TV & Film Production: Why Are Dallas And Austin Kicking Houston's Ass?

• I am not sure if you will ever get this, but I live in Houston now, and was looking on how to get into the tv/production industry. By reading your note, it seems you have a good handle on the big picture of film production in Houston, and it would be of great help if you can provide me with some info. My email is snowy90@hotmail.com ... what you mention about not having a Film School here is true, and that is what I am currently struggling with. I found this Film Connection Film Institute based in CA that supposedly get you to work with a real production company locally, to sort of get you in the door, but mixed reviews about this program and school has me wondering whether it works or if it is just a scam. I actually started working in tv production in LA, so I have some experience with the software, and I have kept working for companies in LA from Houston, so I am still getting experience. I am just trying to figure out what the most efficient way to break into Houston's production industry is. Thanks

• We have exceptional crews here. I'd put our pros up against anyone. Austin, Dallas, LA or NYC. We are not as deep as we would like, as we have already lost many good people to Austin and Dallas. Even when they don't move there they work there and are unavailable locally for that time. It's a self-reinforcing trend and the only thing that will change it more productions. It will just get worse otherwise. It will not stabilize. Keep in mind many union members are FORCED to declare where they can be hired as locals. Here, Austin, Dallas, whatever. This seriously skews the statistics and makes us look more bare than we are. Still, as good as our pros are, we're not as deep as we would like... The lack of productions in Houston has NOTHING to do with the quality of the micro-budget films being made here. There is absolutely no correlation and it seems strange to me to blame the lack of production dollars on the people who actually ARE making Houston films. This seems more like a personal gripe to me than good analysis. Rick Ferguson can't "bring productions here". He is there to be a hub of information, to make connections and spread the word. He has no legal authority to create incentives or "make" things more attractive. Making Houston more attractive is our job, not his. I have always felt that it would require a commitment from the Houston community as a whole, but that is a long conversation for another time. Right now I just wanted to discourage the finger-pointing. It doesn't help. Especially when it's 100% wrong.

• It also doesn't help when people keep suggesting that the Astrodome should be turned into a production facility. It's a laughable notion; since we're stuck looking up to Dallas, why don't we consider what they did? Did they turn Texas Stadium into a sound stage? After all, Dallas has all the work and crews, right? They blew that thing up because giant buildings suitable for making movies and giant buildings suitable for playing football are two different things. So when someone from the Chronicle gets to chatting up some half-lit society wife about how she loves movies and wants to bring Brad Pitt to the Astrodome, and then that winds up in the paper, it makes us look ridiculous. Frankly, also, I'm not sure that Dallas proper is responsible for everything they get their name on. Surrounding towns like Las Colinas, Irving, Grapevine, Flower Mound...these are places that have the studios and infrastructure. Bringing larger productions to Houston might be easier if we look to the Woodlands, Friendswood, Jersey Village, Pearland or Misery City for resources.

• Dallas and Austin are kicking Houston's ass in film production because they have municiply owned production facilities and Houston does not. The lame excuse that its a personnel issue is patently false. If Dallas has so many "talented and skilled professional crew workers" and Houston does not, Why are they hiring such a substantial portion of their crews from Houston? The given excuse gives cover to the political and burecratic that florish in inertia, but has little substance in reality.

• i'm bewildered by rick ferguson's comment of "you can't control where people live". it's still cheaper to live in houston than it is to live in austin or dallas and people live where the work is. if you bring the work to houston, more people will be based here. you don't believe me? go ask shreveport, louisiana, who has more major motion pictures filmed there in recent years than you can shake a stick at. the production houses didn't choose to shoot in shreveport because more film professionals with extensive resumes were already based there. they shot there because the incentives in louisiana are some of the best in the nation, and you couple that with the massive impact of katrina and voila! shreveport becomes a hub for film production. why texas isn't getting competitive on that front is beyond me. the amount of talent in houston is huge, both in front and behind the camera. what ferguson and the texas film commission might not realize is that a huge chunk of that houston based talent has to travel to dallas, austin, and shreveport to get work, and crashes with friends/family in order to make it economically feasible. they're not based in dallas and austin because it's more expensive to live there. it is still cheaper for them to live in the houston area and travel for the work rather than uproot their lives to a city with a higher cost of living.

