SUPPORTS ENHANCED ARIZONA MOTION PICTURE TAX INCENTIVE PROGRAM

Old Tucson Studios is part of an effort by Arizona’s film community to encourage Arizona lawmakers to enhance Arizona’s Motion Picture (MOPIC-SB 1409) Tax Credit Incentive program which is aimed at attracting film and television projects to Arizona. Following is an editorial by Old Tucson Studios CEO Pete Mangelsdorf.  For additional information, check out the Tax Incentive Video on You Tube that features interviews with people who own businesses that have benefited economically in the past from film and video projects shot here in Arizona and the website www.azfilmandmedia.org.

ARIZONA FILM IS DYING ON THE VINE!

Through tax credit incentives and other carrots, Governor Jan Brewer is doing everything she can to attract industries like solar to Arizona. Governor Brewer should apply the same tactics and urgency with the Motion Pictures Production Tax Incentives Program or MOPIC.  Because of its diverse beauty, proximity to Los Angeles, and experienced crews, the television and film and television industry once flocked to Arizona, bringing high-paying jobs and trickle down economic booms wherever it set up shop.  However, the financing of television and movies has dramatically changed since that era. Today, for the most part, production companies, even big Studios, primarily fund movies through private investment. To supplement private equity, producers turn to tax credits and other forms of incentives offered from state to state.  Selection of a location is almost always predicated on going where the most lucrative credits are.

Over 40 States offer these incentives and we are losing out badly to States such as New Mexico and Michigan.  There are misperceptions at the state capital about our current and inadequate program.  These misperceptions stem in part from a Department of Commerce economic impact study (DOCs oversees the MOPIC program) that dramatically underestimated the real economic impact of our industry here in Arizona. In response, the Arizona Production Association, the state’s most prestigious trade organization, commissioned a study in 2009 which looked more deeply at the economic impact and found that the DOC’s program analysis only represented the economic impact of those film projects that applied for and were approved for tax credits. But when examining the entirety of film production in Arizona, the new study found that the economic impact is far more significant. The overall industry has an economic multiplier of 3.2, meaning that for every $1.00 spent by the film industry, another $2.21 is generated in additional spending. To compare the state’s analysis with the APA’s study please go to www.azproduction.com, click “Resources” and find “Independent Review of MOPIC Tax Incentive Program.”

No state program is implemented without challenges but make no mistake, this MOPIC program produces good, high- paying jobs with no negative impact on the environment, just the kind of jobs we want in our state. Beefing up the MOPIC program would bring stimulus to local economies thereby increasing the long term tax base for our state that we all know is flat broke. Helping the film industry here is no bailout similar to the one the Federal Reserve gave banks. These improvements will lead to immediate job creation and bring millions of dollars to local economies throughout the state. This is not an elitist program as most of the job creation is directed at “below the line” film workers who do the “heavy lifting” of productions such as lighting and electrical work.

At Old Tucson Studios, we get serious looks from major studios and production companies every month but many of them pass because they just cannot justify filming here when the incentives are so much better in other States.  Bear in mind, producers see no tax credits until they employ Arizonans and spend a very significant amount of money in hotels, restaurants, stores, on construction materials and other products and services.  In this severe Recession, the Governor has reached out to other industries to build here in Arizona so why not film?  Since its program’s inception, New Mexico has built several brick and mortar studios, bringing real jobs that stay in New Mexico and increase tax revenue for years.

The Arizona  MOPIC program is set to expire in 2010. We cannot let this happen. To make this program more competitive, the legislature needs to extend the program five years, lower the employee residency qualification from 50% to 25% (out of state crew and talent pay Arizona payroll taxes while working here and their wages can’t be used as a qualifying spend towards a Tax Credit), and finally, craft a reasonable time line for the Arizona Departments of Commerce and Revenue to complete the post approval process. If as a state, we can muster the courage to do these three things, Arizona would see immediate economic rewards in the form of jobs and stimulus to local economies.  We cannot afford to say “no” to an improved MOPIC program.  Contact your State Legislator now and let them know what they have to do to make this program work for all Arizonans.

Pete Mangelsdorf
CEO
Old Tucson Studios

“We want to bring our guests entertainment that is consistent with our 1880’s town and reflects our 70 years as a film studio,” said Old Tucson Studios Entertainment Manager Rob Jensen in describing two new shows premiering this month at the Western theme park and history film studio – Miss Kitty’s Can Can Revue and The Wild Wild West: Night of the Deadly Tycoon.

