Pizzo: ‘Hoosiers’ Wouldn’t Be Shot In Indiana Today
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIt is regarded as one of the best sports movies of all time, an iconic story that for nearly 30 years has celebrated Indiana and its love affair with high school basketball. But the screenwriter of "Hoosiers" says, if the movie was being made today, it wouldn’t be filmed in Indiana. "Today, any company putting money in that would not allow us to shoot in Indiana," said Angelo Pizzo, in an interview on Inside INdiana Business Television. "They would move it to Ohio or Illinois," suggested Pizzo, referring to neighboring states that have film industry incentives.
Pizzo called Film Indy, a two-year, $300,000 initiative announced last week by several Indianapolis organizations, "a great first step" for efforts aimed at attracting film and video production to the state. The public-private marketing program is a partnership among Visit Indy, the city of Indianapolis and Central Indiana Community Foundation.
CICF Chief Executive Officer Brian Payne expects the effort to generate economic development activity and enhance the city’s image. "We believe that if Indianapolis is to be a greater city, we need to be the home of creative professionals," said Payne. "We need to be a great home for artists and film producers and directors and writers and production personnel."
Pizzo, who wrote Hoosiers and Rudy, two legendary sports movies set in Indiana, hopes the Indianapolis effort will spur state-level support to attract film and video production to Indiana. "What we really need are tax incentives, too, because Indiana is one of only ten states that do not offer any incentives whatsoever," said Pizzo.
State support for film incentives in Indiana in recent years has been limited at best. Legislators allowed a previous incentive program to expire in 2011, contending it failed to produce results. Several other states have scaled back film incentives programs in recent years.
But Pizzo is not giving up. He is part of an ad hoc group that is crafting potential legislation that he hopes will be in play at the legislature in 2017. "We will put together a bill before the legislature that will put us on some competitive level with states around us," said Pizzo.
Supporters of film incentives contend they could also help keep more Hoosier colleges graduates at home. "We have great media schools in Ball State and Indiana," notes Pizzo, who says many media grads are now forced to leave the state to find work. "They’re going to Cincinnati, which has a 35 percent tax credit, they’re going to Chicago, which has a 30 percent tax credit… there is a lot of work being done that is not Hollywood feature film or studio production."
The Film Indy initiative will officially launch in January and will be housed at Visit Indy, the region’s tourism organization. Organizers expect to hire an Indy Film Commissioner in the first quarter of 2016. "We believe it is going to pay off with economic development and new production and position us for greater things to come," says CICF’s Payne. "We know that in the 21st Century, we need to be a creative city."