Conference: Entertainment Industry Needs Better PR Plan

The entertainment industry needs to improve getting its message out that the loss of film and television production hurts blue collar workers throughout the state and not just the Los Angeles area. It was the perception of Hollywood being filled with multi-millionaire actors and directors that hampered efforts to pass legislation creating tax credits to keep filming in the state, said several speakers at the Valley Industry & Commerce Association Business Forecast Conference. Now that credits are in place and have been approved for 50 film and television projects, California Film Commission Executive Director Amy Lemisch said the next step for her office is to show lawmakers the sales and income taxes and other revenues that are a direct result of the credits. “I need to show them that it’s working outside of Los Angeles,” Lemisch said. How to keep entertainment industry jobs in the city was among the panel topics at the 21st annual conference at the Universal Sheraton that drew just less than 500 people. Speakers also tacked the subjects of transportation, health care reform, energy, and government reform. The entertainment discussion drew an audience of some 40 people, many of whom are the vendors, crew members and other below the line workers whose jobs and businesses suffer most when production leave the state. What the industry doesn’t do so well is telling the stories of those workers likely to be a neighbor or a friend of a friend. “If you are not familiar with it you probably have this image of the industry being high tone,” said Frank Stiefel, an executive producer with Radical Media, a global production company with its local offices in Santa Monica. Water discussion In another room at the hotel a very different discussion about water took place – specifically what the city and state are doing in response to a crumbling infrastructure in the Delta region that brings water to Southern California. State lawmakers are still hammering out a series of bills on making improvements in the Delta and put before voters a $9.4 billion general obligation bond. The legislation brings accountability to the various agencies involved in the project and has the goals of creating a reliable water supply and habitat restoration in the Delta, said Dee Zinke, who handles legislative affairs for the Metropolitan Water District. Heal the Bay President Mark Gold predicted passage of the bill although his group does not support it because agricultural users – the largest users of water coming through the Delta – are not held accountable through metering or tiered pricing. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power came under criticism during the discussion for not looking at alternative ways to meets its water demands and instead rely on restrictions. The department, for instance, instituted a policy of restricting residents to watering their lawns only two days a week. The rationing is not working, said Mitch Englander, chief of staff for Councilman Greig Smith, whose district includes the central San Fernando Valley. The department instead needs to invest in the capture of storm runoff and the recycling of water, Englander said. “If we start with rationing and not conservation it will stop all development and have a grave effect on industrial properties and m-zoning (manufacturing) that rely on water,” Englander said. The conference also featured speaker Jane Wurwand, founder and owner of skin care company Dermalogica. Wurwand started Dermalogica in a previous recession and told the lunchtime audience that thinking like an entrepreneur then brought her success and that continuing to think like an entrepreneur will get the company through the current downturn. For instance, with spending by Baby Boomers having dropped by one-third between 2008 and 2009, Dermalogica went in search of new customers and developed a new product line for teenagers that went on sale in February. No traditional advertising such as television or print was used for the new line and sales are projected to be about $2.9 million in the first year, Wurwand said. “There are problems,” Wurwand said, “but there are opportunities. We have to look for them and find them.”