Film production set team builds and donates intubators under supplied hospitals

Brooklyn Paper

A team of film and television set builders are using their carpentry skills to build life-saving equipment for struggling hospitals. 

Greenpoint set builder Bret Lehne learned about the need for intubation boxes — plexiglass containers that keep doctors safe during the most dangerous moments of operation — when a doctor friend contacted him a week into the pandemic asking if he knew anyone who could make them. After reviewing the schematics, Lehne came to a realization.

“This, both in material and in complexity, is an average blueprint that I might get in a workday,” he said to himself. “I know an entire industry that can build these.”

With set workshops empty due to social distancing guidelines, Lehne first had to search for a space that would allow him and a team of volunteers to work there for free, eventually landing on the training workshop of the IATSE Local 52 Studio Mechanics Union in Queens.

Listen you screwheads, Robert de Niro and son building huge film studio in Astoria

The Real Deal

 Actor Robert De Niro, alongside his Douglas Elliman broker son Raphael De Niro, development firm Wildflower, and film producer Jane Rosenthal, are in-contract to buy a large development site in Astoria, Queens, for $73 million.

The development team plans to build a 500,000-square-foot film studio, 5.25-acre site located at 87 19th Avenue, according to Commercial Observer. Piano manufacturer Steinway is selling the site. 

The deal is expected to close by the end of 2019.

Newmark Knight Frank’s Dustin Stolly and Jordan Roeschlaub have been tapped to raise $425 million for the project — $150 million in equity and $275 million in debt. The film studio will likely help meet growing demand for original content from streaming services offered by the likes of Amazon, Netflix, HBO and Netflix.

Robert de Niro's waiting...to milk his cash cow.

Back-to-back-to-back film shoots taking over public streets

"Do Queens residents ever get to park on the street? Not in Long Island City. (Taken on 21st Street and 44th Drive.)" - anonymous

State would make more money off filming if it ended subsidies

From the Village Voice:

When the D.C.-based subsidy watch group Good Jobs First released its analysis recently of the $1.2 billion that New York State hands out in tax breaks to private industries each year, one item stood out: $621 million in subsidies for film and TV shoots that take place in the state. That means every man, woman, and child in New York shells out an average of $31 a year in public money into the coffers of studios and production companies.

...though both the city and state film offices provide data showing that the film industry has grown here since Governor George Pataki instituted the state’s tax credit program in 2004, economic experts aren’t so sure, pointing to other numbers that show that film and TV shoots don’t employ many more people in the state than they did fifteen years ago — and that any gain is nowhere near worth the hundreds of millions of dollars a year that the state pours into it.

And even if a positive impact does exist, New York’s film industry spending may just be a way of treading water: a zero-sum game where states compete to throw increasing amounts of tax money at the same number of jobs. It’s a problem that corporate-subsidy experts in other industries have dubbed “the economic war among the states” — and it serves mostly to funnel money out of public treasuries and into private pockets.

How could one set of numbers show that film tax credits have led to a huge boom in production jobs, while others show little to no effect? One issue is that the state’s audits separately report each job stint, no matter how short, rather than converting to “full-time equivalent” jobs — a tiny footnote in the Camoin study indicates that “if one person is employed part-time for four months, then takes two months off and is hired again for four months that would be counted as two jobs.” As a result, the official state numbers double- or triple-count crew members who work on multiple productions in one year.

Thom says that a study by the California legislature estimated that one-third of production activity in that state would take place in that state with or without subsidies. If the same ratio holds true in New York, then even if the state cut off the subsidy spigot and two-thirds of productions hightailed it to more budget-friendly climes, the state would still collect more than $250 million a year in tax revenues on an expense of zero dollars. With the current program running about a $100 million annual return by the state’s own figures, this implies that New York state would bring in about $150 million a year more in net revenues if it cut off film credits entirely — money it could conceivably then spend on more effective job-creation programs.

Ciafone throws BdB under the bus

From the Daily News:

Directly hit up for big-dollar donations by Mayor de Blasio and his associates, the owner of a movie and TV production services company complied for fear that her business would be crippled if she failed to raise money for the mayor’s causes, her husband told the Daily News.

