APPARENTLY… AND THEY LIKE TO ANNOUNCE THINGS

I was shocked, shocked I say, to find out that South Carolina could soon become the “Hollywood of the South.” That’s providing state legislators have their way. Which they always do.

Members of the House and industry leaders made an announcement yesterday that they were announcing their plans to announce a “major announcement about the film industry in South Carolina” today. Wait, I think I have a few too many announcements in there. Anyway, the plan is to to revamp the industry by changing the original film incentives passed by the General Assembly that attracted ten major film productions and had a multi-million dollar impact on South Carolina.

Those incentives were last altered last summer by the Department of Commerce, and since that time we have maintained one television series and attracted one new film. After doing some crack research, The Palmetto Scoop has learned that said one film was not one of the “brilliant” movies to win an Oscar Award on Sunday; all of which I had never heard of because none of them played in a theater withing 100 miles of this state.

Because there weren’t enough announcements being made, the University of South Carolina Business School also announced that it too would be announcing the results of an economic impact study they conducted on the films our state attracted under the original film incentives. That announcement will be made along with House Speaker Bobby Harrell, Members of the House, Film Producers, and Representatives from both the State and Local Chambers of Commerce at 1 p.m. in the 2nd Floor Lobby of the State House.

Now, we already have a Hollywood in this state, but with a population of less than 4,000 and a poverty level above 30 percent, I’m not sure that would be an ideal place. Or maybe that makes it the perfect place. After all, the real Hollywood was basically a desert 80 years ago, kind of like our Hollywood is today. Only, substitute “desert” with “swamp.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Legislature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.