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Des Moines. Do More!

March 25, 2010

Get more, do more, whatever. As long as it's subsidized:

An attorney for the state asked a Los Angeles film producer during a court hearing Wednesday over public records why his budget for the movie "Blackbeard" doubled twice — to $20 million — as it geared up for production last year in Des Moines.

Filmmaker Kip Konwiser — whose project was among many that stalled last fall after the suspension of Iowa's film program — insisted he was not trying to inflate his budget to get millions more in tax credits, as other filmmakers are alleged to have done in an ongoing criminal probe.

No, he was just trying to help Iowa by quadrupling the amount of transferable film credits he qualified for.

Rather, the award-winning filmmaker said he was intentionally trying to help former film chief Tom Wheeler build Iowa's movie industry by greatly expanding the amount of in-state work done on his film and, thus, the number of Iowans hired.

"Your implication was that I raised the budget to get more," Konwiser said to Jeffrey Thompson, a deputy attorney general representing the state. "I did it to do more."

See? The Greater Des Moines Partnership's slogan has caught on!

Mr. Konwiser (wonderful name, considering the history of the film credits) is fighting a freedom-of-information lawsuit to keep the public from knowing how he used his film-credit subsidies.

Konwiser testified that releasing such information goes against the industry norm, and could be devastating to him and other filmmakers - even to the point of bankruptcy. That's because disclosure would wreck some private contractual agreements that require confidentiality.

Konwiser said he repeatedly was assured by the economic development department and Wheeler that his budget would be kept confidential.

Yeah, you don't want the rubes to know how badly they've been taken.

Related: Let them eat canapes.