“There was never a threat or anything, but if your boss says you gotta do it, you gotta play ball,” lawyer John Ciafone said of his wife Gina Argento, the power behind Broadway Stages in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

“He’s asked her (for money) and then his minions asked her and Broadway Stages.”

The requests paid off — Argento raised $167,000 for the mayor and his causes, including writing four checks totaling $70,000 from herself and her companies.

“Here’s their concern, which is why they have to play the game of giving,” he said of Broadway Stages. “In the film industry, you have to take over parking on the block for the filming. At different times it was difficult to film because the mayor’s office would arbitrarily issue hot spots.”

He described the “hot spots” as areas “where you can’t film in that area.”

“They get complaints, they say ‘We’ve been oversaturated with complaints. We want a freeze.’ That was done in Long Island City, parts of Brooklyn, Greenpoint. Specifically Broadway Stages, they were given hot spots right outside of where they’re located. They had hot spots right outside their building. No explanation. It’s their discretion. It is what it is,” he said.

Ciafone said if the mayor’s office denied a permit, there was no recourse.

“There’s not much you can do about it. It’s up to the discretion of the mayor's office of film where they’re going to instill those hot spots,” he said. “For TV or movie productions, it can be devastating. Suppose you’re filming and you want the flavor of a brownstone neighborhood or you want the flavor of New York City skyscrapers?”

And then there's the stop work order that de Blasio allegedly had lifted for another of his donor pals.

Let's thank film studios for gentrifying Astoria & LIC

From Crains:

"Studio pioneers, like Silvercup and Kaufman Astoria, clearly provided the impetus to make this area the hub of New York productions," said Matt Dienstag, co-owner of LeNoble. "It's the New York production version of Field of Dreams: They built it and we came."

Today, spurred by a boom in film and TV production, Kaufman Astoria and Silvercup studios have upped their investments in once-forlorn areas of western Queens that have helped attract small businesses, restaurants and arts groups making the neighborhoods more attractive residential destinations. Their influence, combined with the city's rezoning efforts, are causing the communities to be transformed by an influx of young couples and families.

"This neighborhood used to be full of vandalized buildings," said Hal Rosenbluth, president of Kaufman Astoria. "Our goal wasn't just to build a movie studio. It was to revitalize a neighborhood using the studio as a base."

In early February the first Queens branch of the popular Australian café Toby's Estate Coffee opened on Jackson Avenue, a few blocks from Silvercup. And Eleni Goros opened a café called Sweet Scene near Kaufman Astoria in August.

"The studio being here is obviously a huge plus," she said. "There has been a much younger crowd moving into the neighborhood and young families as well."

Those families have been attracted to the area by a seismic change in the residential market that also has benefited the studios. Over the past decade rising real estate prices in Manhattan and Brooklyn have funneled renters, buyers and developers to Long Island City, part of which was rezoned in 2001 to allow for massive apartment towers that could be built more cheaply there than elsewhere.

And built they were. Since 2007 around 11,000 units have been constructed, and 24,000 more are on the way. Astoria's relative cheapness and proximity to Midtown also has made it attractive to residents priced out of other neighborhoods.

Because of all the activity, real estate prices are skyrocketing. The average price per square foot of residential space in the part of Astoria around Kaufman has jumped roughly 35% to $1,050 in the past two years, according to Eric Benaim, chief executive of Modern Spaces, a real estate brokerage and marketer specializing in Long Island City and Astoria. In the Court Square area near Silvercup, the average rent has increased to around $1,300 per square foot from about $1,000 two years ago.

De Blasio redeveloping Bush Terminal

From DNA Info:

The city will spend $136 million to renovate two rundown buildings at Bush Terminal, creating a campus where textiles will be created, movie and television shows filmed and food manufactured.

The plan, which Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed as part of his 2017 State of the City speech Monday, is expected to create a 100,000 square foot film and television production studio and 200,000 square foot garment production space that will support 1,800 permanent and good-paying jobs.

The project, called the Made in NY campus, is part of de Blasio's pledge to create 40,000 jobs that pay $50,000 and up over the next four years, and to eventually create 100,000 such jobs over the next decade to help New Yorkers struggling to afford one of the most expensive housing markets in the country.

