The Lions win and Screenwriting in Michigan

The Lions won today in dramatic fashion. It came down to literally no time on the clock and one play to win the game. And what's that have to do with screenwriting and the entertainment industry? Everything and nothing. Most likely everything if you live in the state and nothing if you live elsewhere. For those of you who don't happen to be sports fans, the Lions have won two games in two years. And Detroit's baseball team missed their chance for a trip to the playoffs and World Series on the last day of the season after being in first place nearly the entire season.

About 30 of my 47 years have been spent living in the state. Living through many years of economic woes and too much bad news takes its toll on me and everyone else, especially in the past year or two. When there is good news, people get excited at hearing something other than news of another lost job, home, marriage or other tragedy. Like the Lions' win today, people tend to have a positive reaction about Michigan's film incentive program.

Some of my friends and acquaintances ask me about the tax incentive program and usually know more about it. There's been a continual assault on the program from politicians to gut it, cut it or abandon it. Most of the time, my friends know much more about the recent news than I do.

I'm a bit ashamed to say that I gave up on following it. Why? Because it was more bad news all the time, and I just couldn't stand more negative on top of all the other bad news. But I've managed to crank out a couple scripts that might qualify for the state's tax incentive program and would actually benefit the state. Somehow I needed to believe that the scripts could stand on their own merits without the state's incentives.

I just couldn't bring myself to write the letters and push for the incentives when any potential benefit would be personal. If you were one of many people working hard to keep Michigan's film incentive program in place, I thank you very much. Hopefully one of the scripts I've written or will write can benefit the state by being filmed here. My last two in a row could do just that. Hopefully there are more people out there writing scripts that could be filmed in the state and benefit the state at the same time.