Dust to Malibu & Spaghetti Wars: Missouri Film Tax Credit in Action #307

In this episode of The Screen Lawyer Podcast, Pete Salsich discusses how Missouri’s film tax credit is making a real impact on productions. He takes you behind the scenes of two projects he worked on from start to finish, an independent feature film and a television pilot, that both went from financing to world premiere in less than a year.

Pete shares the story of Dust to Malibu, a moving road trip drama starring Tim Daly and Shelly Gibson, and Spaghetti Wars, a mob movie-inspired Italian cooking competition filmed in St. Louis’ historic neighborhood The Hill. Both projects highlight the power of local crews, community support, and smart use of incentives to turn creative ideas into reality.

If you want to understand how tax credits, financing, and collaboration come together to get films and shows made, this episode is a must-listen. 

Original Theme Song composed by Brent Johnson of Coolfire Studios.
Podcast sponsored by Capes Sokol.

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Transcript

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So we talk a lot here on the podcast about the Missouri film tax credit and how that's impacting projects coming into the state and how they work and everything else. Well, today I want to talk about two specific projects, both filmed in Missouri within the last year, really started about a year ago. This time and right about now are making their world premieres. It's pretty cool. Stick around. Hey there. Welcome to The Screen Lawyer Podcast. I'm Pete Salsich, The Screen Lawyer, and today I'm really excited to talk about the Missouri Film Tax Credit. But in the sense that it actually impacted two projects we've talked a lot about, not so much the theory, but sort of the way the tax incentive works, how tax incentives in general are part of film financing. They're an important part of bringing jobs to states, things like that. And I wanted today I want to focus on two projects that are near and dear to my heart. I was involved with both of them, and they both started about a year ago when we were in finishing up our first year of the Missouri Film Tax Credit, and they are making their premieres pretty much as we speak. And they're one is a film, one is a television show. But and so they have some differences and it's interesting some of the ways they put the things together and the process for next steps. But they share a lot of common interests. And I think it's a really cool example of what's happening here and what can continue to happen. So the first is an independent film called Dust to Malibu and Dust to Malibu is a beautiful film. It's a road trip film with a father and his estranged grown daughter, trying to reconnect after their the the wife and the mother died. And I want to say too much other than to say when you get a chance to see it, please do it. Stars Tim Daly from Madam Secretary all the way back to wings. Sopranos. Many, many other things. Tim's a Tim's a well-known guy, and he's a great he's a great guy. I got to meet him. Delightful person and a terrific actor. Shelly Gibson, who is originally from Springfield, Missouri. It's a long and successful career in Hollywood and television shows. You've seen her in a million things, but now she's back here and she has this passion for making things happen in Missouri, in particular in Springfield, her her part of the state, which is a really vibrant film community. It's really cool. And I met Shelly about a year and a half ago at an event down in Springfield, a film event that I was there speaking on, and she told me about this project and who was involved and what they thought the budget was, and it was a pretty modest budget at the time. They were they were thinking super low budget. It got a little bit bigger, but still, we're talking in the neighborhood of around $500,000 for a completed film. That's a small budget film with real actors and stuff in it. But they had a plan and they were looking for the financing. We met, I was able to connect, with a client who was interested in doing so. We worked through the process. We negotiated the financing terms. It was a really interesting process, you know, just sort of dealing with, with all of the different component parts to the financing of a film. And then what's next? And we got it done and we got it done just in time to start production last fall, in October. And the crew came together, you know, as often happens, and I think will happen here locally when when a project comes into the state. And even though Shelley was here, there were, you know, Tim's in L.A., the director, Stephen Ward, they're based in London. They were all coming together and they brought some of their department heads and key people. The DP and others into the state, but also used lots of local crew, lots of local actors. And their experience was fantastic. The city supported, the the region supported the support of the Missouri Film Office. All these component parts came together to make this a really enjoyable all filming experience. And that was really important because this is a tight budget and a tight schedule, and they pulled it off beautifully. And now that film is, making its world premieres in film festivals. The Burbank Film Festival is where it's starting. They've announced some others, and I don't want to tease out because there's sort of rules