sit TALKING ABOUT THIS, AND WILMINGTON IS A GREAT still, that’s a craft that’s in need. The entertainment industry is an odd bird; the hours are different;
PLACE TO DO IT. NOW it’s not like working in a bank. Or
THERE ARE FINANCIAL you may have had welding in high school, and you’re able to fabricate.
OPPORTUNITIES. DARLA MCGLAMERY business agent ” Those skill sets are invaluable. If you are willing to learn, you should be able to come into this industry.” Trainees will also hear from IATSE Local 491 local vendors, learning what small- and medium-sized businesses in the area provide for film projects. Some of the more specialized vendors – suppliers of cameras, lenses, props, sound grip and lighting, for example – have moved to larger hubs of film production such as Atlanta. “It’s not uncommon to reach out to a (supplier) who is traveling to pick up stuff,” McGlamery said. Brad Walker agrees that Wilmington now lacks as many outlets for rental of film-production equipment. Walker, coowner of independent production studio Lighthouse Films, said his company was tempted to try and fill that void. “We were really hustling to rent gear, but then asked ourselves: Who are we? We’re content creators,” he said. “So, equipment rental is only secondary. We continue to do it, but not at the expense of our people and our business.” His wife and fellow Lighthouse Productions owner
PHOTO BY MICHAEL CLINE SPENCER
LOCAL FILM OFFICIALS: Susi Hamilton (from left), Bill Vassar and Johnny Griffin work to help current productions and work on ways to attract new ones.
Andrea Walker said the company’s business model is a balancing act, since they want to support their colleagues in a tight-knit and mutually supportive film community but must also provide for their own needs.
“Our rule of thumb is that if our team is not using the equipment, we are happy to rent it to fellow filmmakers,” she said.
Another way Lighthouse supports the film community is with passthroughs, in which the company acts as a local broker for out-of-state vendors of equipment and supplies.
If the Wilmington region needs to build a sustainable, diverse supply of film workers and find predictable sources of specialized equipment, is there also a shortage of filmmaking facilities? Andrea Walker thinks so.
“With the extensive filming going on in our area, we are in need of another studio,” she said. “This additional infrastructure will attract filmmakers to our area. This will also encourage up-and-coming filmmakers to remain in Wilmington instead of seeking opportunities in Atlanta, New York or Los Angeles.”
“More facilities would be great, and there is demand right now, but building another soundstage, for instance, is a risk,” Vassar said. He acknowledged that EUE/Screen Gems’ property could accommodate more facilities but added that his studio has not lost a production that has gone elsewhere because he couldn’t find space for them.
Local film officials also don’t plan to advocate for changes to the state’s grant-based film incentive. It’s attracting projects.
Boys of Summer represents the kind of small feature film that works very well with the current incentive, and there are still plenty of similar projects that prefer Wilmington to, say, Atlanta, Griffin said.
“We want to leave it alone and work it for a while,” he said. “The fact that the (funding) sunset provision has been removed, and that there’s stable funding for the incentive program, and that HB2 (the ‘Bathroom Bill’) has gone away, is all good. When we had HB2, Disney and Netflix wouldn’t come here. Now we’ve got a Disney series and several Netflix projects. They represent a total of about $200 million from companies that wouldn’t do business with us when we had the Bathroom Bill.”
IIT’S BEEN A THREE-YEAR JOURNEY, BUT WILMINGTON BREWING CO.’S NEW EVENT SPACE AT 800 S. KERR AVE. RECENTLY OPENED FOR BUSINESS.
Owners John and Michelle Savard held a soft opening in mid-November in the roughly 5,000-square-foot space that opens on one side to a deck running the length of the building. Seating on this porch overlooks a wooded area with a stream.
The 3-acre lot is adjacent to the brewery and taproom’s existing location at 842 S. Kerr Ave.
The Venue’s sleek interior contains a bar stocked with 15 of the company’s brews and a small shop with company-branded merchandise.
Patrons can sit at tables or in a corner conversation area furnished with sofas and chairs. Shuffle bowling and foosball games are available.
The Venue, as it’s called, can accommodate more than 200 people, according to Michelle Savard. The new parking lot has 56 spaces.
There are plans for food trucks to stop at The Venue each week from Wednesday through Sunday.
Dogwood Architecture designed the space, and Christopher Building Co. was the general contractor. The Coastal Manifest worked on all The Venue’s interior design.
While The Venue is designed for special events, it will serve an additional purpose for the next year or so, Michelle Savard said.
Michelle Savard said she wasn’t sure exactly how long those renovations would take, but it could be “hopefully give or take one year, so we will operate Venue as taproom until renovations are complete.”
The planned renovation at Wilmington Brewing Co.’s space will include adding fermentation space, allowing the brewery to can and keg more beer.
“The canning operation has really grown and is going great,” Michelle Savard said.
The Savards launched their operations in 2012. It opened originally in the space at 4405A Wrightsville Ave. that’s now occupied by Hey! Beer Bottle Shop before moving to its current location.
During Wilmington’s early days of the brewery boom – before there were multiple sprawling taprooms and a buffet of locally canned options – the couple started out catering to homebrewing aficionados.
At the Wrightsville Avenue shop – less than a mile from their growing campus now – the Wilmington natives stocked the ingredients, equipment and kits to cater to homebrewers, from novices to those with experience.
Before they moved back to Wilmington, the couple both lived in Beer City USA while attending the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Home at the time to alreadyestablished Highland Brewing Co. and Catawba Valley Brewing Co., Asheville’s brewing scene was quickly exploding. A few years later the activity would draw the attention of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., which announced in 2012 that it planned to build its East Coast brewing, bottling and distribution at a $100 million-plus facility outside Asheville.
While in Asheville, the couple started homebrewing. John Savard worked at a packaging brewery and then later at a homebrew supply store.
That knowledge and community building were things they brought here when they opened Wilmington Homebrew Supply.
In the summer of 2014, the couple moved the supplies store to their larger, current digs on Kerr Avenue. The 11,000-square-foot building housed not only the retail shop but marked their move into being able to brew, serve and sell their own beer as well.
The taproom became a spot for newcomers, regulars and families at the outdoor beer garden space.
As the Savards continue to spread out physically with The Venue and expand their brewing activity through the upcoming renovation, one aspect of their early days in business nearly a decade ago won’t be moving forward with them.
“After 10 great years, we will no longer be selling homebrewing supplies,” Michelle Savard said. “We will utilize the shop space as well as our old taproom to renovate and create one larger taproom for our brewery at 824 S. Kerr Ave.
“We are forever grateful to our start as a homebrew supply store, but we are pivoting our business model,” she added, “and we know we need a bigger taproom to create a fun community environment just as The Venue is doing now.” -Editor Vicky Janowski contributed to this story.
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