Miss Kitty’s Can Can Revue is a staple at the world-famous family attraction with Miss Kitty and her girls singing, dancing, and joking their way into the hearts of audiences daily. The new show features actual songs of the 1880’s West as well as those featured in movies replicating the period. Entertainers in the show include Sarah Carver, Courtnie Robenolt, Larisa Gosla, Caitlin Singer, and Lena Wilcos as Can Can girls Rose, Violet, and Lily.  You won’t want to miss the high-energy, high-kicking Can Can dancing that brings down the house at the end of the show!

The Wild Wild West: Night of the Deadly Tyconn is based on the popular 1960’s television show that stemmed two made-for-TV movies filmed at Old Tucson Studios.  The TV series starred Robert Conrad as James West and Ross Martin as Artemus Gordon, Secret Service agents of President Ulysses S. Grant. Each week, they battled enemies of the state who threatened national security. The new show tells a story about Dr. Vanderspiegl, a German immigrant who plans to mine the uranium in the surrounding mountains to make weapons capable of destroying the world.  The daily battle pitting Dr. Vanderspeigl and his henchwomen against Jim West and Artie Gordon combines humor, high flying stunts, and dramatic gun and fist fights with a just a touch of romance.  Male leads for the show include Travis Montoya, Scott Thomas, Noel Phillips, Jonny Yurco, and Josh Marrufo.  Dr. Vanderspiegl’s henchwomen include Sarah Carver, Caitlin Singer, Courtnie Robenolt, Larisa Gosla, and Lena Wilcox.

Southern Arizona Roadrunners is proud to announce the second Sunrise at Old Tucson Cross Country Trail Run, a family-friendly competitive running race and non-competitive walk on the historic grounds of Old Tucson Studios.  The run/walk will be held on Sunday morning, March 7, 2010 at 8:00 a.m.  Sunrise at Old Tucson replaces the old Sundown at the Pass, nicknamed the “most awesome race in all of Arizona.” 

The 4+ mile cross country trail race loops throughout the dusty streets, horse trails, and desert terrain of Old Tucson Studios, site of some of the greatest movies of all time.  The run will follow a well-marked series of trails and streets on the Old Tucson grounds, with prizes for overall, age group, and raffles.  This year the event will start in the heart of Main Street and finish at Bitter Creek, with the trailside breakfast and post-race activities taking place at Bitter Creek, same as last year. Remember: runners and walkers are both welcome! 

The 1 mile Cowboy Costume and Kid’s Run is designed to promote daily exercise, so bring the whole family along! Cowboy costumes, children, and strollers are all welcome!  PLUS: Little kids race afterwards!

The special early registration of $20 for SAR member and $23 for non-SAR member ends on February 1st.  For more information and to register for Sunrise at Old Tucson,  visit Southern Arizona Roadrunners, at http://www.azroadrunners.org/races/detail/sunrise

2009 marked Old Tucson Studios’ 70th year as an Arizona film location. Our special retrospective exhibit of never-before-seen production stills covering 70 years of movie magic will continue into 2010. The exhibit includes glimpses of 122 movie and TV shows from 1939 thru 2008 including:

• 3:10 to Yuma (1956) starring Glenn Ford
• Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957) starring Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster
• Rio Bravo (1959), McLintock (1963), El Dorado (1965), Rio Lobo (1970), all starring John Wayne
• Judge Roy Bean (1972) starring Paul Newman
• Little House on the Prairie (1977-1983) starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert
• The Sacketts (1978) starring Tom Selleck
• The Three Amigos (1986) starring Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short
• Young Guns (1990) starring Emilio Estevez and Kiefer Sutherland
• Tombstone (1993) starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer
• The Quick and the Dead (1995) starring Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone, Russell Crowe, and Leonardo DiCaprio
• To name just a few!

View a preview of the retrospective.  Come out and see us to enjoy the entire amazing presentation!

The 19th Ted Walker Youth Day at Old Tucson Studios year) will be held on Thursday, January 28, 2010.  More than 3,000 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders from Tucson and Pima County School districts will receive free park admission and  a free lunch donated by the Dan Felix Memorial Foundation and Pima County Parklands Foundation.

 The event, which features Wild West entertainment and educational exhibits, is designed to provide a fun-filled day of activity to local school children who might not otherwise have this opportunity.

The first Youth Day organized by Ted Walker, former Pima County Parks & Recreation Commissioner, was held in May of 1988.  Since the program’s inception, Pima County Parks & Recreation, Old Tucson Studios and the Pima County Parklands Association have worked together to make this a highly successful and much anticipated annual school event. Following his death in 1993, the event was renamed in honor of Mr. Walker.

If you are interested in taking part in this event, please contact Lacey Gould, Recreation Program Manager, Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation, 3500 W. River Road, Tucson, AZ 85741, tel. 877-6114.  Reservations must be made no later than January 10, 2010.  Reservations are taken on a first come, first served basis. 

