Here’s what you can do right now to save and grow jobs in the Oregon Film and Television industry

by Nate DiNiro Posted on June 22, 2011

While the “Joint Committee on Tax Credits” decided to move forward with a bill to fund the film incentive at $6million per year. Today, at this moment, there are discussions to fund the remaining $1.5 million being sought, or more, that would be required for Oregon to retain a 5th season of “Leverage” in Oregon.

To increase the chances of this happening, respectful phone calls to Representatives Hannah and Roblan from industry members reminding them of the value of JOBS in Oregon could make this a reality for us. It doesn’t have to take more than 2 minutes, and it will go a very long way towards insuring that we continue on the track of job growth in the Oregon film & television industry.

Here’s how you can help:

1) Call the two reps below with this script:

My name is —-, I work as a —-. I wanted to let the speaker know that the Film and TV Production industry is still hoping to achieve $7.5 million per year in incentives so we can keep our jobs.

2) Tell a friend to do the same.

** Rep. Bruce Hannah (R) ** Co-Speaker of the House
Dist 7 – Roseberg, Cottage Grove, Sutherlin, Lane & Douglas counties
rep.brucehanna@state.or.us
503-986-1200

** Rep. Arnie Roblan (D) ** Co-Speaker of the House
Dist 9 – South Coast, Coos County
rep.arnieroblan@state.or.us
503-986-1300

Posted in Film Industry, Television Industry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Oregon Film and Television workers say “Thanks” from the Set of “Leverage”

by Nate DiNiro Posted on June 21, 2011

Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here, but this post is for a cause that I’m very familiar with and I think that it’s important enough to address.

As you may or may not know, amongst other industries in Oregon, I am very active in the Film @amp; Television industry. Thanks to my experience helping the Sundance FF winner, “We Live in Public” with their web and social media strategy, I also lend my chops to the Oregon Governors Office of Film and Television as well as the Oregon Media Producers Association.

Most folks are completely unaware of how films and television shows are made, much less about hew they’re financed and distributed. Most states in the US have some sort of incentive program to attract producers to their states because of the serious impact that film and television production have on the economy of the states and localities where the work is produced. Oregon has a long and interesting history in the film and television industries, and as such, Oregon has a very competitive film incentive to keep Oregon competitive in the scope of the wider industry.

It’s a pretty complex subject, and not in the scope of this post to examine the various sides of the issue. What I am hoping to do is shed a little light on the people who comprise the industry, and share the video embedded here. It goes a long way to show some of the faces of the industry, and the Oregonians whom the Film incentive impacts.

While I have been a bit dark on this issue publicly, consider this post to be a first of many on the subject moving forward.

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Demoing Tarpipe tonight at Portland Data Plumbers UG meeting

by Nate DiNiro Posted on April 28, 2009

I recently had a ton of fun participating in a community-building project with my buddy Alex “@podcasthotel” Williams. We created the “world’s first non-conference“, which we called “Not at SXSW”. @notatsxsw could be considered a reaction to the rejection of our plan for a super-inexpensive, viral-cum-guerrilla assault on SXSW ’09 for “a client”. When our plan was rejected, we figured what better way to prove our point about the value of social media than to go meta!

One of the things that inspired the project the most was the discovery of a new social app/library/API tool called Tarpipe, which I had heard about in the blitz of attention they were trying to get in the days leading up to SXSW Interactive. If you are into visual programming tools like Yahoo! Pipes, Apatar, or the Wire-It library, then a tool like Tarpipe is right up your alley. it allows you to do what those other data aggregation and processing tools do, but in reverse. So if you want to build a super-custom information dissemination tool which will post stuff six-ways-to-sunday across your social networks, or just have a little fun like we did with @notatsxsw, Tarpipe is right up your alley.

I’ll be giving a demonstration of how the @notatsxsw project was put together in just hours using Tarpipe, focusing especially on the photo submission tool I built which would have been much, much harder to do without it.

Details:
Tuesday April 28, 2009 from 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Oracle – 1211 SW 5th Avenue, Suite 800
Upcoming: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/2123569/

Agenda:
6:00 Introductions
6:15 Tarpipe discussion led by Uncle Nate DiNiro
6:45 Workshop: Have a problem? Want to talk about a specific tool?
Break into small groups to help each other

Posted in Social Media, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment