Association for the Future of Film and Television

This letter from Mike Montgomery to Nashville SAG members hits the spot and we wanted to share it with you....please feel free to share it with others who haven't joined us yet!

FromThe Nashville Branch President

Mike Montgomery

I hope you managed to cope with the heat and have a safe and productive summer.Now September is upon us and ushering in cooler temps, football season and hopefully the beginning of a new round of production work for our region. As far as I know "Army Wives"  is returning to South Carolina. "Drop Dead Diva", "Vampire Diaries", AMC's "Walking Dead"  along with a new Screen Gems studio are on pace for Atlanta. And an FX pilot called "Outlaw Country" is currently in production in Nashville. Let's all hope "Outlaw Country" will be successful, find a place on the FX schedule, put down roots and finally give us the series we crave.

But it seems we go down this road every year. There are rumors of a home grown production or a pilot comes here to shoot and we hear from producers how great our crew and talent base are, only to see the actual series end up in a neighboring state. And we all know why. Tennessee's  production incentives simply can't compete. I consider us lucky that we are surrounded by states that can, Georgia, NC, Virginia (new) and Kentucky, home to many of our Branch members.  Our current Administration is lukewarm at best in its commitment to bring work to Tennessee. Our current commissioner, Perry Gibson, and her staff work hard but its tough to bring down the big game when your gun has no bullets and your boss doesn't really believe film and television is a valid economic development issue. But now we Tennesseans have a chance to help ourselves. We are electing a new Governor in November and that affords us the opportunity to play the incentives game with a new Administration. And this time we have help. The Association for the Future of Film &Television/Tennessee is the first statewide trade association for those who work in film or television. Their goal is to advocate for laws at the state and local level that will benefit our industry. In my memory, no one has ever organized industry professionals to this degree. AFFT has formed a political action committee (PAC) whose sole purpose is to identify lawmakers and candidates who understand the benefit of the film and television industry as an engine for economic development in Tennessee and help them through donations and with information they can use to help our cause.   Look them up at www.affttennessee.org or on Facebook. Please do what you can to help in anyway.

Here's hoping we'll all be sleeping with the windows open soon.

In Solidarity,

Mike