Reel to Real: Filmmaking in the Upper Midwest with Shari Marshik

Welcome to On Production presented by Wrapbook. Today, I'm joined by Shari, the founding partner and executive director of the Upper Midwest Film Office with over two decades of experience driving business results through marketing strategy and product management, Shari has played a pivotal role in boosting the creative economy in her region. Under her leadership, the Film Office has produced and projected a local economic impact of over $4 million in just its first year. And today, you know, Sherry's here to share insights from the evolving landscape of regional film production and the impact of community based projects. Shari, it's great to have you with us. We've been able to chat with people who have led film programs in really, really big film states. And it's really exciting to kind of dig into small programs and understand for our production audience, the benefits, the trade offs, the exciting opportunities in different types of regions and places. So thanks for being here.

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1:15  

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

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1:17  

Alright. Well, Shari, can you begin by telling me about the Upper Midwest Film Office and its role in promoting film in the region. How is it sort of influenced local economies?

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1:26  

Yeah, so my business partner and I co founded UMFO. We call it UMFO because it's a big, long name in 2020 uh, Ricky McManus has been in this business for a very long time. Her first film was purple rain. And so she's been around for a long, long time and has immense experience. And I kind of got in this. I came in from the side through a local festival. Um, he said, Yeah, you know you could, you should meet Ricky, and we decided to create a non profit. So we're a standalone, independent non profit, which many regional offices are, and what we do is to help usher in projects into the local economy. And as we said, it's extremely lucrative for a project to come into small towns or rural areas or places that got it. It doesn't have to be anywhere in the state, actually, but when they come in, it's an injection of outside cash that wouldn't have come otherwise. And so one of the things that we have done over the last couple of years has helped the greater community understand how the the production industry is just like manufacturing, except for that, the great thing about it is that it nests with other industries, like tourism, like hospitality, like rental, all of those things that happen on a production. And when you can kind of help people outside of the production world understand what happens on a production, they see it differently, as a manufacturing industry that is actually really coming in and helping those dollars stay here and not go elsewhere. And so it's been an incredible ride, and we have done a lot in the state with the help of a lot of people. This is a it takes a village to make this happen, and so we've been really excited about that.

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3:07  

Shari, let me ask you this. So for our audience, a lot of producers, a lot of people that actually are creating films all over the world. If I said to them, like, Hey, you really need to check out the upper Midwest. What is that? How should they be thinking about it?

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3:21  

Yeah, well, they should check out the Upper Midwest, but we specifically serve northern Minnesota, Northwest Wisconsin. But Minnesota in general, is coming back on the scene when they haven't been a very, very, very long time ago, Minnesota had the very first incentives and had a very prolific film passed, and then Canada came in with their incentives, and all that business went to Canada. And so Minnesota is back on the scene. We now have, right now, I think, because of the strikes, we have about $50 million in tax credits, and there will be more. So we have a great transferable tax credit program. And then we have incentives in northern Minnesota that are very also look that are stackable, that are super lucrative for projects. So the reason why we want you to look at us is, one, it makes sense for you to make your project here because of the incentives that are. We believe some of the best and best in the world, actually. And two, because these are uncharted locations, right? They've not been shot before, because we haven't had this kind of an industry here in Minnesota. And furthermore, we think that we do things in a way that is really great. There are a lot of really great places to shoot in the United States, and we want people to shoot in the United States and keep their prep, their business here, but we think northern Minnesota is kind of special for a lot of different reasons.

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4:37  

Let's dig into that. So, I mean, you sort of whispered like, Hey, I think that the incentives here are some of the best in the world. Let's dig into that. And then I'd also just to love other sort of unique advantages. You feel it offers to productions.

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4:51  

So incentives are the real deal. Here we have a state transferable tax credit that we talked about earlier, and those there's. Market for those credits, because Minnesota is a great state to do business in, and so that in itself is is great. But in northern Minnesota, in order for it to make sense, for you to make your project, here we have stackable cash rebates, so and there are instances where you can say up to 75% and that is true, and that does happen, we would never say that you'll get 75% back on your whole project, because, of course, you're not, but that is for any of the lines, hotels, rentals, your equipment rentals, your cars, any of your production expenses, you can save up to 75% and many of those lines, we have that infrastructure here that you can sign and save on. Of course, the one thing everybody's going to ask us about is crew, and we do have a really experienced crew in Minnesota. Not all of them are up north. Hence the reason why we need to have those incentives to make it make sense for you. So I always say the devil's in the details, but we do have really, really great incentives here, and we have had a couple of producers figure it out, just keep coming back and coming back. And what we really want to do is expand that and and have have more producers figure it out. Because they're, they're really, are great, you

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6:16  

know, outside of the incentive, and the incentive is a big, a big motivator, of course, but you know, you mentioned some of the unique locations that you feel like. It's sort of an underdeveloped region in terms of storytelling, which is out of advantageous to filmmakers telling stories. There are there other unique advantages that you feel like the region offers to productions? Yes,

