New, expanded Metro Detroit movie studios to add thousands of jobs

[LMich]

Y Mas

Allen Park goes Hollywood with film studio

Nathan Hurst / The Detroit News

April 13, 2009

Allen Park --This Downriver Detroit suburb will soon be home to a $146 million assembly line, where thousands of unionized employees will produce movies, television programs and entertainment for so-called new media.

Officials today will announce details of the project, headed by a Detroit native, to turn a site in Allen Park into one of Michigan's largest film studios.

The integrated facility will produce filmed entertainment, including movies, television and new media, two sources familiar with the project told The Detroit News. New media produced there could include productions for the Web and mobile devices such as video-enabled cell phones.

Ground is expected to be broken by fall.

Sources confirmed that the company, Unity Studios, will be headed by native Detroiter Jimmy Lifton, whose Oracle Post production company in California has worked on big TV and movie projects, including outsourced work for MTV Networks and NBC Universal.

Calls to Lifton's office weren't returned Monday. But sources said Unity Studios will be owned by a consortium of investors from California and Michigan.

The project is expected to create thousands of highly skilled, technical jobs. Recently laid-off union workers and Allen Parkers will receive preference in hiring.

Retail, housing included

A biography on Lifton posted on the Web site of Oracle Post said the Unity Studios project will include retail and housing components, as well as an educational facility, the Lifton Institute for Media Skills, which "will work ... with the unions and focuses on sustainable skilled work force."

Oracle Post is expected to expand its own work from locations in Santa Monica and Burbank, Calif., to Unity Studios as well.

Lifton and his company have worked on a number of recent high-profile productions, including TV reality hits "The Real Housewives of Orange County" and "Celebrity Fit Club" as well as animated features such as "SpongeBob SquarePants."

Sources wouldn't confirm the exact site of the facility, which will be developed on what was described as brownfield property once used by auto-making firms.

But, in a January interview with The News, Allen Park Mayor Gary Burtka said he and other city officials were working to seal a deal to build a new studio at a former Visteon Corp. technical center.

That 104-acre site is adjacent to I-94, with frontage on Southfield Road.

Burtka said in January he expected roughly 3,500 permanent full-time jobs from the project. He was unavailable for comment Monday.

But, in a prepared statement, Burtka said the project "amounts to an economic development blockbuster for the city, Wayne County and state."

Other than Burtka's brief statement, city, state and county officials kept mum about today's announcement.

But a morning meeting today of the Michigan Economic Growth Authority is likely to bring good news for the Unity Studios project: A package of high-technology tax credits is on the agenda of the authority's board.


Tax policy called key

Sources said Michigan's aggressive tax credit policy for moviemakers -- which provides a refundable 42 percent break -- was key in landing the Unity Studios project. Because state law provides the biggest credit for in-state workers, having a steady stable of Michiganians already employed at the facility opens the door for production companies to get the big tax breaks.

All told, the facility is expected to house 750,000 square feet of space for production, post-production and support work, including eight sound stages.

Michigan's tax credit program for entertainment projects has fueled a flurry of recent announcements touting new projects, including a large studio at a former General Motors Corp. facility in Pontiac, a planned animation outfit at the MGM Grand Detroit's shuttered temporary casino and a soundstage and production facility at the old Free Press building on West Lafayette in downtown Detroit.

[email protected] (313) 222-2293

[Crawford]

Sorry, I don't believe any of these will happen; not even one.

The studios have been cutting back like crazy as of late, and there's no financing for new ones.

I don't know why there would be a need for giant studios in Allen Park, MI, Pontiac, MI, and other completely random locations.

[213]

Sorry, I don't believe any of these will happen; not even one.

And if they do, I'm not sure how Michigan can reasonably sustain them short of making its 40% tax incentive (currently the highest such in the country) basically permanent. Without it there is little concrete rationale for non-location-specific production to be there.

The posted articles mischaracterize these new studios as "production companies"; they are actually but production facilities. In California, Raleigh Studios contracts its space to producers whose own companies -- often LLCs formed strictly for a single project -- do the actual production and hiring. (Major studios such as Universal, Paramount, etc., have also adopted this model.) These facilities rely upon a certain critical mass of repeat business which, in Michigan's case, would be highly incentive-contingent.

The notion of "permanent" jobs, especially in such numbers, also seems unrealistic. Most film production positions are free-lance, and the industry is by nature cyclical -- even in Los Angeles and New York. Beyond that, almost all major producers are signatory to national labor agreements that preclude hiring "off the street." Drivers would have to be Teamsters, carpenters and electricians would have to be IATSE. Detroit's locals are unlikely to significantly expand their membership rolls -- and dilute employment during lean periods -- when crews can be rounded out with supplements from the coasts, as happens presently.

