Category Archives: Tailor

 

11070032_10100290481200239_3963943240150773752_oMy name is Jennifer Tremblay, and I was born and raised in Massachusetts. I earned my bachelor’s degree at Lasell College and my master’s at Brandeis University. I’ve been working in the Massachusetts film industry since 2008 as a costume designer, tailor, ager/dyer, and costumer. Like all of my coworkers, I live and breathe what I do. People in the film industry are some of the hardest working and most dedicated people. My coworkers and I work long hours and keep very positive attitudes. It is a passion as well as a career for all of us.

Taking away the film tax incentive would have a crippling affect on all of us. I am a newlywed, and my goal this year was to buy my first home in Massachusetts. If the tax incentive goes away, I will be out of a job and unable to reach my goal of buying a home and raising a family in my home state. It will also make my long-term plans of opening my own business here seem impossible.

The film tax incentive brings good jobs to good people, but it also brings money into local businesses. As a costume designer, I’ve seen firsthand where the money is being spent. I’ve rented costumes constantly from Brandeis University. I’ve made countless purchases from Massachusetts clothing shops and vintage stores. Smile Dry Cleaners, an organic dry cleaner based out of my hometown in Dracut, has profited from all of the work I’ve brought them. FILM equals JOBS, but it also equals money into the state I love and want to be able to remain in.

Posted in Costume Designer,Costumer,Local Faces,Tailor

save-ma-film-jobs_0005My name is Susanna Brown, and I have been a tailor on local film productions since 2006. I was born and raised in Providence, RI. I graduated from RISD with a degree in apparel design in 2000. In 2002, after a little wandering, I came to the Boston area for a job in the theatre department at one of the major local universities. I was getting paid $24,000 a year. Clearly, I wasn’t going to make ends meet on that, so I started picking up film work in the summer and on spring break, whenever I could get it.

I stayed at that university job for eight years, filling in with film work where I could, but once the tax incentive was put in place, I found that there was enough work that I could stay steadily employed and make three times as much money or more. I decided to take the leap and leave my secure but low-paying job for a freelance life. The year I left (2010), the proposal was put on the table to cap the credit, and the work dried up. I had to leave town and get a job at a theatre in Connecticut to make ends meet.

Luckily, the credit was not capped and the work came back. I was able to move back into my home and work full-time. This year, I sold that house and bought one with my boyfriend. Incidentally, he is a set costumer originally from Massachusetts. He worked in LA for years and years before the Massachusetts film tax incentive allowed him to come back here closer to his family.

Also in the last year I changed jobs. Now I work for a software company based in downtown Boston. So why I am I so worried about the tax incentive? Well, the software company makes a product called Sync OnSet, which is for tracking continuity for all the creative departments in the film industry. This is not a company that is tracked by any measurement of the film industry’s impact on the Massachusetts economy. This is just one more example of how widespread and immeasurable the credit’s effects really are.

Posted in Local Faces,Tailor

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My name is Robin Chalfin, and I am a tailor. I am a lifelong Massachusetts resident. I have worked my way up to key tailor on major films while juggling motherhood and a successful tailoring business in Massachusetts. My husband and I are both freelancers and don’t have the luxury of turning down work. I am lucky enough to work a good part of the year in the film industry in order to help pay for our family health insurance. I wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else. I don’t look forward to the struggles we face without my steady employment. This career allows me to work with people I respect in a trade that pushes my skills to new levels. Don’t take this away from my family — we have come a long way.

Posted in Local Business,Local Faces,Tailor
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