Thursday, January 28, 2010
Reprinted from the The Valley Press - In the News
By Sloan Brewster - Staff Writer
The Farmington Valley Film
Commission will use its website to
market area towns to filmmakers.
The website, which is already
partially up and running, will be officially launched on Feb. 4.
"Members of the commission believe the countryside of towns like
Farmington, Simsbury, Canton,
Avon, Granby, East Granby and
New Hartford is appealing and
would make for beautiful sets for
films. Bringing filmmakers to the
area would, in turn, be good for
local businesses,"
said commission
co-founder Nancy Anstey.
“People have not come down to
this neck of the woods,” Anstey
said. “Liz [Banco] and I feel there’s
a lot here to offer.”
In order to draw them here,
Anstey, who is the director of the
Farmington Valley Visitors Association, and Elizabeth Banco, co-chair of the Simsbury Tourism
Committee, founded the commission. The idea is to make information about what is available in the
area accessible to filmmakers.
They have been doing so already
for two years, funneling the information through the visitors association.
Now, there are 30 volunteers
helping with different facets of the
operation.
“Let’s say you want a bucolic
landscape,” said Steve Emirzian,
who does publicity for the commission. “You can ask, ‘What farms do
you have in Simsbury that have a
red barn?”’
Then, based on the answers, that
farm with the red barn could become the set for the next television
series set in New England and, low
and behold, local businesses, such
as coffee shops, restaurants and hotels start to boom.
The website will make the information that much more easily
reachable. Now, filmmakers will
log on, scroll through choices and
find exactly what they require. Or
so the theory goes.
For local media people and local
merchants, the website will mean
being able to access an online database known as the production
guide, Emiizian said.
Artists, actors, writers and anyone in the industry will be able to
have their information posted online, so if and when a production
comes to town, they will be able to
gain employment or, “at the very
least, volunteer on some really exciting projects.”
For local merchants, it will mean
an increase in revenue anytime a
TV show, movie or commercial
comes to town.
“Data supports that restaurants,
hotels and transportation services
see a boost in revenue whenever
productions come to their towns,”
he said.
Although Connecticut has its
own official film commission, it’s
not unusual to have satellite offices
- which is what the Valley com-
mission is considered - around the
state that focus on specific towns,
Emiizian said.
“In the days before the Internet,
a production company would call
the Connecticut Film Office, ask for
a specific location or service and a
location manager would go and
take pictures and overnight the information back to the production
company,” said Anstey. “These
days, a producer can be anywhere
in the world and just log on to our
website and find whatever he or she
needs with minimal focus.”
Commission volunteers want to
make it clear that local retailers, industry people and specialty merchants are all welcome to sign up
and have their businesses listed free
of charge in the online production
guide, which will one day be
printed in hard copy as well, Emirzian said.
In addition, he added, local
media professionals who call the
seven core towns of the Farmington Valley home, will want to sign
up for the possibility of employment or volunteer work when a
production comes to town.
It’s our hope that people from
the area will be hired first,” Anstey
said. “A recent college grad with a
degree in TV production or a freelance videographer or actor looking
to pick up some extra work - these
are the types of people we’re looking for."
Small productions have come to
the area before, Anstey said. ESPN
did some filming at Tulmeadow
Farms in Simsbury.
But there have also been failed
attempts to bring filmmakers to
town. When the movie “Once
More, with Feeling,” was being
made Anstey received calls about
empty stores and lodging, but in the
end, producers took the production
to Middletown.
While no big budget movies
have come to the Valley, there have
been microbudget productions and
a couple of television commercials,
Emirzian said.
The website will be officially
launched Thursday, Feb. 4 at 6 p.m.
at a party at Murphy & Scarletti’s
in Farmington. Anyone interested
who wants to be part of the commission production or industry
guide and anyone who wants to see
the website is welcome to attend.
For more information on volunteering with the commission or to
be listed on the websites online
database, go to www.farmingtonvalleyfilm.org or visit the ‘friends
of the Farmington Valley Film
Commission " at Facebook.com.
