FTAC CALLS FILMWORKERS TO MARCH AND RALLY IN HOLLYWOOD ON SUNDAY, AUG. 15 (3:00 to 5:00 PM) AGAINST RUNAWAY PRODUCTION - WILDMAN AND KUEHL TAX REBATE BILLS SUPPORTED

HOLLYWOOD, July 30-- The Film and Television Action Committee (FTAC), a grass-roots coalition of thousands of film and television craftspeople--including film editors, cinematographers, costumers, propmen, drivers and men and women from 30 other movie and television making disciplines--as well as actors, writers and directors, small business owners, and professionals of all kinds, has organized a march and rally on Sunday, August 15, at 3:00 p.m. in the heart of Hollywood to fight Californias runaway production crisis.

Thousands of Hollywood film workers will march with us along Hollywoods Walk-of-Fame from Mann s Chinese Theater to Hollywood and Vine, FTAC Chairman Jack De Govia predicted. The hard-working people who make California the film and television production capital of the world are speaking out and organizing to save their jobs and businesses. A recent study sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild reported that almost $3 billion in film production left the country in 1998.

Said De Govia: The march and rally will feature state political leaders and Hollywood notables speaking in favor of the Kuehl/Wildman film and television tax rebate bills (AB 358 and AB484), which passed the California State Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee July 7 by a single vote after an intense lobbying and demonstration by FTAC. The same bills, designed to counter tax rebates offered by Canada and other nations to lure film production out of the USA, now face a tough test in the Senate Appropriations Committee later in August.

FTAC organizers note that the Hollywood march will start promptly at 3:00 p.m. on Orange Drive between Sunset and Hollywood, adjacent to the Chinese Theater. Traffic on Hollywood Boulevard will be closed down to accommodate the march. Committee members are communicating news about the march and rally to film workers throughout the industry via grassroots techniques including flyers and chain phone calls which they used to stage highly successful rallies in Burbank and Sacramento earlier this year. Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D - Burbank), author of one of the pair of rebate bills, credited FTACs impressive July 6 High Noon in Sacramento demonstration for the bills success in the Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee. We wouldnt have made it without the rally, he said. It focused attention on the real need for the bills at exactly the right time.

The July 6 FTAC rally brought more than 1,000 passionate film workers and 200 giant motion picture production vehicles to the Capitol steps on the day before the committee hearing. The exuberant sign-waving crowd chanted Bring Hollywood Home! as the three-mile long caravan of trucks orbited the Capitol and blew air horns. The demonstrators cheered for two hours in the hot sun as most of the legislative leadership came out one by one to offer support for their fight against the flight of jobs and film business to Canada and other locales.

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