R. Castell started the meeting by introducing our newest member. Mr. Bo Taff who will replace Lucia Fishburne who was an ex-officio member of this council. Mr. Taff serves as manager for the Aviation/Aerospace and Modeling, Simulation and Training Systems technology sectors at Enterprise Florida, Inc., a partnership between Florida's government and business leaders.

R. Castell motioned for the minutes of the last meeting to be accepted.

Hollis Batchelor stated that he had a correction to the minutes. He was not present at the last FFAC meeting as stated in the minutes, but he would like to have his absents excused due to pneumonia.

R. Castell motion on the minutes.

M. Hinton & L. Kelchak seconded that the minutes be accepted.

Motion carried.

R. Castell asked if there was any old business. R. Mattingly stated that we are still waiting for the Speaker (Tom Feeney) to appoint someone to replace Robert Hutchinson from Alachua County.

R. Mattingly stated that this time last year, just from a calendaring perspective was when the group not only nominated its Chair and Vice-Chair, but also created its By-Laws, which is why it is on the agenda.

P. Cotton moved to keep Ron Castell as Chair, and Paul Meena as Vice-Chair of the Florida Film Advisory Council if they were willing to accept for another term.

J. Peel second the motion.

There was no discussion, so the motion to keep Ron Castell and Paul Meena in their present offices as Chair and Vice Chair of the Advisory Council was passed.

Hollis Batchelor gave us an overview of the Film Florida meeting that took place in Tallahassee on February 8, 2001. Film Florida now has assets in place sufficient enough to completely retire debts from the 2000 Conference by September/October 2001, and enough assets in place to retire all outstanding bills.

A motion was passed in the Film Florida meeting that Film Florida was going to acknowledge the policies that the Board had accepted back in June, and they were not going to try to seek any contract with the State to have anything to do with the office out in Los Angeles. Further stated that the OFC is going to be able to do a good enough job with that, or any other field office outside of Florida. All of Film Florida's constituent film commissioners around the state feel very comfortable with that arrangement.

P. Meena discussed the need to convene all of the heads of the films school throughout the state in a room in a meeting to dialogue and maintain a connection with industry and the FFAC Education Committee.

R. Mattingly stated that former FFAC member L. Fishburne, who was very much a part of FIFE, maintained the dialogue among public and private film schools and programs at the university and community college level. R. Mattingly stressed the need for continued dialogue. With people like Mr. Keating from FSU and Dr. Don on the board, there are some links within this body that connect us really close to those in education. We are also seeking to include someone from Workforce Florida on FFAC, so there's another link. I think the links are in place and my recommendation is not to suggest the creation of a new group.

J. Peel mentioned that he and Dr. Don suggest having all the schools come together and have one meeting about the educational issues, and how can we help them, and how can they help us. Going after their graduates and their alumni who are out in the industry and may be in positions of power that could bring them back in. Three key people are Professors Fielding, Sterling Van Waganen and Paul Lazarus. Jeff suggested that this be explored with our Education committee and our Film Commission with the help of Vice Chair, Paul Meena.

R. Castell motioned for a recap and discussion of the first industry breakfast with Governor. R. Grimm made the suggestion that maybe we should send the Governor Thank you notes. R. Castell thought that it would be a good idea if everyone would email the Governor at (Jeb@Jeb.org) to let him know that we appreciated him having us and giving the industry an opportunity to talk about our issues with him.

R. Mattingly stated that she has spoken with the Governor on occasions about two main issues that need our attention based on direct feedback from our customers in our market research. One is definitely our labor-relations issues and this body should decide how we are going to sit down and have a meeting of the minds, not only with the union leadership in this state but also those who drive the decisions that happen to live in other places like Maryland. The other key issue is being able to provide the best customer service at the local level. R. Mattingly stated that the FFAC need to take the lead in fixing the industry labor problems (IATSE, Teamsters, etc.)

