The Dumb Are Mostly Intrigued By The Drum

So this morning saw me once again downtown at our beautiful city hall to support the approval of a new city ordnance, of which you can read about on my previous post, that could possibly change the way local filmmakers create here in town. Never one to adept at public speaking, I went up in front of the council to voice my support. After some questions back and forth, including some additional questions for me from Blong Xiong and Henry Perea, the council decided to look into some very valid questions raised (including the wording on the fact that people shooting without permission would be charged with a felony and also the changing of the phrase "nudity" to "public nudity") and speak to some other local filmmakers to see where the community here in town stood on the issue. As long as this issue isn't totally drawn out and the council is quick to do the research on the matter, it's cool with me. Surprisingly, Jerry Duncan moved to approve the ordinance right then and there but no one stood up to second it. Sucks but I guess it might be for the best that everyone is on the same page and those few issues get corrected (it's like wanting to buy that car right now rather than waiting for a better deal next week). The fact that this is even happening here in town excites me to no end and I hope, if this thing does go through, that people here in town take the initiative to go out, create and help put Fresno on the map. Something tells me we will.

This was the email sent out by Ray Arthur earlier today (I apologize for it's lateness): 

Dear Friends,

It's been a long journey but the City of Fresno Film Ordinance will be brought to the Fresno City Council on Tuesday, July 29th. It is scheduled as a timed item for 9:30 AM. That means it will be heard at or after 9:30 AM.

The Film Ordinance and Staff Report can be viewed on the City of Fresno website here.

Following is a portion from the Staff Report that notes the changes in the Film Ordinance from its previous version presented in February:

On February 26, 2008, the Fresno Film & Entertainment Commission (FFEC) presented the Fresno City Council with a previous version of this Film Ordinance. Council, at that time, expressed concerns in the areas of required insurance for student and small independent film productions.

With the assistance of the City Attorneys Office, this revised version of the Film Ordinance responds to Council's concerns by incorporating the following changes:

Student Filmmaking will be exempt from both the film permitting process and insurance requirements.

The "Rule of Three" has been expanded to the "Rule of 15." This revision greatly broadens the previous "Rule of Three" to include all productions of 15 people or fewer, providing they use handheld equipment and do not interfere with the general flow of the citizenry.

Two additional definitions, for "hand held devices" and "obstruction," have been added to the definition section of the ordinance to clarify elements of the "Rule of 15."

With the inclusion of these additional revisions the FFEC feels these steps meet the interests expressed by all parties.

Sincerely,

Ray

Swear I can never have too much alliteration...So this week I had the honor of being a special, special guest over at the Fresno Famous podcast, Flowing With Famous! I joined hosts Famous Whitewater & The Fresnan as we talk about Timmy T, Autry vs. Dyer cagematch, the upcoming awesomeness that is the Fresno Swede Festival & the state of the Fresno film community and how we united to slay the City Council dragon to save the princess (sorry about the analogy, Ray). Yup, good times. So take a break from editing that swede, head on over here, download it and take a gander and leave us some comments!

Here's the email I just received from Film Commissioner Ray Arthur:

During this morning's COF Budget Hearing, Councilmember Jerry Duncan withdrew his motion to defund the Fresno Film & Entertainment Commission. Councilmember Duncan requested additional information from the FFEC based on his previously stated concerns which we welcome the opportunity to provide. From this process we learned that if there's one area in which the FFEC needs to improve, its providing information to council. That will be a new top priority. The FFEC again would like to thank all those who supported the commission on this issue. Ray

And the adventure continues! Thanks to everyone that went out there on Tuesday and if you were able to make it today, please give us any details you might have.

Update: This comment was left on our original post regarding this FFC matter and give some more deatiled insight on what went down today. Thanks to Andy Hansen-Smith for the update and insight.

The Fresno City Council will vote on this budget motion on Thursday as well as 24 other motions to Mayor Autry's budget. Around 8-10 people voiced their concern over the de-funding of the Film Commissioner's position at today's council meeting. Hopefully this will help persuade the council to fund the position.

So after today, I have a new found respect for the members of the Fresno City Council. Man, they have to sit through some drawn out meetings filled with mindless banter, pay some meticulous attention and at the end of the day, make it all work. But I'm sure the high they get from serving the public need is what gets them through. But for Joe Public like myself, I could never make it through those meetings without catching a few Z's as other talk numbers and nonsense. Anyways, the meeting started around 2pm. Eventually, Chief Dyer and Bubba himself made cameos (Would anyone else besides me pay to see those two have a cage match for charity? Those two walk around with an stench of bad ass-ness). When 4:45pm came around, I had to leave and they had not yet reached the motion concerning the Fresno Film Commission. But before that, the council had asked for the public to voice there concerns with the upcoming budget and I was ecstatic to see how many people came out to support the Fresno Film Commission. Now I'm not a public speaker-type of guy or else I would have gone up and made my voice heard, plus when I did gather up the cajones to go up there, the guy that was up there made such an inspiring speech about public safety, the need for more police and referred to the whole Officer Nieto situation that me going up there and saying "Please keep Fresno making movies" seemed like a moot point. It was a cool experience to see the inside of the Puppet Masters spaceship for once and I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it back this Thursday at 8am when they resume for voting on the matter, but we'll try to keep you updated here. Once again, thanks to everyone who came out and if you were there and have pictures or video, please send us some links! We'd love to post them here.

Bullshit. That's seems to be all we're getting from our "leaders" that we pay to run our city. I can type away and list the ways our fine politicians have decided to slowly and systematically run this city into the ground. But in not very eloquent with words (as you can tell by the first word of this post) so I won't waste your time. Rather, I'm here to inform you about the latest idea out of the think tank that is the Fresno City Council: decommissioning the Fresno Film Commission. It seems like they plan to get rid of it and everyone involved. So what can you do to help stop this nonsense? Well, come by downtown city hall tomorrow, June 17th around 2pm (if you do go, try to get there before) as the council is voting on the budget around that time. Here's the email sent out by Ray Arthur, an overall good guy and head of the Film Commission:

An Email sent out by Ray Authur, Fresno Film Commissioner:
Many of you have asked, based on Councilmember Duncan's motion to defund the Fresno Film & Entertainment Commission, when the vote on the Commission's budget will occur. The budget motionvoting process is scheduled to begin at 2:00 PM, on Tuesday, June 17th, in the Council Chamber at City Hall.


I'm going to try my best to be out there and I really hope that those of you interested in keeping our film community growing here in Fresno can make it out there!