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The Buffalo-Niagara Film commission is the brainchild of Joel Giambra and Cindy Abbott, who partnered initially with Buffalo-Niagara Enterprises to bring Mark Stricklin to Buffalo. Mark, a nationally-known film commissioner, started with nothing but Giambra’s support, a small budget, and a group that was all volunteer. They started the website, the directories and crew databases, and a digital photo library – the basics for dealing with out-of-town agents.

Then, after the budget crash last year, the program was cut, Stricklin moved back to his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, and the work was put on hold.

This year, Joel Giambra tried again; courting the Buffalo Niagara Convention and Visitors Bureau who are now the Commission’s new home. He then recruited Tim Clark as the new Director, and since then, progress has been swift. Says Clark, “There’s tangible results that you see when a film comes to town, like, they hire so many people, and go to so many restaurants, stay in so many hotels, that kind of thing. But there’s also that intangible, that people see Buffalo, that’s what’s important.”

A Buffalo native through and through, Tim is a graduate of Canisius High School and College, with a background in broadcasting. Tim’s knowledge and passion for the region is evident in even a brief chat. Tim’s a local man, so when he got “a call from a George Clooney production that had been looking for a snow-covered dairy farm in Wisconsin,” he knew where to find it. “We had a place just like it down Route 219.”

That’s one of the beautiful things Buffalo can offer the industry – a wide range of settings at a reasonable cost. From waterfront, to deep woods, to urban architecture, you can find it in Western New York. “Last week, we were working with a filmmaker based in England, looking for summer camps, for some sort of horror flick or thriller. So it’s literally me getting in the car and running around and taking pictures, making phone calls, then somewhere in between I’ve got to stop, print the pictures, get them Fed Ex’d to England – it’s really something.” Tim is also just back from a Location Convention in Santa Monica, where he was part of a New York delegation speaking to filmmakers the world over. “We’re looking also to partner with Rochester’s group, since we’re both struggling with budgets, and for a large picture, you bring people from all over. It just makes sense.”

This kind of practical thinking is a core of Tim’s success in his short tenure to date. “The good thing about my background is that I know the broadcast side and the local government, and that’s a lot more important to these people. They don’t want to talk about the industry, they want to know, “Who do we talk to synchronize these traffic lights? How do we close this street? How do we get a permit to shoot at Niagara Falls? From the governmental side, I can say, ‘you’re shooting on county property; you have to talk to the county for that.’ It’s a lot more efficient.”
Buffalo has a surprising number of working crew and production companies, digital animators, actors, and graduates students from broadcasting programs every year that are hungry for work. Aside from television and the traditional industry “bread and butter” of training films, local commercials, weddings, and the like, Buffalo is quietly home to every type of production from taping and projecting live events, DVD production, to webtv, streaming media, and electronic press kits. The market for these types of shoots is expanding enormously as access to the technology grows, and Buffalo has what’s needed most for this – not a big budget and A-list Hollywood names, but drive and creativity.

Could Buffalo become a home for indie filmmaking? Says Tim: “Digital has revolutionized the industry...the strides and the ability to break through and get publicity through non-traditional means are amazing. With digital, you don’t need daily prints or huge sound stages. Last year practically every last film in the Oscars was an indie. It’s about the passion, that’s the heart of it. They’re doing it all over the country, and they’re doing it for cheap, cheap, cheap.”

And what do we hear from visiting actors? After shooting “The Savages” in April, Tim reports, “Well, Phillip [Seymour] Hoffman is actually from Rochester, where his mom is a judge, so he was pretty much right at home and drove up to see her after we wrapped on Friday. Laura Linney made a point of telling me what a great time she had. When you work in a place like New York or LA, filming becomes more of an inconvenience to locals than anything. Here, filming in a North Buffalo neighborhood, Laura was blown away by the hospitality – people would come up and offer her lemonade, that kind of thing. It all comes down to the people.”

Let’s see, locations, writers, music, actors…. even catering. The full support of the mayor and City Hall. Looks like full film production is not so out of reach as it may seem. “The county gave us a budget of $150,000 this year, hoping to break even. With the shoots we’ve already had this year (The Savages, a Reebok commercial, and the Travel and Weather stations), we’ve already made that back and more. We’ll have to take a look at the end of the year, what we did right, and what we did wrong, but I know there’s room for more, and I hope to see it get back to the point where I’m not working alone.”

So, you wanna be in pictures? To get involved, check out the Commissions’ website, at www.filmbuffaloniagara.org. There will be a link on the page that will tell you what kinds of work and locations they’re looking for. Tim plans on updating his databases soon, so check back often, but be patient – for now, he’s a one-man band. But who knows, maybe sooner than later, with his help you’ll see your name (or your home) in lights.

Buffalo-Niagara Film Commission
617 Main Street, Suite 200, Buffalo, NY 14203
716.852.0511 x 227
www.filmbuffaloniagara.org