R. Mattingly stated that she has given the Film Florida Labor Council everything that have asked for, have sat and discussed in several meetings what the problems, have asked for cooperation in coming up with solutions, and has not gotten any feedback or reciprocity. Issues such as the disparity in rates for Florida in the IATSE Southeast Agreement put Florida at a competitive disadvantage. The rates for all other states in the Southeast Agreement are the same; however, Florida's rates are on par with Maryland, which is a higher rate.

A question was raised in reference to the Southeast Agreement. B. Allen stated that the Southeast Agreement is (to his understanding) very narrow in scope, and it applies to the major studios in agreement with IA, it does not necessarily apply to independent producers coming to this area.

R. Castell suggested that a good thing to do would be to draw up a list of what issues need to be addressed with each union, and then contact leaders of those unions and let them discuss it, and then let us discuss it as a labor council on a whole. R. Castell also stated that it is not fair to keep blaming and saying labor is responsible for these problems, because that's not always true. Labor is there to increase the professionalism of the industry.

H. Batchelor agreed both with what R. Mattingly stated, as well as with what R. Castell stated.

B. Allen stated that the legal experts in the field need to be a part of anything we do in terms of labor relations.

R. Mattingly provided an overview of the meeting between she and Ron Castell, Paul Meena on January 9, 2001 to discuss the marketing research feedback and how it should be communicated to the industry.

R. Castell stated that the problems that came out of the research were:

• Florida needs to improve Labor relations
• Florida needs to improve Film Commission customer service.

First item to address is the lack of/poor/inconsistent service and support that our film commissions provide to industry. Suggestion was to establish an annual professional development program for film officers, their direct reports and supervisors around the state. Suggest to start with a seminar from a total customer service perspective facilitated by a recognized expert in the field who can share the knowledge and then help us to develop our own action plans that we can all work together to improve. Maybe we can develop an ad hoc committee to look at this daylong annual seminar.

P. Meena stated that help should be given to get the information out in a more time efficient manner. Let the little town with the smaller budget call the people with the larger budget to assist them. Stated that we need to know of which film offices want to play, and which ones do not. P. Meena further stated that none of them answers to the FFAC/OFC, so of those who choose not to participate they should be cut off.

R. Mattingly stated that film office standards of operation needs should be established.

J. Peel wanted to know what the incentive was for local film offices to establish any standard or work with the FFAC/OFC? Is it not sending them leads? Is it providing funding for operations, programs etc. as a motivation?

R. Mattingly stated for the record that the OFC is a state government entity that fully complies to the Sunshine Laws for open records.

Gail Patterson, Spelling Television (public comment) stated that what worked for her was actually seeing Florida and experiencing it. Suggested that there are two things that drive a production decision: emotion and money. Emotion = if it's in the script or if the location is something that the producer/director wants. Money = can they afford it. The need is incentives. Suggest that we promote Florida's beaches because we have some of the best in the world.

R. Castell asked Ms. Patterson if a FAM was something that needed to be put on the table, as a means to provide direct service to customers.

G. Patterson continued that getting folks to commit to the time out of the office/from work would be difficult. She has never personally been on a FAM.

J. Peel stated that a FAM works.

C. Eldered (public comment) stated that a FAM tour would be a great eye-opener. There is a wealth of information that can be given through a FAM. His film commission has hosted several successful FAMs that have resulted in business.

H. Batchelor stated that next Film Florida's next meeting would be held in June in Orlando and the possibility of having this type of film commissioner seminar that would really be good at that time.

P. Meena motioned that we go with the idea of putting together a seminar.

R. Mattingly seconded.

The motion carried.

P. Meena brought up the concept of a leadership meeting of labor union leaders in Florida and out of Florida (national) would be a great idea to address the labor issues. Get the leaders of the locals and the internationals, if we can, in a room so that we can do a camaraderie first and foremost and let them know that there's a valuable relationship that we have to maintain, and we want to identify shared interests and benefit and then identify non-shared interests and benefit and hope to come away with something.

