Springfield, MO Board of Director’s Meeting -March 20, 2008
Board Members in Attendance: Lorah Steiner, Joe Heyen, Beth Conway, Steve Olson, Dawn Erickson
Board Members absent: Sharon Tucci, Teri Rogers, Cheryl Dozier, Mary Anne McCollum
Others in attendance: Beth Mead & Megan McConachie – Columbia CVB, Jerry Jones – MO Film Office
MOMMA President Lorah Steiner called the meeting to order.
Minutes: The board reviewed Minutes from the last meeting. Motion to approve made by Steve, seconded by Joe. Motion carried, minutes approved.
Lorah mentioned that attendance of some of the board members have not been regular attendees. She is going to contact them to make sure they are still interested in being members.
Financials: Beth Mead mentioned the current balance of our account is $1306.23
MOMMA received $500 in dues, ordered checks, and established a PO box: #598, Columbia, MO 65205. Paid year rental. Will be up for renewal a year from January. Motion to approve financials was made by Joe Heyen, seconded by Steve Olson. Motion carried, financials approved.
Area Updates:
Springfield, MO – Steve Olson: Film Festival, 500 attendance. Matched attendance of first year. Committee planning next year, may move to April or May. Trying to enhance the indie products and 5-year plan includes enticing local celebrities to attend.
He also mentioned Denvermedia.org. “Nice model of what to do for the future.†Film festival cycle coming up for MAC grants. Lorah would like to ad grant info to the MOMMA website.
Branson, MO – Dawn: “Americas Got Talent†doing auditions in Branson again. Hoping to find out more info. No date as of now. Imax Film Fest going on. Talking about starting a film competition for students in Branson.
Kansas City -Joe: Currently making his film on the Cowtown Ballroom. Not sure what else is going on in KC because he’s been so busy. He deferred to Jerry.
Lorah asked if someone in KC starting a new film association. No one knew.
St Joseph – Beth: Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula in post production. Releasing in 2008. Local film group FAME has a lot of smaller projects going on. Griff Film Festival in May.
Columbia -Lorah: True False just wrapped. Film Fest at Stephens College changing dates. John Ott, a local developer, is looking at warehouse space in Columbia: interested in filmmakers coop, share space and equip. Joe said would be the same deal as IFC in KC.
MO Film Office -Jerry: “More Than Puppy Love 2†in KC in May. Tom Whitus filmmaker. Lost “Peacock†to Iowa.
Jerry updated the group on the MO Film Tax: Incentives reduced to 30% from 50%. When you measure against other states, we actually stepped back. 42% have no cap on production or total budget. He mentioned Michigan’s new incentive package and how the director is overwhelmed with scripts. Jerry, that’s what were up against. We don’t offer anything to “out of state†crew. Crew and equip houses on Kansas side do not count.
Film Office contract with the State expires June 30 this year. Reached point where the Governors office directed them to extend it one year, with tourism to fund. Housebill 3, higher education bill, includes $250,000 for film office. Not huge jump-up. Bob Smith believes that it’s supplemental. Ed said it replaces the original budget of $150,000.
Lorah said the goal is to get the Film Office into the University budget as line item and then continue to be part of the University.
Jerry has passed out a few tax credits for lower budget projects. Lots of scripts in right now. Locations Trade show in Santa Monica in 3 weeks.
Momma Activities:
Lorah: Wants very much to make sure that once MOMMA got off the ground it had good structure. Website is up and running: adequate right now, but will need updating. Bank account in place, check and balance for membership, invoices and receipts is set up. Membership drives still going on, and they are rescheduling the cancelled one in STL.
Website: Website review: we looked over all of the different sections of the website.
Lorah mentioned blogging software…Steve recommended rss feed off of website. News site on momma website not working. Current website brand is frustrating due to glitches. Lorah is going to work on converting over to something. MOMMA owns the website address, so we have control of name. We need to find someway to get it converted to the webmaster of the Columbia CVB. She said we will be moving to a universal username and password for easy access. Job bank and research sections are “members only†as an added benefit to members. Steve will contact the webmaster of our current site to see about implementing the rss feed.
Lorah: We need feedback on how to find local jobs. Joe suggested offering someone a free membership to call all the grip houses occasionally…one in KC and one in STL to keep MOMMA informed.
Lorah asked Joe for assistance in finding websites for film related job searches. Joe will come up of list of 20-30 ppl to call in KC that will help us create a job bank.
Lorah needs some help generating content on the website from the various regions. She would like to have reporters from each area keeping us updated.
Most important stuff to have on site is the links for other state organizations. We’d like to add PayPal, rss feed, and a consignment shop. Steve set up a Google calendar to track film events and embedded to his site. Lorah would like to set up a link to his calendar. www.Missourifilm.info : Blog that Steve maintains, for reference.
Lorah would like to link to MO Film’s prod guide, but also help update their online guide. She has $500 stipend for a summer intern. Good project to start making phone calls to get prod guide updated.
www.Mofilmresource.com – A good resource online. We should get in touch with him. Steve will meet with him soon to see what his motives are and if he’d like to partner.
