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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…!