The mayor, who is running for re-election this year, has pegged the plan as the natural extension of his affordable housing plan.

"Folks got used to struggling just to get by. We want something better for people," said de Blasio.

Details on where the 40,000 jobs will come from are still sketchy.

And who will run this? And creating jobs is great, so long as you aren't importing the employees from elsehwere. Then it defeats the purpose.

Time to scrap the filming industry's tax credits?

From NY1:

The tax credt program was created so New York could compete with places like Canada and Louisiana, which were luring productions with tax incentives.

New York's credit amounts to 30 percent of most production costs, excluding actor, director and producer salaries.

The program has exploded from $25 million in credits a dozen years ago, to $420 million a year today.

Economist E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for Public Policy believes the program should be scrapped. "This is a scam,” he says.

He argues that many productions getting credits would shoot in New York without them.

Shows like Saturday Night Live, which began in New York City 41 years ago. It is hard to envision the show being produced anywhere else. Yet it got a $12 million state tax credit for its 2013-14 season, the most recent records show.

“All of the claims about economic impacts and job creation are based on the premise that we would have nothing at all without the credit, which is simply ridiculous,” says McMahon.

Even a commission formed by Governor Cuomo in 2013 suggested scaling back the program, saying it didn't appear to pay for itself, a finding state officials dispute.

Critics like McMahon say the industry's glamour and its growing political clout help to protect the credit program.

NY1 found that giant entertainment companies like Fox and CBS have donated more than $900,000 to state political campaigns and committees in seven years. Officials argue if the tax credit goes, the studios will follow.

MOFTB refers to DHS homeless shelter as "rundown hotel"

This came from the COMET civic association website. 73-00 Queens Blvd happens to be a city contracted homeless shelter run by the same owner as the Pan Am. It's nice to see him making even more money off his property than he is from warehousing the unfortunate.

And happy to see that the city is at least admitting now that these places they utilize to house homeless families in are dumps. Progress!

Jamaica Bay movie about to premiere

From PIX11:

For the past five years it has been "lights, camera, action" on Jamaica Bay.

A new documentary called "Saving Jamaica Bay" will premier at the Queens World Film Festival on March 17, 2016.

Dan Hendrick is the film's producer and writer. He worked as a reporter in the area and became interested in the bay. He hopes more people will visit the area.

Neighbors have been concerned about the disappearing marshes and threats to the ecosystem.

For details about the film visit www.savingjamaicabay.com.

Check out the festival schedule at www.queensworldfilmfestival.com.

Forget what you heard about the economic benefits of the film industry and recycling

From the Wall Street Journal:

Proponents argue that film tax credits create well-paying jobs for local residents. Some even suggest that the incentives pay for themselves by boosting the economy and increasing government revenues. The Motion Picture Association of America claims: “Pure and simple: film and tax incentives create jobs, expand revenue pools and stimulate local economies.”

But real life is no Hollywood dream. Nearly every independent study has found that these arguments are more fiction than fact. The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities put it best in a 2010 report: “State film subsidies are a wasteful, ineffective, and unfair instrument of economic development.”

From the NY Times:

In New York City, the net cost of recycling a ton of trash is now $300 more than it would cost to bury the trash instead. That adds up to millions of extra dollars per year — about half the budget of the parks department — that New Yorkers are spending for the privilege of recycling. That money could buy far more valuable benefits, including more significant reductions in greenhouse emissions.

It would take legions of garbage police to enforce a zero-waste society, but true believers insist that’s the future. When Mayor de Blasio promised to eliminate garbage in New York, he said it was “ludicrous” and “outdated” to keep sending garbage to landfills. Recycling, he declared, was the only way for New York to become “a truly sustainable city.”

But cities have been burying garbage for thousands of years, and it’s still the easiest and cheapest solution for trash. The recycling movement is floundering, and its survival depends on continual subsidies, sermons and policing. How can you build a sustainable city with a strategy that can’t even sustain itself?