As a native Detroiter I would love to see this new sector work, but am having difficulty squaring it with the industry's fundamentals.

[Capsule F]

I love how every article assumes it will just add thousands of jobs and that the development is inevitable. Just because large swaths of land are available in an urban environment doesnt mean film studios will happen.

Won't like all 5 of these film studios be competing with one another? Also, lets say that they were built, you can do a lot of movies that use Detroits urban assets, but it is also limited by the citys condition as well. Unless all these studios are doing green screen indoor effects production then I don't see how all of them are viable. I don't tihnk there is enough of those types of movies to go around.

[213]

...every article assumes it will just add thousands of jobs and that the development is inevitable.

This reflects a certain spirit of "hope springs eternal" that since the '70s has preoccupied the city and its media. It's a good dynamic -- I understand and cheer it -- but in Detroit, The Next Big Thing has too often been reliant on unfulfillable / unsustainable preconditions.

As noted above, the key precondition in this case is a nation-leading tax credit that Michigan will have to permanently buttress against pressures from other states and dissent in its own legislature. A few years is likely sufficient to turn a profit for studio investors; overhead isn't huge, and the new facilities would draw on local clients as well. Long term, however, Michigan will likely have to accept a competitive stasis with other regions whereby Texas, New Mexico, the coasts, etc., are each offering essentially comparable incentives. In this event production would gravitate back to the coastal hubs, likely with skilled Michiganians in tow.

[Capsule F]

I'm not sure I totally agree with unestablished movie cities stealing industries from areas where the have made and continue to make sense. Philadelphia is guilty of this as well. Movie companies should come because they want to, not because they have been given incentives.

[213]

On a side note, Los Angeles evolved as a production center less for its cheap land and good weather -- outdoor film stock didn't exist in the early days -- than for its distance from New York's Edison Trust (from which production technology had to be licensed) and federal patent authorities.

[hudkina]

The only studios that have been announced are this Allen Park studio, the Pontiac studio, and an animation studio in Downtown. Also, it seems that this is a little further along than you guys think.

[LMich]

Originally Posted by Capsule F

I'm not sure I totally agree with unestablished movie cities stealing industries from areas where the have made and continue to make sense. Philadelphia is guilty of this as well. Movie companies should come because they want to, not because they have been given incentives.

I'd hope, then, you'd be against all kinds of development incentives in general, right?

My take on this is that I welcome this in-state competition, and I find the animation studio, downtown, to be particularly promising and worthwhile. If only that one or the Centerpoint end up making it, it will have proven to the local business community that the girth of vacant industrial space in the area can be used, and hopefully it'll get others to take a chance.

I'm really not so much interested in the industry being pushed by state government as the attention it gives to old, shuttered factories which seem to be avoided as spaces for reuse as if they were the plague.

Anyway, y mas...

The moviemaking complex is expected to eventually incorporate retail and housing components, officials said. (Unity Studios)

Allen Park studio complex promises quick action

Nathan Hurst / The Detroit News

WWednesday, April 15, 2009

Allen Park --Shovels should be in the ground within two months and hundreds of workers on the job by this fall at the forthcoming Unity Studios moviemaking complex, officials said Tuesday.

Dozens of city and county leaders, as well as hundreds of local residents, packed Allen Park's municipal complex for the formal announcement of the $146 million project, which plans to turn a shuttered Visteon Corp. facility into the state's largest integrated entertainment production house.

Jimmy Lifton, a Hollywood executive and veteran sound producer who hails from Metro Detroit, is responsible for bringing together local leaders and industry insiders for the Unity Studios project. He said development on the 104-acre site adjacent to I-94 won't dally.

Finally, Something to Smile About!

"We're talking about rapid-fire progress here," Lifton said. "We're not messing around."

That's music to the ears of thousands of laid-off union workers and Allen Park residents, who will be given preference in hiring for the some 3,000 unionized jobs expected to be created as part of Unity Studios' bid to become the state's first assembly line for entertainment of all sorts, including television, film and new media productions.

Officials said the project will be built in phases, the first of which is expected to open by this fall. That will bring sound stages and production facilities online, as well as a skills training center that will educate up to 1,000 students per semester.

Later phases will bring more sound stages and production facilities and eventually incorporate retail and housing components in the middle-class Downriver community of 27,500 residents, officials said.

Funding for the initial phase -- which will cost roughly $55 million -- is already in place, Lifton said. The city of Allen Park will take a 15 percent equity stake in Unity Studios.

Lifton said the initial phase will allow Unity Studios to begin work on already-planned productions. He said details on some of the projects will be released in the coming weeks.

Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano said the Unity Studios facility adds a much-needed piece of infrastructure to Michigan's budding film industry. While the refund-eligible state tax breaks of up to 42 percent have helped bring a number of noteworthy productions to the state in the past year, a lack of permanent facilities has hindered the state's ability to attract a stable base of entertainment employment. Ficano said operations like Unity Studios will fill that void.