Membership Report: Lorah gave everyone a membership brochure. It is available online too. “If you aren’t a member please go online and fill out paperwork.†We have 25 members, almost 30. She believes 40 is critical mass. Everyone has been great about filing out committee preferences.
Legislative Review: Mary Anne not in attendance.
Lorah: if we were to do a legislative day, when would be the best day? Jerry: Has to be a Tue or Wed to catch legislators. We need to have lobbyist talking to them about the film industry because we’ve had no voice yet. She believes we should pick a day this year, go in a positive way to say thank you. Legislature doesn’t think ppl work in the industry and we need to remind them.
Sam Allen got us a $2000 sponsorship for MO Meet UP in Santa Monica. Sam is a huge supporter of film because of a shoot they had in Lebanon.
She thinks we need to determine how many people want to keep living in MO but can’t live here b/c there is no where to work. Goal is to send MOMMA members envelopes preprinted with legislatures name on it, so they can mail a support letter and thank them for their past support. Legislators need to hear that there is a specific bill that will “impact me directly†and thank them for their support of the tax credit and their support of funding of the MO Film Office.
Letter Suggestion: I support this bill: thanks for the support you’ve provided and for future support, my livelihood depends on film in Missouri. HB3 is a long bill with a little snippet buried about funding the office. Urge them to support the film office in the future.
Jerry will get in touch with Ed Robb and find out the course of the bill. He will then notify us the best dates for a Legislative day.
Annual Conference: Lorah brought up two things: Should we go ahead with annual conf in Nov? We have 30 now, but we’d like to have 100 members…but if we don’t do conf, are we risking membership? Was suggested we tie conf to MO Film Summit; make it seamless, and we’d draw people that might become momma members. Jerry brought up how we talked about Nov date in STL. Lorah thinks we really need to do conf, and she knows the Columbia office will do a lot of the work. Joe and Steve say they’d like to tie it to True/False. 15-17,000 already attending. Have a Thurs/Fri conf and ppl stay over the weekend for the fest. Jerry said we’re more likely to get working crew to attend because they are less likely to be working that time of the year.
Lorah will send out RFP for hotels. Joe seconded. Motion carried.
Lorah: Must include education sessions for summit? Jerry suggested panels on grants and other funding sources, new equipment, CVB’s represented talking about gorilla filmmaking, music rights & legal basics, casting workshop, working with extras & legalities, CVB staff sessions.
Beth suggested sponsoring a panel discussion at T/F Film Fest. Lorah: would like a Wed or Thurs night pre-screening sponsored by Momma. Steve thought: If you come to our screening, get a ticket to one of the T/F VIP receptions.
MOMMA Committees: Lorah said we’ve already populated the communications committee. Hoping to have each committee do an action plan and come up with their areas of interest. Under Communications: she’d like to set up plan for when there is a film in any city: We’d notify council, legislature, media, etc. – Stakeholders, Chamber, CVB, local gov, and econ dev. Get them to understand the impact of film in their area.
Merek doing study on behalf of MO Film. Capturing data is also an educational opportunity. Filmmakers need to help us understand what they are doing in the community; we can translate into a number and get that out to the community.
Lorah: that would be a good project for the research committee. Quarterly or annual production report they can fill out online. Several questions they can fill out to help us translate the data… We need to quantify production. Joe liked idea of quarterly report to legislative groups. Work with local folks (cvb) to help generate interest in the community. Steve: Stakeholders need to know lobbying effort of Momma, and there is the benefit of membership…networking aspect thru Momma that filmmakers are interested in…premieres, social networking, etc. by Creating a calendar of state wide events that members can take advantage of. Communications Committee needs to help find good ways to gather information for these calendars. External and Internal communications comprised of…external lobbying, media, general community effort, internal goes to membership. Get film theatres to support us by giving us a psa segment to promote filmmaking and MOMMA.
Legislative Committee: Start working on Legislative day for next session. Steve: Create a sub committee to do legislative day in Feb of 2009, on Wed day before the Film Summit (thurs) that week. Jerry, timing pretty good for that timeframe – Wed Feb 27th.
Next year is essential as we’ll have a new administration. Legislative Committee should spend some time identifying who is not going to change- identify out-goers. Won’t know the players until after Nov.
Lorah: Advised all Committees to reach two ppl in your communities who would be strong members and committee workers.
Program of Work: Lorah said a list serve/email list – was a huge issue when we first started doing a needs assessment….have to subscribe to it and there is a cost for setting up each of those moduals. Start that sometime in July. Stlouisfilmwire.com is the most active listserve right now. Steve will research the Momma Listserve opportunities. Lorah would like to determine categories to alleviate the overabundance of emails. Let them determine their choice of categories, so they can limit what they receive.
Next meeting date and location: June 1, 2, 3 @ MACVB – tentative meeting. Beth M. will get the schedule and see when we can meet.
Motion to adjourn, moved by Joe, seconded by Steve.
Meeting adjourned
Minutes submitted by Beth Conway, May 30th, 2008.