• I believe the Houston Film Commission needs to be more involved in bringing Films to Houston. If Houston had better incentives, we'd be sure to have more people seeking Houston as their Film location. Why we do not have the old Reliant Stadium as our new FILM NETWORK LOCATION is beyond me! Its a perfect place to bring revenue into HOUSTON. It would be positive for Houston as a whole, bring more tourism, more tv, more filmmakers, production companies here. As far as Indie filmmaking, there are several groups I know of supposrting this. Spring Film Meetup (is putting together 1 film a month), Katy Filmmakers a newly established group (taking on 1 film a month as well) and then Houston Film Meetup, which is a great networking group with members over 1800. WIFT (Woman in Film and Television) is here and chooses Houston to be their city to be based. SWAMP (Southwest Alterative Media Project) does monthly educational Film events for the Filmmaker which I find very helpful and valuable. Houston is an ecletic city with Southern Hospitality and very friendly, helpful Film Community. We're like a little family here! JUST GET RELIANT STADIUM GOING and the HOUSTON FILM COMMISION bringin business here and more incentives to match some of the other cities....and we'll be more successful! We have alot of talent here! I am one of them and I outta know!

• Houston needs a SXSE for music and film. Both industries could use a shot in the arm here with national and international exposure. We have the space,facilities,venues,lodging,and transportation. Downtown would be perfect.

• Yeah, um I'm the writer of that serial killer script. Granted, I am a first time writer, but obviously people are highly anticipating the film so I guess it can't suck that bad. It is not strictly a horror film; that is merely the main market. It has elements of drama, suspense, even some comedy simply because... I'm not a horror film junkie. There was research done on this story. We are donating half the profits to non-profit organizations (POMC). That doesn't suck. Texas needs to unite instead of some people trying to create a great divide.

• I am an independent filmmaker in Houston, Texas. I am about to begin production on a non-horror feature film. I would like to make a few comments about the article and some of the comments thus far. First the article. I have worked with Bob Hudgins through my affiliation with a local media arts organization and have a lot of respect for him as a person. He has done a lot for our state through his efforts to get a film incentive program passed and through advocacy on the local level. That said, I disagree with Bob's assessment of the qualifications of Houston's crew base and am very disappointed that he is continuing to spread this type of misinformation. Bob looks at the union roster to determine who is qualified to work on a studio production - tv series or movie. Because of the lack of union work in our town in recent years, many qualified crew personnel have allowed their union memberships to slide. Membership to unions is very costly. And if there isn't enough union work to justify the cost of the membership, then even qualified people won't bother to renew or join. So, just because our union rosters are low does not mean we don't have qualified crew. In the 80's, Houston was the center of film in Texas. But we lost a lot of our infrastructure after Canada instituted their film incentive program. That is true. But for Bob to suggest a poor crew base is the reason we aren't getting shows is incorrect. If we get the shows, the crews will come (back). Of that I am 100% certain. The REAL reason Dallas is getting all the productions is threefold. 1 - Producer Gary Brown is bringing them there. Gary has a development deal with Fox. Most of the shows mentioned are Fox shows. That is not a coincidence. 2 - they have stages large enough to construct sets. 3 - Brown is using his influence to get the city of Dallas to provide local incentives (such as free sound stages). So what Houston needs is a champion like Brown, a sound stage large enough to accommodate a tv series set and local incentives. If we build it, the crew will come (back). Simple as that. Now to the comments. There is most definitely a film community here. It's not as active as it could be, but it has gotten better in recent years thanks to Facebook and Twitter. Where I see the film community lacking is in cooperation with the film industry. The two worlds - the indies and the industry pros - are just that... two worlds. There needs to be more collaboration. Without getting into the "quality of films" debate, I will say that Houston has lost a number of very promising filmmakers over the years because those filmmakers could not find the industry support they needed here to create quality films. So many of those guys moved to Austin to get that level of support. That is why Austin has such a vibrant film community. Cultivating local talent is VITAL to the sustainability of a film community AND film industry. Also of primary importance... education. Houston needs a viable film school. HCC does a great job of teaching film on a vocational level. Which is great. We need that! But the writers, directors and producers - those creating the content - have very few opportunities to learn here. Rice has a film track. It is fairly new, but has a lot of promise - if the powers that be at Rice would actually fund the program properly. UH could also have a better program. So, we need a film school. I'd like to leave this comment on a positive note. There is a lot of talent in Houston. We're the 4th largest city in the country. One of the most diverse in Texas. We have many voices here that need to be heard. If we, as a community, ever realize the power we have if we unite our voices... Austin and Dallas wouldn't stand a chance. We are the sleeping giant. I think it's past time we WAKE UP!

