Dr. Mark L. Woods, B.A., Ph.D., LL.M., PgDL, PGCHE, TESOL, FHEA
Our team served as a faculty advisor and project consultant on an initiative to find alternative film and television production resources for the City of Miami. Our goal was to incorporate practice-based research (centered around our MFA in Filmmaking degree programs at 5 local institutions) to bridge a funding gap that especially affected our graduates, along with other early-stage career filmmakers in South Florida.
- Hundreds of entertainment production companies contact the City of Miami every year, and they are encouraged to apply for this program – and then a measurable increase in jobs and economic activity follows. Word of Florida’s incentive program has spread through film and television trade papers, and this has brought productions to Miami, which might have considered going elsewhere, to competitor cities and regions.
- Meanwhile, reports from entertainment trade unions and their members, vendors and Miami businesses have been favorable, as these industry stakeholders have directly benefited from the incentive program.
- Unfortunately, the program has an annual cap, and when this cap is exhausted, production companies go elsewhere, and then the jobs and services evaporate in Miami.
- Studies are currently being conducted to give support to lobbying efforts to raise the incentive cap, but meanwhile, we are proposing an innovative plan to “work-around” the limitations of the incentive cap and to stimulate international co-production shoots in Miami, even after the annual state incentive money has run out.
Dottore Mark 