Ficano also had a word of warning for state lawmakers who have batted around the idea of rescinding Michigan's tax breaks for filmmakers.

"We're not going to let you touch it," Ficano said. "We're going to make more films."

[email protected] (313) 222-2293

[ssiguy]

Allen Park?..............where exactly is that in terms of downtown Detroit?

[Exodus]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Allen Park?..............where exactly is that in terms of downtown Detroit?

It's about 6-7 miles outside of downtown.

[hudkina]

I think it's a little closer to 10 miles from Downtown. Allen Park is a 40's/50's era middle-class suburb. It was chosen because it is close to several of the regions major freeways and sits halfway between Downtown and Metro Airport.

[LMich]

More news:

Unity Studios gets go-ahead for Allen Park facility

Nathan Hurst / The Detroit News

Saturday, August 15, 2009

It's a go for Unity Studios, the project that aims to transform a former Visteon Corp. site in Allen Park into a fully functioning movie studio.

The project is on schedule for an Aug. 27 groundbreaking, said Unity chief executive and native Metro Detroiter Jimmy Lifton. The first phase of the project will open in October. Unity's accompanying educational component, the Lifton Institute for Media Skills, will open along with the building in October as well.

"We're moving forward," Lifton said Friday. "This is a large, large project with many different pieces. Now the real work can begin."

Gov. Jennifer Granholm has been invited to the groundbreaking and is expected to attend with a host of other government officials.

A separate movie studio project to be built on a former General Motors site in Pontiac is scheduled to break ground within a month.

Gary Burtka, Allen Park's mayor, said "several months of negotiations with banks; landowners; and state, county and local government agencies; economic development officials; attorneys; and others" have concluded, and financing is now secure for the Unity project.

The city of Allen Park completed a bond sale transaction last week for the Unity site, a 104-acre parcel behind the city's municipal complex at the southeast corner of the I-94 intersection with Southfield Road.

Lifton said Unity Studios will begin work on its first feature-length film in November. He expects to announce more details about the project, including its scope and cast, later this year.

[email protected] (313) 222-2293

A rendering of the proposed studio that is set for a groundbreaking within the next month on the site of the idled General Motors Centerpoint East facility in Pontiac. The studio plans to build two buildings that will house seven soundstages. (Raleigh Michigan Studios)


Movie studio to break ground in Pontiac

BY KATHERINE YUNG
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

The poor economy isn't stopping efforts to transform metro Detroit into Hollywood North, with one studio project aiming to break ground next month in Pontiac.

Raleigh Michigan Studios, formerly known as the Motown Motion Picture Studios, has lined up the $75.8 million in financing it needs, said Steve Lemberg, the company's chief financial officer. The studio plans to start construction within the next 30 days on two buildings that will house seven new soundstages, ranging in size from 12,000 square feet to 30,000 square feet. The stages could be ready for use by next summer.

"We are very methodically and successfully moving forward," Lemberg said.

Plans for two other studios that also were announced earlier this year still appear to be on the drawing board despite the tight credit markets:

• Hollywood production executive Jimmy Lifton did not break ground for his proposed $146-million Unity Studios complex in Allen Park at the end of June as scheduled. But the project still plans to launch film production training classes in October at the site, said Unity spokesman Roger Martin.

More news about the studio could be announced within the next few days. Last week, Allen Park city officials authorized a multimillion-dollar bond sale to purchase land for the project.

• Officials from Wayne County and Detroit are putting together a tax incentive package for the Los Angeles developers of the proposed Detroit Center Studios, also called Wonderstruck Studios. The digital animation and visual effects studio is taking résumés at www.wonderstruckstudios.com. The developers, SHM Partners, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Michigan economic development officials originally had said that the $86-million studio would be located in the former MGM Grand temporary casino in downtown Detroit. But Vanessa Denha-Garmo, press secretary for Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano, said the developers also are looking at other sites in Detroit.

Production studios are widely viewed as the kind of infrastructure that Michigan needs in order to grow a thriving film and TV industry with thousands of permanent jobs. Filmmakers have been flocking to Michigan since last year, lured by the most generous tax breaks in the country.

Raleigh Michigan has big plans for its studio complex, located at General Motors Co.'s former Centerpoint truck plant and office complex in Pontiac. It is in discussions that could result in one or more animation studios opening at the property, Lemberg said. The studio also hopes to offer this fall some on-site film production training classes, taught by instructors from local schools.

Raleigh Michigan is backed by local businessmen A. Alfred Taubman, Linden Nelson and John Rakolta Jr. They are partnering with Hollywood's Raleigh Studios and the talent agency William Morris Endeavor Entertainment.