 Park hours on Thursday, Jan. 28 will be 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.  Visitors may purchase an admission ticket good for both Thursday, Jan. 22 and Friday, Jan.23 at our front gate ticket office on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Join Old Tucson Studios, Arizona’s Hollywood in the Desert for 70 Years from  10 am to 5 pm on Saturday, December 26^th through Saturday, January 2^nd.   (Old Tucson Studios is closed on Christmas Eve, Thursday, Dec. 24th and Christmas Day, Friday, December 25^th.)

We’re dishing up an exciting post-Christmas line-up of Western family fun and entertainment including dramatic gunfights, daring stunt shows, and saloon musicals.  Hurry – your last chance to see Miss Kitty’s Cowboy Christmas show will be Thursday, December 31st.   

The kids will love riding the train and carousel and the thrill of driving the antique cars!  Or take a scenic trail ride through the beautiful Arizona Sonora Desert.

Enjoy authentic southwestern BBQ from Big Jake, our on-site smoker.  Shop for holiday bargains, unique gifts, Hollywood western memorabilia, and more.   Create holiday memories with a family portrait from the Old Time Photo Emporium! 

Don’t miss your chance to take an historian-guided tour of historic movie sets or the 70th Anniversay Retrospective exhibit in the Lincoln County Courthouse. 

Put away the turkey leftovers, pack up the family and head out to Old Tucson Studios Thanksgiving weekend for a day full of Western family fun and adventure!  Special weekend hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 27, Saturday, Nov. 28, and Sunday, Nov. 29.

 Enjoy dramatic gunfights, thrilling stunt shows, and musical revues. Celebrate the Christmas season with a Western flair. Don’t miss “Miss Kitty’s Cowboy Christmas” our special holiday musical and Santa’s daily arrival by stagecoach!  

Make family holiday memories with great photo opportunities at every turn or don some Western duds for a family portrait in the Old Time Photo Emporium. Enjoy great food and get a jump on holiday shopping.  The kids will love panning for gold, the Iron Door Mine, Antique Cars they can drive and more!

Help Old Tucson Studios refill the coffers of the Tucson Community Food Bank and save on admission!  Bring a canned or packaged food item and save $3 off regular adult admission and $2 off regular child admission. One discount per food item donated.  The food bank would appreciate the following priority items: 

 So what are you waiting for?  Head out to Old Tucson Studios for some good old-fashioned fun at a great price!

Join the Pima Rotary Club at Old Tucson Studios on November 7 from 4PM-9PM for their first ever City Slicker Rodeo! The event, which is open to the public, will raise funds to support youth projects both in our local community and internationally: building a playground for the children at the new Tucson Gospel Rescue Mission facility, providing clothing, furniture and household items to Youth On Their Own in Tucson and supporting the Rubaga Community School, an orphanage school in Uganda. Through the Rotary International matching grants program, Pima Rotary Club has an opportunity to double the local funds and more than triple the international funds allowing them to help many children.

 The fun-filled family event features a city slicker team rodeo, children’s carnival booths, a chuck wagon dinner, and a barn dance with live music by the Bill Ganz Western Band. Join in the fun by getting a team of four people together to compete in City Slicker Rodeo events including Build-A-Horse, Rope-A-Steer, Double-Sided Barrel Races, Tomahawk Throw, Cross Country Shuffle, Calf Tying and Poker Darts. Competition is sure to be fierce as teams vie for bragging rights as rodeo champs. No live animals are used in the city slicker competition. “It would be too dangerous to allow ordinary ‘city slickers’ to compete with live animals,” according to Project Co-Chair David Flieger, MD

 Admission to the event is $40 for adults and $25 for children over 3 years.  For more event information including entering your own team or being an event sponsor and to purchase tickets, visit http://www.pimarotary.org/rodeo/.

 Rotary International is the world’s first service club organization, with more than 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs worldwide. Rotary Club members are volunteers who work locally, regionally, and internationally to combat hunger, improve health and sanitation, provide education and job training, promote peace, and eradicate polio under the motto, “Service Above Self.” The Pima Rotary Club is a Tucson based Rotary Club that meets at 11:15 am at Chad’s Steakhouse the first three Fridays of each month.

Old Tucson Studios 2009 NightFall, Harvest of Fear which begins October 1 and runs throughout the month of October will feature a performance on Thursday, October 29 by hip-hop superstar Flo Rida.

 Flo Rida’s current hit, Right Round, has been # 1 on the Hot 100 for six weeks. Even before the Carol City, FL native’s debut album, “MAIL ON SUNDAY,” was released by Poe Boy/Atlantic Records on March 18, 2008 his explosive first single, Low, shot to the top of nearly every chart—Top 40 radio, Billboard’s Hot 100 chart and Hot RingMasters chart, Soundscan’s Digital Song chart, iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, MySpace, MTV’s TRL, and BET’s 106 & Park.  Don’t miss this unique opportunity to see Flo Rida against the backdrop of Nightfall.

