I just returned from the Bijou to support a coworker of mine, Travis Thomsen, who is a film director. The Bijou is a Santikos Theater here in San Antonio, Texas.
Travis is part of Short Ends Production, a film group here in San Antonio, Texas. They were showing some short films at the Bijou on the big screen. It was awesome. Travis won best short film for “Joined.†Great job Travis!
A representative of the Texas Motion Picture Alliance was there and spoke about the strong need of support for the film community. I pulled the following from their website:
OUR CHALLENGE
“For over 80 years Texas has been in the production business. In recent years however, we’ve watched our healthy industry erode as other states began to offer production incentives, such as tax rebates, making it cheaper for productions to shoot elsewhere. Subsequently, Texas production has declined and many of our crew and talent have moved to work in those other states. Our state’s unique tax structure prevents us from duplicating other state’s incentives. TXMPA will draft legislation that can put Texas back on the production map. Of course, getting our bills passed will be the hard part. This will require the support of everyone in our industry, in time and money. TXMPA has no income other than donations.â€
As a Texans, regardless if we are into film or not, we need to support the Texas MPA because it means good things for the state economically. Please visit their site at http://txmpa.org and become a member and fill out their questionnaire. It’ free! Hurry because a legislative session is coming up and they need to increase the number of members to justify their case.
