MiFIA, FMA, GVSU Collaborate on Impact of Multimedia Jobs Act & Tech Industry
Ways the Jobs Act Benefits Students, Encourages Employee Attraction, Retention
Left to Right Bottom Row: Amanda Clouse Studio Coordinator; Julie Goldstein, GVSU Associate Professor, Students Emma Koppers, Saud Alomar and Alliyah Masterson. Top Row: Colton Phiscator, Creative Director, Ideology; Josh Ralya, Principal Owner, Ideology; Students Hunter Sutton and Jovan Hodo II; Victor Joaquin, Talent Program Manager, The Right Place; Geoff George, Education Outreach, MiFIA; Deb Havens, Chair, FMA Board of Directors.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ALLENDALE, Mich. – Grand Valley State University’s cutting-edge futureEDlab welcomed an array of legislators, educators, and current and future film professionals Monday, Aug. 5, for a Michigan Film Industry Association outreach event highlighting the opportunities the Michigan Multimedia Jobs Act (MJA) affords students.
Currently pending in the state House of Representatives, the MJA is a bipartisan piece of legislation that will add Michigan to the ranks of states (currently 41) that offer multimedia production incentives. Monday’s event was well attended. Rep. Carol Glanville was joined by representatives from the offices of Rep. Rachel Hood and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks. Deborah Havens, chairperson of the Film and Media Alliance of West Michigan, presented, as did local industry job creators Dave Lowing of Lowing Studios and Josh Ralya of Ideology Productions and Golden Hour Studios.
MIFIA Education Outreach Committee Chair Geoff George, an event organizer, gave opening remarks outlining how the MJA stands to supercharge the careers of multimedia students across the state.
George’s advocacy comes from a personal place. A native Michigander and a cinematographer by trade, George recalls the leg up the film incentive program in place in Michigan from 2008-2015 gave his career after graduating from the University of Michigan.
“I started working in productions that were coming to Michigan as a result of the incentive program, and I worked my way up through the industry very quickly,” George said. “It provided me with amazing opportunities.
“Instead of going to Los Angeles or New York and being a small fish in a huge pond, I got to stay in my home state and quickly advance my career.”
The MJA is an improvement over the old rebate system, “fixing a lot of the problems the old program had,” George said.
Unlike the rebate system, the MJA does not require the state to directly issue money. Instead, it creates transferable tax credits, which do not add to budget expenditures and stay in the state. Additionally, the MJA’s incentives are not limited to major multi-market film productions. It also covers commercials, industrial training films and commercial photography, which, George says, “is where a lot of new students start out.”
“With the MJA incentivizing these types of productions, there will be a lot of entry-level productions for students and recent graduates to join.”
The centerpiece of Monday’s event was a tour of GVSU’s futureEDlab. The sparkling facility, which opened in Fall 2023, is the beating heart of the university’s technology education curricula. Julie Goldstein, a
GVSU Associate Professor of film and video, walked event attendees through an interdisciplinary program which allows students from different areas of study to collaborate on a variety of multimedia projects, including film, video game design, augmented or virtual reality and more. A group of five GVSU students demonstrated various aspects of the lab, such as a tool allows students to quickly create 3-D models with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
After the tour, a roundtable discussion centered on how to incorporate technology into the multimedia job landscape. Rep. Glanville expressed her strong support for the MJA, noting afterwards that “legislation to support film and video incentives” in combination with advances in technology like those on display at the futureEDlab “will help take us to the next level.”
To learn more about the MJA, visit: https://mifia.org/multimedia-jobs-act-details.