• There is a HUGE Houston Film scene here. What are you people talking about? Also, the things that are being locally produced here has nothing to do with if big movies come to shoot here. Real producers and directors in Hollywood don't look at the local film to see if they should shoot in a place. It doesn't matter what indie's we are putting out. What matters is the film comission and the cities and town themselves here. Are they having people come to them and ask about filming? Or are they just going right to Austin and Dallas where they know it's easy. Are we giving them trouble in getting permits? There has to be an issue here and I don't think it is that the small time movies we make suck. That has no bearing on crew for one. There are TONS of crew people here, and tons of actors. Houston just isn't known as a hot spot, yet. All these horror movies getting national attention might change that opinion soon, so don't knock them.

• The real reason Houston is lame is.... Yeah, there are lots of horror films being made in Houston... and you know what, some of them are getting national and worldwide attention. Look at some of them listed here... www.houstonhorror.com

• @The real reason Houston is lame is....Then why don't you write and produce a good quality television series that films here in Houston so that you won't consider Houston so lame.

• that almost every indie film that comes out of here is really bad. There is an active film community in Houston, but sadly, while the craft people may be great, most of the writers, directors and producers are rank amateurs. The ranks of our actors are pretty thin, too. Our film folk write unformed script after unformed script about zombies, vampires and serial killers, usually involving lots of naked teen girls getting offed in the bloodiest manner possible. This seems to be the prevailing idea of a movie in H-Town. In response to Film Tex, everyone I know here WILL work for free; it's just that hardly anyone ever asks us to because it is assumed our skills suck. I think Hollywood thinks of Houston as an overgrown cow town whose residents have an average IQ of 12 below plant life. Not all of us are bad; several of us have years of Hollywood experience but work is lacking. I think it is particularly awful that a series set in Houston (Chase) isn't even filmed here. Who dropped the ball on that one? The only way we can fix this is to start producing better work. There is what looks like a great feature length indie being shot here soon. I hope others will follow this director's lead and produce worthwhile films that will appeal to a broad audience. and not just to people who get off on seeing torture and gore on the screen. I also think our Film Commission and our city council need to do more to get film business to come to Houston. We'll all have to work together if we're going to change this for the better. And we'll all have to bring our A-game if we want to play on the big field.

• Friday Night Lights has wrapped in Austin. My Generation is being filmed currently in Austin.

• Great Article? Something stinks here, and it might be the foul statistics Connelly drops. Who publishes your made up filth? San Antonio shoots movies! All you have to do is look at the crew calls on the TEXAS FILM COMMISSION webpage. It's that simple! You don't even see indies going to Houston, because you can't get anyone to work! In other cities, people work for free! They want to get films out and build the community. Sorry it's not goin' on in Houston. Stop crying idiot, and ruining it for the rest of us. You don't know shit about what you are talking about. So go write about BP, I heard they are doing good in Houston. -From someone who has worked from NY-LA and everywhere between. Happy in Austin, staying busy.

• Chase is also another dallas playing Houston show. I was surprised to see and know of so many houston crew working on Chase & Lonestar "Dallas playing Houston". As far as the perdium is concerned I know both shows are not paying that nor is any city required to if you live in Texas.

• Several people from houston are working in Dallas because there is not enough crew up there. hmm.

• It also helps to have an active film community that is seeking this kind of industry. Dallas and Austin does, Houston does not. Part of that reason is Houston being so hung up on Visual and Performing Arts and not currently seeing film as an equal art form. Hopefully things like Houston Cinema Arts Festival will help to build a viable Houston film community much in the same way the Dallas International Film Festival (formerly AFI Dallas) and SxSW and the Austin Film Festival has helped those two cities. That, and implementing the plan to turn the Astrodome into a sound stage.

• Thanks -- the Texas Film Commission counts any shooting as being part of the city's numbers, so some series may get credit for two cities, with the money they spend in each being counted separately. The TFC counted Friday Night Lights as a current series being shot, but "current" might be mean "current fiscal year" to them.

• Slight correction. There are currently 3 Series shooting in Dallas and 1 shooting in Austin. Friday Night Lights was Austin based, and now has wrapped for good. Currently "My Generation" is shooting in Austin, and the other 3 shows you mentioned are shooting in Dallas.

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