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6:35  

I think one of the things that people don't recognize, is that northern Minnesota has four seasons. It's not just winter here. So we have a beautiful summer season here. The locations are really the thing that make people stop and go, Wow. So we sit in Duluth, Minnesota. We sit at the corner of Lake Superior, which is the largest fresh body, freshwater body of water. Boy, that was hard for me to say. That doubles very easily for the ocean. And so when you're sitting in Duluth, you can turn the cameras around, and you can be in a city and have a hustle bustle city scene. And then you can company move three miles, which takes, maybe, if the bridge is up, 10 minutes, to get to a lake. And so you can have our little tagline as you can be everywhere, all at once. You can be at the ocean, you can be in the city. You can be we have small towns that have amazing, amazing sort of, it's a snapshot from the 70s and 80s that are truly small towns. We have mining as a really big resource. And when you look at that, you're like, are we on Earth? Are we on Mars? Because you have these big mines that are just sort of very lunar scape, kind of, and so we, and we have had some relationships with those mines in order to be able to be able to have projects shoot in some of those locations. So from small town to really super thick forest to mountains there, the North Shore of Minnesota is very mountainous. We certainly don't claim that they're mountains, but we do have significant elevation, and then that sort of evergreen forest kind of thing, and then we have small ponds and really great water. So if you're thinking about the story, what we get, these people ask us all the time, I need a small town. I need a small town on the edge of the woods. I need a cabin in the woods that is, that is kind of scary and doesn't have anything around it. Well, we got plenty of that. We got plenty of forest. We got so you can see that there's just a lot of different ways that you can tell stories here that have uncharted territory that haven't shown up on the screen yet.

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8:56  

That's awesome. So like, you know, you just mentioned an interesting example of a location that a filmmaker might be really interested in, like a mine, but those can oftentimes be challenging for a producer to get their arms around and actually get on location. Can you share an insight on how the Upper Midwest build office really collaborates with local governments, businesses and other stakeholders to support film projects that come to the region? Listen,

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9:19  

my business partner's name is Ricky McManus, and she, as I said, has been in the business for a really long time. And we joke, but it's not untrue. She knows everybody, or she's at least two degrees from everybody. That's part of being in northern Minnesota, right? So she knows everybody. Now we can't guarantee that we're going to get you into an active mine. That's not a realistic expectation, but what we can do is connect you with people. And this happened on a recent Scout where we started talking to somebody, talking to somebody who worked at a particular place, who used to be in South Africa, and they shot Mad Max, and so he understood what it was like to have a project shoot on a location, and what that would mean. And. Kind of clearances that would mean and what would make sense and what wouldn't make sense. And so I think that really honestly, at the heart of it, it's about communication and collaboration and having a relationship with your community where they trust that you have the best interest of the community at heart. And I think that really is one of the things that we do very well. At info, we answer the phone, we help you, kind of say we're a concierge. Listen producers have a lot of choices. They there's a lot a place that has a lot more experienced crew. So if they, if we don't offer something that makes you say, Whoa, I want to shoot there. It's it's not going to work. So customer service is our number one sort of thing that we think about, and just continuously nurturing those relationships. Film is new to a lot of people. They don't understand what it means to have somebody shoot in their location. We want to also want those people to be happy too, right? So we want the producers to be happy when they come but we also want location owners to be happy, and we need location owners to be protected and for them not to be taken advantage of, and all of those things. And so it's a that's our role at the film office, I think, is to make sure that we're communicating and once we hand it off, you know, we aren't the location managers, we aren't the scouts. We aren't doing that, but we do offer resources. We do offer information. We do try to help continue those conversations, to make sure that people who aren't really familiar with the industry think about the things that they need to think about.

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11:35  

That's fantastic. Are there any successful projects that you're particularly proud of that you've been able to help facilitate

