Three movies, cable TV series drop plans to film in Minnesota
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Three movies and a cable TV series have dropped plans to film in Minnesota, blaming the end of a state rebate program.
“That’s a $66 million loss” of money that would have been spent in the state, said Craig Rice, executive director of the Minnesota Film and TV Board.
“These were films we had worked hard to get here,” Rice said.
Those productions had counted on the “snowbate,” an incentive to filmmakers that Gov. Tim Pawlenty suspended in January in a round of emergency cuts.
Now, as Pawlenty proposes to end its public funding, the film board is fighting for its existence.
“Officially, we’re alive, but we’re on life support,” Rice said recently.
Because the board is partly supported by private grants and donations, it wouldn’t disappear, said Rice, but its office would be reduced “to a couple of people who answer questions on the phone” instead of actively drumming up business.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Jingle All the Way,” the “Mighty Ducks” movies, “Grumpy Old Men” and its sequel and Tim Allen’s “Joe Somebody” are among the productions the film board has lured to Minnesota.
“We were in the running for ‘Dreamcatcher’ for a while,” Rice said of the Stephen King thriller. “They ended up going to Canada. But there are a lot of films that are not as big that we could attract.”
Indianapolis reviews questions about rap, possible racism
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Mayor Bart Peterson has asked a task force to examine claims that some nightclubs in a northside neighborhood discriminate against blacks by agreeing to limit when rap music can be played.
“I’m concerned because there is a suggestion that not everybody is welcome in Broad Ripple,” Peterson said recently. “If that is the perception of some people, then it is an issue we should examine.”
The Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee, a civic group formed in the 1960s to promote unity and community growth, will address the concern that some club owners in the Broad Ripple neighborhood made a pact to avoid hip-hop parties on weekends.
The concern began when J.Y.’s, a dance club formerly known as Eden, drew criticism from other bar owners for hosting hip-hop parties on weekends.
Peterson said the task force will investigate whether a ban on hip-hop is observed by club owners, and whether it has “the effect of segregating the community.” The committee is expected to begin work within two weeks.
The same group examined police-community relations at Peterson’s request following complaints at Indiana Black Expo last July.
Some neighborhood leaders and business owners have denied accusations of racism but criticized J.Y.’s for its music.
Heinz History Center breaks ground on $27 million expansion
PITTSBURGH (AP) – The Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center broke ground on a $27 million addition that will house traveling exhibits from the Smithsonian Institution and a regional sports museum.
The five-story, 50,000-square-foot addition will give the museum about 195,000 square feet of space, and should be completed by fall 2004.
Andrew Masich, president of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, which runs the 7-year-old museum, said the space is needed because of the partnership with the Smithsonian.
The addition also will house the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, an education center and a theater. One floor of the addition will be dedicated to ethnic exhibits.
Ground was broken Monday.
Nearly 80 percent of the cost of the project already has been raised from state grants, federal grants and donations from individuals, corporations and foundations. The group hopes to raise the rest from the public by selling time capsules that will be sealed into a wall of the addition.
The expansion will be topped by a tower and logo to make the building, located in an old warehouse area known as the Strip District, easier to find. Museum officials say that’s a common complaint.
