January 5×5 Night at Start Garden
Voting Closes:
January 20, 2025 11:59 pm
Impact
I am on the board, Michigan Film Industry (MIFIA) that is responsible for the newly introduced House and Senate bills. These bills are focused on keeping creatives in Michigan by reinstating a film tax incentive. Our internship program will be a huge component to assisting current high school/college students in their creative education.
Our workforce development program is an even bigger arm to this that will take students directly through a PA certification program and Virtual Production Program. This program works directly with IATSE (Union) to provide an OSHA certification, PA certification, and some college credits that are nationally recognized.
When these bills are signed, the problem we face is a shortage of Michigan creative workforce. Most traditional schools fall short to give creative students on set experience and what they need to jumpstart a career on set.
The real potential is a direct feeder for local Michigan creative talent. Being that it is also a rentable facility, there are overlaps of real productions crossing over and interacting with our current interns/students. This intersection is where we have seen direct job placement.
We have already impacted so many lives and look forward to many more. (Please see the "Our Mission) video in the Vimeo link below).
What I'll do with $5,000
This grant will go right to the development of our internship program. We currently have 28 active interns, 15 of which we hyper focus on. We do this with no funding and out of pocket to grow the community and local workforce. We believe that the more we can better equip the community, the more prosperous we will be in the long term. These funds will go to providing stipends to our crew who already do this pro bono. Will also go to funds to help interns create their own projects after going through our program. The rest will be allocated to the day to day supplies like water/coffee/meals/craft services for interns/crew.