Woodside film shoot starts too early

"I took these pics about 4:00 yesterday (Tues) on 48th ave and 43rd street in Woodside where they are doing a TV shoot today. As the notice clearly states, there is no parking as of 10:00 PM Tuesday night, yet as you can see, they were already blocking off spaces at least SIX hours (probably even earlier) before the stated deadline! They are really taking advantage!

Thanks." - Anonymous

PS: I just noticed they are parking their trucks and trailers in front of the fire hydrants again.

TV explosion damages Glendale homes

From CBS New York:

Residents of Glendale, Queens were complaining Wednesday night that a planned explosion for a TV drama show damaged their homes.

As CBS2’s Tracee Carrasco reported, the neighborhood around Doran Avenue is usually quiet. But residents said on Tuesday afternoon, it was anything but.

Dozens of Doran Avenue residents said they had their homes rocked by a controlled, planned car explosion during the filming of the NBC drama “The Black List.” A massive orange fireball shot into the sky, following a cloud of thick, black smoke.

And now, some say the explosion damaged their homes.

Film industry unhappy with being asked to disclose info

From AMNY:

Moviemakers and the de Blasio administration gave thumbs down Wednesday to a City Council bill meant to let the public know more about the productions that take over their neighborhoods.

The legislation, sponsored by Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn), would require the city to post monthly reports of information such as where a film shoot occurred, how long the filming lasted, whether the public lost on-street parking and, if so, how much.

Under the current system, there is no central place for the public to find such information, meaning critics must rely on anecdotes when complaining their neighborhoods are overburdened by productions.

A more controversial provision of the legislation seeks more from the industry such as how many people the industry employs, their salaries, and other demographic information about workers like age, race, sex and borough of residence.

"It's very small-minded. No offense. But it's really about local people's parking concerns," Stuart Match Suna, president of Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, said in testimony at the end of the nearly three-hour-long hearing.

Officials from the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment said the disclosure requirements were particularly onerous by requiring producers to disclosure information they consider proprietary, like their costs of doing business. Such red tape, the officials said, could encourage makers of television shows, movies and commercials to go elsewhere.

Supporters of the bill want a tool to show when neighborhoods are chosen for film shoots, reflecting a common complaint that some locations favored by filmmakers face far more frequent such disruption than others. Advocates also say the data disclosure would help show how beneficial the industry is or isn't to the city.

They would be SO offended at having to provide this info that they would give up their million dollar tax breaks and instead film in Toronto? Really?

Support the Cinemart Cinema

I would greatly appreciate your help on a time-sensitive matter. A major film will be screened at the Cinemart & we need NUMEROUS patrons to attend the preview screenings, as well as the daily screenings to help save the Cinemart. Can you please consider attending, advertising this extensively over email & Facebook, and inviting large groups that you may know?

Cinemart Cinemas at 106-03 Metropolitan Ave in Forest Hills has a second chance for survival, since Warner Bros. Pictures has at last licensed a first-run film, “American Sniper,” which is also one of the year’s most acclaimed films, produced and directed by Clint Eastwood.

- Previews will be screened on January 15 at 7 PM, 8 PM, and 9 PM, and include free popcorn and a drink with refills.

- Beginning on January 16, there will be 8 to 9 daily screenings through the Oscars (February 22) and likely beyond.

The Cinemart is being tested! If the film does not draw a large enough audience, owner Nicolas Nicolaou may have no choice but to close his 5-screen theater, which dates to 1927, since Hollywood studios will likely issue no other first-run films.

The Cinemart's year-round lower price policy consists of a $6.00 admission for weekday matinees (12 PM to 5 PM) with an extension to Tuesday evenings. Seniors and children pay $6.00 at all times. General admission for adults is $9.00. Patrons can anticipate complimentary popcorn and a drink with Wednesday and Thursday admissions.

If ticket sales prove successful, the owner envisions restoring and renovating one of the borough's last continuously operated independent movie theaters.

http://www.cinemartcinemas.com

Thank you,
Michael Perlman

Film industry still being a pain in the ass

From the Queens Chronicle:

Despite a recent respite granted to certain areas in Long Island City, residents say they’re still feeling the sting of heavy filming in their neighborhood.