 Each year, the terrifying haunted houses, entertaining live shows and high scare factor of wandering and unpredictable asylum inmates “streetmosphere” make NightFall Arizona’s most popular Halloween attraction. In 2008, Haunted World Magazine named the popular annual horror fest one of its Top Ten Halloween Attractions for Theme Parks nationwide.

For more information about NightFall and to purchase tickets (including the performance on October 29^th), visit our website at www.NightfallAZ.com or call us at 520-883-0100.  The special performance will be included in the $24 admission price.

Old Tucson Studios is located at 201 S. Kinney Road, Tucson, Arizona, 85735.

To Benefit Tucson Rodeo Parade Museum Building Repairs       

Travel back in time to the 1880’s at Wild West Days at Old Tucson Studios, March 25-28, 2010. Each day from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm the four-day festival hosts events and musical performances that honor and recreate frontier life in the thrilling days of the Wild West circa 1880’s.

Wander the lawless 1880’s streets of Old Tucson Studios but don’t get caught in the crossfire of a cowboy gunfight.  And ladies…be sure to keep a hold of your men-folk during the new and bawdier than ever Miss Kitty’s Can-Can Revue. Enjoy Old Tucson Studio’s new comedy and stunt show, Wild Wild West: Night of the Deadly Tycoon. The show is based on the popular 1960’s television show that spawned two made-for-TV movies shot at Old Tucson Studios featurong the hi-jinks and heroism of Secret Service Agents James West and Artemus Gordon, the show’s stars.

Bring your hearty frontier appetite to the 1880’s chuckwagon for brisket and other frontier grub north of town at Bitter Creek daily from 11 am to 2 pm.

A portion of the proceeds from the Wild West Days will be directed toward the repair of buildings that house the Tucson Rodeo Parade Museum’s priceless collection of horse drawn vehicles.  The roof of historic adobe building at the museum, built in the 1930’s to house the city’s mounted police livery, needs immediate maintenance.

Many of the museum’s buildings that need work were once part of Tucson’s original airport, the first municipally owned airport in North America. The airport hosted pilot Charles Lindbergh and his Spirit of St. Louis aircraft in September of 1927 after Lindbergh’s historic Trans-Atlantic flight four months earlier. The Tucson Rodeo Parade Committee is celebrating its 85^th anniversary in 2010.

The head-lining performance at Wild West Days occurs Saturday, March 27 when World Champion Lady Six Gun Spinner  Pistol Packin’ Paula and Hot Shot Johnny Tuscadero, Wild West Performing Arts Society (WWPAS) 2009 World Champion Gun Spinner, square off in pistol spinning contest. Recently, the two dueled to a “draw” at an exhibition in Las Vegas during the WWPAS World Championships. The winner takes home a pair of Cimarron 45’s that are custom engraved by gunsmith John Schultz. The pistol set includes a custom holster set made by saddle-maker Ed Douglas. Both John Schultz and Ed Douglas recently set up shop at Old Tucson Studios where guests can see the master craftsmen at work.  

Additional festival performers include:

• Sourdough Slim, a gifted comedian and musician who will have audiences laughing in the aisles one minute and spellbound the next with his unbelievable yodeling routine
• Wild West Showman Kowboy Kal, the Guinness Book World Record Holder for the largest wedding ring loop, will perform fancy rope and gun tricks
• Card Shark Dick Casey who specializes in Blackjack (also known as “21″) brings his gambling act to Old Tucson Studios and guests will be amazed and cheated…uh, make that “entertained” with each hand played.

 The Tucson Rodeo Museum will host a rolling stock exhibit at the festival with historic vehicles from the museum’s world-class collection.  Museum docents will thrill guests with stories of the wagons and other horse drawn vehicles on display. 

All festival events are included in the regular Old Tucson Studios Admission price of $16.95 for adults and $10.95 for children.   

Old Tucson Studios is a corporate member of SASS.  Active SASS members in full costume receive free admission to Old Tucson Studios if members meet the following Admission Requirements.

1.  Members must be dressed in period costume with a SASS badge and must present a SASS ID card.
2.  No live ammunition will be allowed in the Park.  Dummy rounds in gun belts will be allowed provided that the primers are dimpled and/or the brass is drilled.
3.  Guns will be allowed provided that they are unloaded. (Guns will be safety checked at the gate).
4.  No alcohol may be consumed by a SASS member wearing firearms.
5.  SASS rules apply.