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11:42  

we have had, well, there have been a lot in Minnesota. I mean, North Country was shot up here, and that was sort of way before my time. But there's a cool story about that, that there's a representative, Dave Liz Lagarde, who's a guy who has helped make sure that we get a tax credit, and he tells a really, really compelling story about how North Country kind of set him on a different trajectory, where he wasn't working. He didn't know what was going to happen, and then all of a sudden, he ended up being an extra and he they finished the project in New Mexico because we didn't have incentives at the time, but they flown to New Mexico because he had that kind of a role and all the things. And he talks about how Niki Caro said to him, you know, you're going to do something. And that was the thing that he needed to hear at that time. And so he's gone on to be an extremely effective representative in Minnesota, helped us to get the tax credit going. And so ever since then, there's been this feeling on the Iron Range, which is that northern part of Minnesota that has been supported by mining for so long. Think that maybe this is probably a good connection. But since then, you know, 15 years later, we have had, in the last couple of years, we've had a couple of really great projects. We have a great producer, Mandy Joan Turpin, who is from LA she's an actor turned producer, and has made a bunch of projects here. And it was really fun last year, the very first one that she did was a holiday movie, and that went so well, and the community got so excited that she did a thriller, and then she did another holiday movie last year. We did Rescuing Christmas. And what's really fun about that is that the community was so much more excited about than anybody, and we had a, you know, it's really easy for us to get the community behind a fun Christmas movie and so, but that project dropped heck of a lot of hotel rooms in the city of Duluth. You know, before the summer months, it dropped a heck of a lot of money into rentals and all those kinds of things. And when community leaders see that, they're like, Oh, this is kind of a good thing. So that's been really, really fun. There's a story that we tell, that every producer can tell this story, but this is just ours. We have somebody who took our very first workshop. We've been doing these workshops trying to help people get ready to be on set so they can step on with a little bit of confidence in how to read a call sheet and how to do these things. She went to film school, she took our first workshop, and then she came back and she said, on Mandy's first movie, she said, I want to work in I want to be in grip and electric. And Mandy said, okay, and she put her in there. And that's been one thing that's been really great that I'll say with producers that are interested in working with people who want to get into the industry and understand that there's a learning has been really great. But so this particular girl comes out, and she says, I want to work in grip and electric. And the team took her on. And there was a series, there was a team of people who were super experienced, and they took her under their wing. And typically, as you know, that had been in the past, I think it's changing now, but a male dominated role, they took her on, and I talked to her in the first project, and she was like, they still won't let me do stuff. And that's kind of funny man. Then by the next she's worked on every project since then. And now, those teams, when they come up there, they request her because she knows what she's doing. And I think that that was, you know, there weren't any of these. Preconceived notions, because there was nobody else up here. She didn't think twice about saying, I want to work in grip of electric and we're starting to shatter some of those old paradigms and have people, people working the same token. We have other great partners. There's a group called Zeitgeist here that's doing stuff with kids. They just did a great project with a guy named Carl gadgeseck, who's a writer, who is from Minnesota, and he and bohacla and a number of really other talented people decided to take this group of kids, and they did do something through edu fest called horror high. I have to say that out loud, horror high, people are like, What did you just say in hor high and they didn't even these kids that were on that they didn't know who these people were, nor did they really care who these people were. You say Stranger Things, maybe they might say, Oh, well, I know that I'm past that. They don't really care. But what they got to do was be on a project that was super talented people. These people are in Chisholm, Minnesota. This is a very, very small town, and they got to work with super talented people. And one of the girls wanted was graduating high school, and she said, I kind of want to be an actor, and there's a project coming, I don't know how to do self tape. And that team rallied around her, and they helped her do her self tape so that she could, she could audition for this next project coming in and, like, that's what this is all about, is just getting people. Doesn't have to be kids, an idea of, you know what? You don't have to move away. You can work in this industry, and it there's a fit for you somewhere. And it may not be in the traditional four years of college kind of thing it might be in something like this and and that, for me, is why we keep doing this.

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16:45  

That's awesome. Shari, that's so inspiring. You know. Lastly, I want to know for producers considering the Upper Midwest for their next project, what advice would you give them about making the most of the region's resources and incentives, and how can people get in touch with you to take advantage of sort of that concierge experience you were describing in terms of the projects that you work on.

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17:07  

The number, number, number one thing is contact the Film Office. And I would, no matter what, always contact the State Film Office, for sure. And then if there is a regional Film Office, and I'm talking about Minnesota for us, but I'm just kind of saying in general, what I find when people we start talking, especially to new producers and directors, is that they don't know the resources that are available. And that really is the role of the film office. So please do contact, especially the state and then the regional if it's there, because they can just kind of help. I have know a lot of really great people that are in regional offices that that is their role, is to help you, and no project is too small. I've had people come to me and say, Well, mine's the deal kind of thing, and it is because that's the stepping stone that you need in order to get there. So contact the Film Office. Two no question is a dumb question. Nobody understands incentives in the way that we do, because you don't work with them every single day. That's not your job. That's our job. So we can help you. And I give people my phone number. I give people say, text me. I'll answer if you can ask the question and ask the same question three or four times, because incentives can be super complicated. I still ask questions of the tax credit program like I still ask questions, so please ask questions. And then third, just utilize us, like, call us, talk to us, say, I've got a project. It is funded. It's not funded. We would like you to have a realistic idea of what you're going to do. But if you're like, Hey, I'm writing something and I want to set it there. Is there anything you need me to keep in mind? I don't know what that would be off the top of my head. It's maybe not a good example. But my point is, you can call us early in the process, and then as you get further on, call us back. But we remember you. We talked to you and let us help. You can find us on this is the longest URL in history. It's uppermidwestfilmtv.org, because we all know that it isn't just film anymore. It's shorts and it's it's when TV, it is all it's TV, it's any kind of episodic. It's all of that and and we recognize that, and we recognize how the industry is changing, and we recognize that we are interested in helping all of those projects, not just huge feature films. We want those two, but it's an ecosystem, right? And so we want to make sure that people feel like they can come to us and ask questions and we can try to help you as much as we possibly can. That's

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19:40  

awesome. Well, Shari, thank you so much for being such a passionate advocate for your community, for film craft, and thank you for joining me on On Production, and sharing a bit of your story and how filmmakers can take advantage of the region to tell awesome stories and take advantage of a really wonderful film incentive that you've been in. Instrumental and sort of keeping going. It's really wonderful. Thank you for being

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20:04  

here. Thanks for having us. It really is a big deal for us to be able to have people hear about the story in Minnesota, and I couldn't have done that without this being available. So thank you. I appreciate it.