“It’s like every week there’s a new thing,” Stacey Guild, who lives on 23rd Street, said. “It’s just annoying, you know? Sometimes it’s the parking, other times you can’t even get down the street. We already have traffic issues and now we have to have more because ‘Law and Order’ wants to shoot a five-minute scene under the 7 train?”

According to the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment 45th Road between 11th and 21st streets, 45th Avenue between 21st and 23rd streets and 46th Avenue between Center and Vernon boulevards have a temporary moratorium on filming.
The respite was introduce in the summer.

According to city regulations, productions are required to post “No Parking” signs 48 hours in advance, though some residents claim signs aren’t put in place until the day of.

“Sometimes it’s like 12 hours,” Guild said. “There was one time I was hosting a birthday party at my home and hadn’t realized they were going to film on the street. A lot of my guests had to park far away. I know it has perks, but it’d be nice to have a calendar or list of dates so I and everyone else knows when they’re coming.”

Lawmakers want more transparency from film industry

From Capital NY:

A bill before the New York City Council this afternoon would require the timely posting of film and television production locations and times, in a searchable format, to the city's website.

The Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment currently requires productions to distribute letters notifying local residents and merchants at least 48 hours in advance of a shoot, an agency spokesperson said in an email. Productions are also obliged to post "No Parking" signs with a contact number 48 hours before a shoot begins, and residents are encouraged to contact the Mayor's Office with their concerns immediately via 311.

But bill sponsors Manhattan borough president Gale Brewer and Council member Ben Kallos think these measures aren't giving residents enough warning. The proposed legislation is one part of Kallos and Brewer's larger effort to make more public data freely available online and the city government more transparent.

“I think most often people know there’s a production because they see a sign saying 'No Parking,’ or when they go to find their car, it’s no longer there because it’s been moved for a film production," Kallos said. (According to the city's website, production companies pay to tow cars the night before or morning of a shoot, and they are expected to keep a list of the spots where relocated vehicles are parked.)

Brewer told Capital she has fielded hundreds of complaints and inquiries by telephone, citing the after-hours posting of signs as a particular concern.

"It’s 6 o’clock in the evening, and there’s nobody to call in the city of New York, so if it was up on the web, that would be a perfect example of how to use the information," she said.

Filming halted in LIC

From the Daily News:

Long Island City residents sick of living in a Hollywood backdrop will get a respite from the blaring noise and klieg lights that have chewed into their scenery for decades.

The city issued a moratorium last week that puts the kibosh on filming from 46th Ave. to 49th Ave. between Center Blvd. and Vernon Blvd. in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.

“It’s such a relief,” said Long Island City resident Kenny Greenberg, 63, upon being told about the moratorium. “That’s exactly what we need. We won’t have as much stress.”

The temporary film ban came after residents griped they were tired of being behind the scenes for popular shows like the HBO series “Girls” and “The Good Wife” on CBS.

The glamour and star sightings, they said, came at a price — excessive noise, trailer fumes and fewer parking spots.

"Made in NY", but not always paid in NY

Next time a NY politician asserts that NYC residents who are relentlessly inconvenienced by the film industry should just suck it up because of all the local jobs and revenue it's generating for local businesses, their constituents should just whip out the below photo of a catering truck in Ridgewood with New Jersey plates and ask them to explain it.

With all the filming that's gone on in Queens alone, you'd think our roads and parks would be adequately maintained.

CB2 wants to limit filming permits

From DNA Info:

Queens Community Board 2 wants the city to cut the number of film and television shoots approved for the neighborhood, which they say has become a too-popular backdrop for production crews in recent years — to the inconvenience of residents.

"We are inundated," CB2 chairman Joe Conley said.

Neighbors and local businesses have complained about the proliferation of film crews blocking stores and taking up precious parking spaces.

"We suffered through the hurricane, businesses are coming back from that. We've had a terrible winter with snow and now we have weekends without the No. 7 train," Conley said at CB2's monthly board meeting Thursday night.

"How much more is that community supposed to endure?"

Shows including "The Blacklist," "Blue Bloods," "The Good Wife," "Person of Interest" and "Black Box," have all filmed in the area, according to Conley, who said there was even a day last year when five separate shoots were taking place in the neighborhood at once.