about what you can say, but you can go find it. So look up Dust to Malibu. You'll find out more about the film. We will next be going into the process of seeking distribution deals, so you can watch it on your wall or on a movie theater and all those things. That's the next step of the process. But the production and the post-production and the editing and everything else is done. It took everything from start to finish, from raising the money, closing that deal, starting production, going through post-production and finishing it and premiering it in one year's time. That's really fast, that's impressive. And that was a result of lots of people coming together and the support of the local community here in Missouri was a really important part of it. And so I'm really, really proud of that. It's just it's really a magical film and I hope you get a chance to enjoy it. And it's proof of something that we can do here in the state and do it well. The second project is a television show called Spaghetti Wars, and this is a different animal than the independent film for a variety of reasons. What we did is this is a cooking competition show, Italian food. You can imagine Spaghetti Wars, but also with a sort of, a narrative frame or, creative concept paying homage to Mafia movies The Godfather, Goodfellas, the idea of a family and all of sort of that. And there's a there's cinematic references into into this as well that, that draw you in the way those films did. And it's a it was filmed entirely on the hill for those who know that, maybe the largest still truly active Italian neighborhood in the country, a little Italy of sorts, but it's called The Hill. It's here in Saint Louis, and, it's huge and vibrant and wonderful. And the idea for this show, came out of the the genius of Pepe Kehm who is a restauranteur here. He's an actor. He's a singer. He's all these different things, sort of a creative dynamo. And he had this concept and he worked on it. Another, producer, Tim Breitbach of Optimal Entertainment. They came together early on with this concept. I got involved early on, just helping them shape what it might turn out to be. And then we got involved with a, a legend in the industry, Barry Mendelson. A long time prolific, brilliant producer of live event television. I that's such a simple, short circuit way to describe the literally thousands of projects he's been involved in. But when he got involved, it got real. And we came together last summer, the project started taking shape, and we needed to raise, over $1 million for the to fund the pilot episode of what we intend to be a, a series, right? An episodic series and good cooking competition shows can have many, many years of life, as you know. So. But the concept of the financing there was, while it was similar to the Dust in Malibu film, but that was a one shot, right? You raise the money, you make the film. The film hopefully goes out and finds an audience that rewards the investor and then generate some profits for the producers as well. In the television episodic world, from the point of view of Barry, and I think this is the right approach, is that if you raise the money and you finance the pilot episode, then you own the intellectual property in that episode completely, and then you're talking about licensing opportunities for networks, platforms, international distribution, whatever it might be, but you do it from a position of controlling where this project can go. So we had to raise that money quickly because they really wanted a production schedule that we could shoot last November, and we started raising the money in September. That's pretty tight turnaround. But with the help of the Missouri Film Tax Credit program, with some really, really smart people helping us out, we were able to raise that money a great deal of it from Saint Louis, and a great deal of it from people who live and work on the Hill. They were very proud of their neighborhood. And there's a bit of a love, love letter to the Hill in the creative element of the episode. But the key piece here is a live event in the middle of it, a dinner for 100 people that paid a couple hundred dollars a ticket to come to this event, and the competing families in the back of the episode have to cook and serve these people in real time, with servers coming out family style, six cameras going all over the place. It was chaos, but tightly organized chaos. It really, really cool to see and I got to spend the entire week on set. We filmed everything in four days. It's a chance for me. I've done these contracts every year, but with both projects, and we got to go down and spend a day on set at Dust to Malibu as well. For me, it's a chance to spend a little more time watching the craft in real time after just doing, you know, years of the contracts around it. But it was amazing to watch. And similar to Dust to Malibu for Spaghetti Wars, Barry, King Hollis is our director. They came up from Dallas. They brought some key department heads, lighting director. The lighting is amazing in this, the DP, a few others, but then used a largely Saint Louis based crew, I think close to 50 Saint Louis crew on this shoot. That's a big number and they were terrific. Barry and King have repeatedly said they were so pleasantly surprised, you know, not surprises if they didn't expect it, but just really pleased with the quality of the crew, the the work ethic, the support that the