R. Castell asked H. Batchelor to address the labor issue and report back to the FFAC with an action plan to implement this labor leader group meeting.

H. Batchelor agreed.

R. Grimm provided an overview of the issues. We can look to both Senator Crist and probably Senator Sanders to sponsor the OFC governance issues (name change, trust fund, Rural/Urban Job Tax Credit eligibility). We can look to Representative Allen, who has already stated that he would file a bill on our behalf, on the House side to do the same. The governance issue are to change the name, allow us to utilize the trust fund in the Governor's Office to raise money from public and private sources, to add a person from Workforce Florida to the FFAC, and the SIC Code, Standard Industrial Code for rural and urban job tax credits which is a five million dollar pot of money that can be utilized towards assisting and development of businesses in those corresponding areas.

J. McDonald (public comment) stated that Representative Allen's bill is House Bill 379.

The remainder of the discussion centered on requesting additional funds in the FY 01-02 budget, given the Governor's initiative to cut each agency's budget by 5% over five years a point in which R. Mattingly stated does affect the Film Commission.

M. Hinton motioned to adopt the final OFC 2001 Legislative package with the budget as top priority.

T. Hall seconded.

Motion carried.

L. Klechek mentioned an article that he'd read on the importance and value of NATPE to the major television studios/buyers. He mentioned that he attended NATPE with his local film commissioner, Todd Roobin. He felt that NAPTE went very well; however, he also wanted to make available the article that he'd read on what the major studio/buyers think of NATPE and how many of them have suggested pulling out of the show entirely.

C. Elderd (public comment) requested to address this issue. C. Elderd stated that he had a very interesting discussion yesterday with some local film producers from the State of Florida who were excited about participating in next year's NAPTE. Film Florida is going to try to expand in this area, so that not only are we going to be going out and trying to market the State of Florida as a great place to film, but to actually get some of the cooperation and participation of our local producers and provide a venue for them to be able to sell their product at some of these film markets.

C. Elderd also mentioned that an interesting proposal that came to the table yesterday during Film Florida's meeting, that we're going to be working on through Film Florida and with the state film office is an initiative to put our arms around those Florida graduates who have moved out to Los Angeles.

J. Peel mentioned that other states have done very successful campaigns to create a camaraderie communications program and annual events to capture their film school graduates, and we have done, in the Miami-Dade Film Office. Last years event was quite successful, and it's amazing to see where some of those graduates have ended up through their careers in LA - in very significant positions of power within the industry. J. Peel added that those people are predisposed to like Florida, and they're predisposed to come back and shoot in Florida. He thinks that if we can create a consortium that pulls together the Florida State program, and the UCF program along with the UM program and perhaps other and create an annual event in Los Angeles.

R. Mattingly provided overview of Florida's first aggressive marketing campaign directly to independent producers at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Our mission was to educate and entertain filmmakers and companies with films in the festival. There were some opportunities to close a business. It was certainly an effort for us to say Florida respects and values independent film, because we had independent films, and they were at your festival, and they were successful. There were a number of other state film offices that attended or participated in the festival.

P. Meena stated that Universal was on board to serve as one of the sponsors of this event. He further stated that the event was operated via Film Florida, as a private, not for profit organization that has greater flexibility in raising funds fur such efforts

Paul brought up Film Florida's legislator reception. It was a good first effort for this industry to have a higher profile event in Tallahassee. It's something he thinks that Film Florida is probably committed to do on an annual basis.

Discussion of the next FFAC meeting schedule was placed on the table. R. Mattingly stated that Film Florida's next meeting will be held the first couple of weeks in June and we would like to have our meeting around the same time as their meeting. R. Castell stated that at the next meeting we would decide on the meeting dates for the remainder of the year.

Motion was made & seconded for adjournment.

Meeting Adjourned at 12:30pm.

**There was one correction to minutes from the previous Florida Film Advisory Council meeting. Hollis Batchelor was excused from the last meeting due to pneumonia.