Two major announcements affecting the area’s film industry came within days of each other in early November.
 
The Wilmington City Council approved a grant of $400,000 in American Rescue Plan funds to finance a five-week workforce training program for up to 90 people who would like to learn a trade in the film industry.
 
And Hollywood Reporter announced that an independent fantasy adventure film starring Mel Gibson will begin production this month in Wilmington. The movie, Boys of Summer, will cap off what Wilmington Regional Film Commission Director Johnny Griffin calls “the biggest year in our history,” with an estimated spend by projects in the Wilmington area alone of about $350 million.
 
The two developments are closely related. With a high level of demand for new feature films, television shows and streamed content, and the soundstages and offices on the EUE/Screen Gems Wilmington lot are booked solid: just ask Executive Vice President Bill Vassar.
 
Wilmington-based film crews are stretched thin – there have been as many as 1,200-1,300 people working on local films daily recently, Griffin said.
 
Add to that the studios’ calls for a more diverse film workforce, and you have a clear need for a steady, well-trained pipeline of behind-the-scenes talent that looks more like the audiences the studios’ productions hope to capture. The rise of streamed content, with its hurry-up approach, has added impetus to expand the available talent.
 
“With (feature) movies, there are target opening dates the studios plan for; with television, you’re looking at spring or fall,” Vassar said. “With streaming services, it’s ‘When we finish this, we’ll stream it.’ Streaming is a whole new paradigm, and it’s not that predictable right now.”
 
Top officials in many studios have committed themselves to finding and hiring a more diverse workforce, according to Susi Hamilton, interim board chair for the newly formed Film Partnership of North Carolina, whose primary aim is to help people of many backgrounds, especially women and minorities, train for jobs in the industry.

Susi Hamilton (from left), Bill Vassar and Johnny Griffin work to help current productions and work on ways to attract new ones. (Photo by Michael Cline Spencer)

“Most film-related jobs are behind the scenes,” she said. “Traditionally – like any other trade, because most jobs are trade-oriented – those skills are handed down from generation to generation. So, the trade is a group that looks like each other. It’s time now to pull all interested parties to the table and give (lots of people) the opportunity to train for a rewarding career. The more hands-on the experience you offer, the better.”
 
Members of local 491 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) will be front and center of this initiative.
 
“We’re excited about it,” said Darla McGlamery, business agent for Local 491, which represents many craft film workers. “Netflix, Warner Brothers, Universal – they’re talking to us specifically about ‘let’s do better; let’s look more like the communities we work with.’ We’ve spent a lot of time at the bargaining table talking about this, and Wilmington is a great place to do it. Now there are financial opportunities.”
 
Since Wilmington’s program will pay participants $15 per hour to train, with the possibility of overtime pay if needed, the local film industry could attract people who could not otherwise afford to take time off to learn a new trade. Enrollees will be matched with seasoned professionals who will teach and mentor them, according to McGlamery. IATSE will manage the training.
 
“Our intent is to have passionate teachers who have been doing their crafts for 25-to-30-plus years. Maybe they are not polished professors, but they are consummate professionals,” she said, adding that the program does not require a college degree, but rather is looking to include people coming from a variety of backgrounds.
 
“If there are people out there who are just a tad bit creative, who have serious critical thinking skills, film and TV production is certainly a viable career option that they might not have had in the past,” she said. “If we don’t reach out, (the film trades) stay homogeneous.”
 
It’s not just film industry specialists, like grips and gaffers, that are needed as the work piles up in this region. Shortages extend to skills as diverse as accounting and welding, McGlamery said.
 
“We’ve lost a lot of accountants,” she said. “If you like working with numbers and can sit still, that’s a craft that’s in need. The entertainment industry is an odd bird; the hours are different; it’s not like working in a bank. Or you may have had welding in high school, and you’re able to fabricate. Those skill sets are invaluable. If you are willing to learn, you should be able to come into this industry.”
 
Trainees will also hear from local vendors, learning what small-and medium-sized businesses in the area provide for film projects. Some of the more specialized vendors – suppliers of cameras, lenses, props, sound grip and lighting, for example – have moved to larger hubs of film production such as Atlanta.
 
“It’s not uncommon to reach out to a (supplier) who is traveling to pick up stuff,” McGlamery said.
 
Brad Walker agrees that Wilmington now lacks as many outlets for rental of film-production equipment. Walker, co-owner of independent production studio Lighthouse Films, said his company was tempted to try and fill that void.
 
“We were really hustling to rent gear, but then asked ourselves: Who are we? We’re content creators,” he said. “So, equipment rental is only secondary. We continue to do it, but not at the expense of our people and our business.”
 
His wife and fellow Lighthouse Productions owner Andrea Walker said the company’s business model is a balancing act, since they want to support their colleagues in a tight-knit and mutually supportive film community but must also provide for their own needs.
 
“Our rule of thumb is that if our team is not using the equipment, we are happy to rent it to fellow filmmakers,” she said.
 
Another way Lighthouse supports the film community is with pass-throughs, in which the company acts as a local broker for out-of-state vendors of equipment and supplies.
 
“We charge a 4% markup so (projects) can qualify for the tax rebate,” Brad Walker said. “We’re doing that for four projects right now.”
 
If the Wilmington region needs to build a sustainable, diverse supply of film workers and find predictable sources of specialized equipment, is there also a shortage of filmmaking facilities? Andrea Walker thinks so.

(Students at GLOW Academy at the charter school's production studio through a digital media program started this year with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment. Photo courtsey of GLOW.)

“With the extensive filming going on in our area, we are in need of another studio,” she said. “This additional infrastructure will attract filmmakers to our area. This will also encourage up-and-coming filmmakers to remain in Wilmington instead of seeking opportunities in Atlanta, New York or Los Angeles.”
 
“More facilities would be great, and there is demand right now, but building another soundstage, for instance, is a risk,” Vassar said. He acknowledged that EUE/Screen Gems’ property could accommodate more facilities but added that his studio has not lost a production that has gone elsewhere because he couldn’t find space for them.
 
Local film officials also don’t plan to advocate for changes to the state’s grant-based film incentive. It’s attracting projects.
 
Boys of Summer represents the kind of small feature film that works very well with the current incentive, and there are still plenty of similar projects that prefer Wilmington to, say, Atlanta, Griffin said.
 
“We want to leave it alone and work it for a while,” he said. “The fact that the (funding) sunset provision has been removed, and that there’s stable funding for the incentive program, and that HB2 (the ‘Bathroom Bill’) has gone away, is all good. When we had HB2, Disney and Netflix wouldn’t come here. Now we’ve got a Disney series and several Netflix projects. They represent a total of about $200 million from companies that wouldn’t do business with us when we had the Bathroom Bill.”