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Leading Off

Since I took on the job of publisher about two months ago I’ve been overwhelmed by all the warm wishes from members of the community that want to see SCREEN grow and prosper. Thank you for your support.

That same spirit of welcome and teamwork was on display at a recent fundraiser for Free Spirit Media, a non-profit that works to bring the media education and production programming to underserved urban youth. Run by Jeff McCarter, the organiztion has been a great success so far and the students who attended the event at Hootenanny had done some great work.

The event showed off some of the students’ work as well as raising money through raffles and silent auctions. McCarter called the event a great success and Free Spirit Media raised $50,000.

McCarter wantd to acknowledge the contributions of several great companies/organizations in Chicago’s media industry: the Illinois Production Alliance, the Illinois Film Office, Hootenanny, ABC7, Fletcher Chicago, Resolution Digital Studios, Optimus, AICP, AFTRA/SAG, Media Process Group, Production Plus Technologies, Reinisch Productions, Quicksilver, Filmworkers, the Whitehouse and Cutters. We should all follow their example.

Now, on to this issue.

Our cover story, Bust to Boomtown, addresses the now-essential film tax incentive and the impact on individual states’ economies. Officials from film offices in Illinois, Michigan and Texas weighed in on what makes a good subsidy and what the future holds for the industry in their states and the whole country. We’ve also built a state-by-state guide to tax incentives in this issue to accompany the story. It all starts on page 16.

Dan Patton gets some creative directors to offer their thoughts, anonymously, about the current state of the creative business. That’s on page 10.

Kevin Jeong has a new profile of a budding career in this issue’s installment of “Reel Lives.” That’s on page 8.

And I interview Daniel Vincent Bigelow, a former animator on Comedy Central’s Adult Swim who recently animated a music video for the band Oh My God. The video was screened at the Midwest Independent Film Festival. It’s on page 6.

We’ve got our regulars too, Patton on the Revolving Door and Mike McNamara’s Call Sheet, reviewing Midwest production news.

Finally, you’ve asked for it and we’ve done it again. The latest Who Reps Who list, the most comprehensive guide to Midwest representatives for production, post production, animation, visual effects, music and sound companies available starts on page 24. The list usually comes out twice a year, but it’s only coming out once in 2010.

Enjoy,

AS