Sunday, October 26, 2003

By Ron Weiskind, Post-Gazette Movie Editor

Yesterday's Steeltown Entertainment Summit at WQED-TV took the form of a TV talk show, complete with live band, featuring former Pittsburghers working in Hollywood who combined old-home week with an anecdotal primer on the business of television and movies.

The only big plans announced at the session came at the end from a member of the mostly invited audience of civic, political and business leaders.

With almost no time left for questions, the summiteers heard a potential answer to one of the roadblocks in their quest to create an entertainment production and education center here.

State Rep. Tom Stevenson, R-Mt. Lebanon, outlined two bills introduced in the legislature to create tax incentives for filmmakers working in the state. One would offer tax credits of 15 percent to 20 percent for productions that spend at least half their shooting days here and hire state residents for at least half their crew. The other would exempt producers from sales tax on direct and indirect expenses while shooting in Pennsylvania.

Movie producer Bernie Goldmann, formerly of Squirrel Hill, had spoken earlier in the proceedings about how other states and countries have enacted similar legislation. "Canada built a film industry using tax incentives," he said.

Director George Romero, who made his most recent film in Canada after shooting his other movies in Pittsburgh, said the movie's $5 million budget was worth half again as much north of the border.

Summit participants agreed that the region must be economically competitive to lure filmmakers here. But their goals for Pittsburgh primarily aim toward developing indigenous talent and resources, educating them about how the industry works and using their clout in Hollywood to nurture potential projects.

The Summit was the first part of a weekend that also included a party last night at the Andy Warhol Museum and a private meeting of the participants today to brainstorm ideas for their initial projects.

Maxine Lapiduss, a writer and producer of prime-time television series and a co-founder of the Steeltown Entertainment Project, served as the summit's mistress of ceremonies. She introduced and interviewed the guests as TV cameras recorded the event, which will be the subject of a WQED-TV special next month.

The proceedings began with clips from "Pittsburgh: Hollywood's Best Kept Secret," a documentary by former Pittsburgher Laura Davis, in which many of the day's participants (and a few who didn't make the trip) talked about how the city helped shape their creative impulses and about using it as an incubator for talent and material.

In the live portion of the show, guests talked about how they got started in the business and what their jobs entail.

Sitcom producer Jamie Widdoes told how he soaked up performances (and rain) at the Three Rivers Arts Festival when his mother, Babs, ran it. Lapiduss, her sister Sally (also a TV writer) and agent-manager Eric Gold spoke of getting the show-biz spark by watching and meeting entertainers at the old Holiday House, where their mothers worked -- one as a performer, one on the banquet staff.

"We got to see three shows a night. We saw how jokes were written and what live performance was like," Sally Lapiduss said. "There's no place like that in Pittsburgh now."

Nor, she said, is there a school here where "they have people in the business who are teaching." Steeltown envisions workshops in which Hollywood regulars would do just that.

Actor David Conrad, starring in the network series "Miss Match," acknowledged that he's purchased a loft in the Strip District as a kind of getaway from Hollywood. Jack Smith, executive producer of the TV soap "The Young and the Restless," said the show shoots exteriors in Pittsburgh for less than it could in Los Angeles and added that writers for the show could live here -- he has staff in Illinois, North Carolina and Arizona.

"The ideas you guys have of getting some kind of program going, with a training element and developing material with Pittsburgh content -- everyone's looking for it, something to put their place on the map," Romero said.

Don Marinelli, head of Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center, explained its three basic functions: education, research and entrepeneurialism. "Pittsburgh is home, and I'd like to see them stay here," he said of his students. Steeltown organizers see Marinelli's outfit as a place where Hollywood animated features and special effects could be done.

"You have to market to Hollywood aggressively," said Eric Gold, who manages the career of movie superstar Jim Carrey, among others. "You've got to tell the story of the technology, the town, the cost savings and you've got to keep doing it. It has to be aggressive, with a great presentation, and face-to-face."

Others participating in the panels were Rob Marshall, director of the Academy Award-winning movie "Chicago"; Carl Kurlander, a screenwriter and University of Pittsburgh visiting professor and co-founder of Steeltown; Terri Minsky, creator of TV's "Lizzie McGuire"; and Peter Ackerman, who wrote the animated movie "Ice Age."

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