Save Massachusetts Film Jobs

My name is Zach Miller. I have lived in Boston, MA, my whole life and I am proud to be a resident of the city. I went to college for communication and film in western Massachusetts; right after graduating, I took a job in Miami because it was difficult at the time to get into the film business here. After moving to three different cities in two years working as a freelance documentarian, I just finished working on my first feature with David O. Russell as an additional PA.

Because of the tax incentive, it was possible for me to move back to Boston and support myself through the worst winter and on into the spring. I hope the tax incentive stays so local businesses can keep benefiting from it. After my time spent on set, I now understand how many local people, businesses, and families it supports. Without it, where will we all go? Say no to taking the tax incentive away! ‪#‎boston‬ ‪#‎savemafilm‬

My name is Michael Ullman. I’m a cast and producer’s assistant in the local Massachusetts film industry.

I’ve had the pleasure of working on numerous projects in the greater Boston area, ranging in size from small independent films to large scale “blockbuster” motion pictures. I was raised just outside of Boston and studied filmmaking both throughout high school and at a university in state.

Since I was young, my greatest passions have been helping people and making films. I’ve been fortunate to be able to follow both of these dreams – one, as an up-and-coming producer in the Massachusetts film industry, and the other as a holistic healthcare practitioner and co-manager of a healthcare and therapeutic practice – all the while, living in state, close to people I love. As is the case for thousands of other local industry professionals, I’ve been able to fulfill my dream without having to leave the state to work, which is a direct result of the Massachusetts film tax incentive. This keeps all of us living in state and paying increasing Massachusetts income taxes.

I’ve also had a fair amount of experience in studio and production finance. On my last movie (a Disney production0, we had thousands of vendors for the movie. That alone represents a staggering amount of local Massachusetts business generated, and that’s from only one film out of a steady stream of productions coming into the state.

In the last two years alone, I’ve personally received well over a hundred phone calls from local small business owners, who have offered their deep and sincere gratitude and appreciation to our studios and production companies for giving them more business in a fiscal year than they ever could have hoped for. In many instances, they told me that, without Hollywood films continuously coming to Massachusetts (as a result of the tax incentive), they would have undoubtedly gone out of business.

Our governor is now attempting destroy the extremely positive state legislation that was put in place to boost our state’s economy, which it has increasingly done, year after year… Having this tax incentive securely in place has steadily and dramatically increased revenues to our state every year since its been in place — at a enormous rate of growth.

If anyone wants to truly discover the worth and enormous importance of the incentive, just call local business owners. Last year, for example, it was responsible for bringing literally hundreds of millions of dollars to into Massachusetts alone, and will continue to bring an increasing amount of money into the state every year.

The new budget proposal will absolutely kill a burgeoning Massachusetts industry, one that’s just in the early stages of its development. And this change in legislation will absolutely harm just as many hardworking families as it is said to possibly help, long-term.

Are you pro-Massachusetts? If you are, please support keeping the Massachusetts film industry tax incentive “as is,” and allow this enormous new industry to flourish here — the state and its residents are the direct “winners”… and there are NO losers…!

My name is Rebecca DiFillippo, and I am a local producer’s assistant for the film industry here in Massachusetts. I am happy to say I have worked on feature films in Massachusetts for five years now — growing rapidly in my career and being able to watch my peers do the same. I grew up in Rhode Island and studied film in New York. After working in New York for a year, I decided to move closer to home.

While I had my sights set on the west coast — due to the film tax incentive here in Massachusetts — I have been able to pave the way to my dream by working locally and networking with some of the most talented and hardest working people the film industry has to offer. It has always amazed me how much business we are able to give to local hotels, restaurants, car rental companies, furniture rental houses, and countless other vendors that benefit from a film’s presence in the state. Every day that I come to work, I am so excited to watch the well-oiled machine that we are — building a force that will create the beautiful films that entertain us all at the end of the day. We truly couldn’t do it without the help and support of the local businesses we use. We work hand in hand, and it’s truly an amazing process.