community gave. And again, from the film office, from the Saint Louis Film Office, Kelly Hyatt and her team. I know I'm doing a fair amount of name dropping in this episode, but I want these are people that are really making things happen here in town. And I think it's important to, to to recognize that. So we got the whole project filmed in four days. And then we to continue to raise money to get to the post-production budget, which we were able to do. Post-production is just finishing it pretty much right now, and it's also making its world premiere. But it's something different. So with a film, you know, you often premiere at film festivals and their film festivals around the country, around the world, and they're at various levels of competitive nature and so forth. And, you know, ideally you get into multiple festivals, you find an audience, maybe you get distribution that sort of thing. But in a television show, there isn't really sort of a festival or different things like that. So but you do want to do a premiere. And the idea, of course, with the premiere is in part to show the finished product so that we have this is what we're going into the market with and hopefully get orders for future episodes and seasons and things like that. But in this event, we decided to go back to the Hill to say thank you, really to that community and the Saint Louis community at large. So what Spaghetti Wars is doing is actually filming, premiering at a live event, because that's what Barry does that has live music, stages, rest in the park, on a big park on the hill that is part of their annual Italian Heritage Parade and Festa that they've been doing for over 100 years. So for the first time, the Spaghetti Wars is going to be a Saturday night event at that, at that weekend, totally free for people to attend and giant screens to show, you know, so there'll be a live music and then once the sun sets massive screen, people can also in the park, watch the pilot episode and then more music afterwards. And it's really a way to say thank you. You know, it's not because you do it in a theater that's even a big theater. You might have 400 seats and people can come. This is truly available to everybody, and it is a big way to say thank you to the support. Because just like with Dust to Malibu, the Spaghetti Wars out of town team has sort of adopted Missouri or Saint Louis as a new home. I mean, they're continual conversations about let's do this again. What's the next project? Because of the experience that they had here? And I'm sure if these things were done in other states, they, you know, the good experiences in other states. But what I'm seeing happen right here locally, in person, in real time is really impressive. And I wanted to celebrate those two things because just like with Dust to Malibu, Spaghetti Wars went from concept to initial fundraising to production to post to premiere in 12 months time. 11 months time, actually. That's remarkable right? There are so many projects that spend years in development just putting together the pieces to go out and get the funding to just get started. These two projects came together quickly. Some part of that is because their budgets, while real money, were not $20 million. There's a very different, component to development when you're talking at that scale. Certainly. Nevertheless, it was a hustle. It is a hustle. This business is a hustle. But the playing the role of helping to put the project together, was really exciting for me. And it's something that I really see a lot of value in going forward. So that's it. Spaghetti Wars and Dust to Malibu. I hope you'll be able to see both of them on your actual screens, whether you pull them out of your pocket or you watch on the wall or wherever else you watch, your your content these days. I was making a comment the other day to, to somebody about, I said, you know, this is television, and she said, there's no such thing as television anymore. And she's right. Except in some ways, it's sort of the same thing. Right? These are this is your content, where you watch it on your screens and with Spaghetti Wars, the hope is that, like with a lot of shows like this, people fall in love. Our ensemble cast is amazing. And then you want to watch the families compete each time. And the concept is a sort of a, mob madness, if you will, like a march madness bracket thing with the finals being come back to Saint Louis every year, the plan is to shoot other episodes in other cities, but always cities that have an Italian neighborhood, an Italian community, and something unique and special about that area, but also in states that have a film tax incentive, because that's part of the business and how you put these things together. So really cool projects, both of them I've got to be involved with from start to finish, couldn't be more proud of that. And the people involved, I really think they're they're great. I think both of them have, have a good long life in front of them on a screen. And I hope you enjoy them, too. So check them out if you can. If you like this content, remember our podcast. You can find them wherever you get your audio podcast. Find and follow us there. And if you are watching on our YouTube channel, thank you. Hit that Like and Subscribe button down below so you'll be able to get all of the content whenever it gets released. And you can always find us at TheScreenLawyer.com. Take care.