“Musical Road” Brings Pair Award

Rebuilding a city street into the famed “musical road” for a car commercial earned two City of Lancaster employees a California On Location Award for Public Employees of the Year. Ray Hunt, a civil engineer, gave a simple thank you when taking the awards for himself and traffic engineer Michelle Cantrell from Assemblyman Paul Krekorian during the 15th annual awards ceremony Oct. 11 presented by Film Liaisons in California, Statewide. Cantrell was not in attendance. For a Honda Civic commercial, Cantrell and Hunt went beyond their everyday duties for the city to tear up a stretch of road to be redesigned to play musical notes when a car drove over it. The California On Location Awards recognize the work of location managers and scouts and the municipal, county, state and federal employees who assist them in cutting bureaucratic red tape to allow filming to take place. With filming down throughout the state, a familiar theme at the awards show was on the importance of keeping productions in the state. Krekorian, whose district includes media-heavy areas like Burbank and North Hollywood, was sponsor of a bill that went into effect in July to provide tax incentives for productions filming in the state. The 25 productions that have so far qualified for the incentives brought in $347 million in economic activity for the state, Krekorian told the crowd at the Marriott Downtown Los Angeles. When lobbying for the passage of the incentives bill in the Assembly, Krekorian said he had to counter arguments that the bill was “corporate welfare” that would enrich big studios and producers. “My argument back was the people (the incentives) help don’t drive to work in limousines; they drive pick-up trucks,” Krekorian said. “The people the incentives help don’t carry briefcases they carry toolboxes.”