Contact KATHERINE YUNG: 313-222-8763 or [email protected]

[Rizzo]

Real good to see this. Finally a permanent facility being constructed. I had been noticing a lot more filming around Ann Arbor, and regularly get emails about extras being needed.

[jodelli]

Good to see the interest in this.

Film production has a history in the Detroit area anyway, but under the radar because the product has been industrial films and commercials. Some of the country's largest advertising firms have had locations here, with the ensuing employment of graphic arts and photography talent.

"Detroit's creative edge has dulled with the decline in automotive advertising," says LoDuca, who worked in advertising for 10 years before becoming a film composer. "Detroit has as much artistic talent and technical talent as anywhere in the world, but talent has to be at your fingertips and exercised every day to be of use and value. The opportunity for those rusty skills to be honed is here and now. There is a little bit of rust that needs to be dusted off…. It isn't the golden era of industrial filmmaking any more. We're long past that. We're looking at a 10-15 year cycle of decreasing work for a lot of talented people. Luckily for people in the production side of things, those opportunities are now."
http://www.metromodemedia.com/features/f...rID=fbce1ca4-4d52-4248-90c8-1d38b1b5f87d

Animation sounds intriguing because all you really need are a handful of creative people and lot's of GPUs. With luck you could become another Pixar.

[hudkina]

I think for the most part the animation studio will do work in commercials, etc. Nothing too fancy.

[AaronPGH]

I realize there's much debate about whether all of these states chasing the film industry is worthwhile or not (my home state being one as well), but honestly for Detroit I think they really have to do anything at this point. Any attempt that Detroit makes at diversifying it's economy should be applauded. Not everything is going to work, but if they keep experimenting something is bound to stick at some point. When it finally does, they will suddenly have a lot more light at the end of their tunnel.

[LMich]

Unity Studios gets construction going in Allen Park When facility will start hiring unclear

BY JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

Aug. 28, 2009

The Michigan film incentives' promise of creating permanent jobs took a step forward Thursday when the Unity Studios project became the first of several announced production facilities to start construction.

During a kick-off party at the site of a soon-to-be-converted vacant commercial building in Allen Park, Hollywood production executive Jimmy Lifton said his project would become a permanent part of the metro Detroit economy.

"We will be here 25 and 50 and 100 years from now," he said.

Even after the launch Thursday, which was accompanied by a festival atmosphere, a band, and hundreds of onlookers, it remained unclear how soon Unity Studios would produce the thousands of jobs promised.

When first announced last April, Lifton said that work would start within a few weeks and employ thousands of metro Detroiters, many of them laid-off auto workers. Those few weeks stretched into months.

Despite the delays, Lifton said Thursday that his plans for large employment and a major facility remain on track. He said the first phase of construction would include four sound stages, pre- and post-production facilities, and a trade school, the Lifton Institute for Media Skills.

"It's the same number, it's the same vision, it's the same plan. The only thing that's changed is we're starting later in the year," Lifton said.

Asked about efforts by some Michigan legislators to trim back the state's biggest-in-the-nation incentives for filmmakers, he urged lawmakers to keep them intact.

"It's a beautiful and exciting tool to jump-start the industry," Lifton said. "And it does work, but you can't put it out there and take it back. You have to give it a little time."

"We have made a commitment to this city to get people to work. and that's what we're doing," he said.

The incentives have generated dozens of movie and television projects for the state, notably Clint Eastwood's "Gran Torino." But it remains unclear how many permanent jobs have been or will be created by the film industry in the state.

As the ceremony began and a few hundred onlookers applauded, Allen Park Mayor Gary Burtka proclaimed his city Hollywood 48101. "We've been waiting for this day for a long time," Burtka said.

Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano told the crowd that the studio project was "a win for the region" and was especially welcome given the problems of the auto industry.

Contact JOHN GALLAGHER: 313-222-5173 or [email protected].

[LMich]

The animation studio in downtown Detroit that was to go in the old casino building will now set up shop in Ford Field's office space:

Studio plans Ford Field offices

BY KATHERINE YUNG / DETROIT FREE PRESS

March 17, 2010

Wonderstruck Studios, a proposed Detroit digital animation and visual effects studio, plans to locate its operations at Ford Field beginning June 1, Michele Richards, the California producer spearheading the project, said Tuesday.

"Ford Field is a state-of-the-art development," Richards said. "I love that it is in the heart of the entertainment district."

She plans to unveil more details in coming weeks and acknowledges that she is awaiting approval from Ford Field officials.

Justin Turk, a development project manager for Ford Field, declined to comment Tuesday and a spokesman for Ford Field did not return a telephone call. Though many people think that Ford Field is just a football stadium, it contains 230,000 square feet of office space that businesses can lease.

...

Ford Field has a backup power generator and "a lot of the power we need to run a high-tech digital pipeline," Richards said.

...