00:00:00
Speaker 1: Good morning to you all, Thanks for listening. This morning. Cardinal Dolan leads off the Big Three. He is retiring as Archbishop of New York and will reportedly be replaced by Bishop Ron Hicks of Chicago. He's a really close friend of Pope Leo's.
00:00:18
Speaker 2: I think this is basically a certainty that Bishop Hicks will become Archbishop Hicks. And I think this is probably going to happen on Thursday morning, because there's been some activity scheduled and Thursday afternoon at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. So from the looks of it, this thing is basically a done deal.
00:00:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like that's what's going to happen Thursday morning. President Trump ramps up the pressure in Venezuela, officially labeling the government of Venezuela as a terrorist organization and setting up a military blockade of oil tankers coming in and out of the country, basically strangling them economically. Venezuela and Nicholas Medora's president responded in a national address.
00:01:05
Speaker 3: Impedialism and the Nazi fascist right wing want to colonize Venezuela to take our wealth, oil, gas, gold, aluminum, and other minerals. We have wanted to defend our homeland, and in Venezuela, peace will prevail.
00:01:21
Speaker 1: President Trump will talk to the nation tonight in a live television address from the White House.
00:01:26
Speaker 4: It's going to be a really good speech. I was just in the Oval Office with the President discussing it. He's going to talk a lot about the accomplishments over the past eleven months, all that he's done to bring our country back to greatness, and all he continues to plan to do to continue delivering for the American people over the next three years.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: And in New Jersey, they are breaking ground on another movie studio on the East coast in bay Own, Man. That's several movie studios they have right now. So let's talk more about that with John Crowe, the executive director of the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission. And as we've said before, I've worked with John before on a couple of projects. John, it's good to talk to you again. You are a harry.
00:02:13
Speaker 5: How are you.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: I'm doing well, You're becoming big time. I heard I heard the Governor yesterday give you a shout out in complimenting you with the work you've done so far. Let's start off by talking about this new studio, the eighteen eighty eight studio, Well.
00:02:30
Speaker 5: It's gonna be huge. It's going to be the largest studio complex in the Northeast. There'll be twenty three stages by the time they're complete. I think they're going to be breaking ground first quarter next year because they did a big ten year deal with Paramount and the Commission was grateful to be able to be in a position to introduce Paramount to the eighteen eighty eighth studio group. So they did a ten year deal and ultimately, as I just said, one point six million square feet and twenty three stages. Then you combine that with Netflix, which is doing twelve stages on two hundred acres, and then Lionsgate, which just had a ceremony last week in Newark, and that's you know, you're looking at another probably six stages there. So we've got seventy stages in state right now, but most of them are warehouse conversions and they're great ones, they're really great. But this is going to raise the total, you know, to well over forty purpose built stages.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:03:36
Speaker 5: And the singularity the thing that makes us different, Like you could say, well, why are all the stages sitting empty in California, and we're building more stages here. And it's really it's sort of the elegant design of our tax and centive program that these people, you know, they're signing ten year deals. That's a commitment to the state for ten So Paramount, Netflix and Lionsgate are here for a minimum of ten years to take advantage of the incentives. But they're also going to take advantage, like we've talked about with our workforce. We've got the third largest experienced workforce outside La New York. And then not everything takes place on a stage. And that's the other great thing that we've talked about with New Jersey is that, you know, we've got a ton of lookalike locations within the state and we're the fourth small estate in the Union geographically speaking.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you've got, as you were saying, you've got mountains, You've got you have the ocean right there, you have beautiful lakes, you have big mansions, you have little houses. I mean, you do the studio work, but you go out in New Jersey and there's a movie set everywhere you turn, isn't there.
00:04:51
Speaker 5: I mean, anything that a script would call for in terms of a location, chances are we've got it. And you've heard me joke on the air here that I used to say, Well, you know, growing up in California, we don't have the variety of looks. I mean, we have earthquakes and so things get knocked down all the time. But you need something that's you know, looks like Washington, d C. Or a brick facade, you a small town, big city. We've got all that. But also it's you know, time is money, So for a production to move around, that is taking that down time from production and you can move from all these different looks and relatively little times. So you combine that with the stages and then we've got this infrastructure. By the way, your listeners are more than welcome to attend April thirtieth at the Metelands Arena. We're doing the second annual Njfilm Expo, which is really a great showcase for our workforce but also our infrastructure. So our grip and electric rental, our audio rentals, are set design and construction. It's growing well. We didn't have cameras Larry in Date a year ago. Now we've got Airflex, Panasonic and Sony are here, we didn't have lumber mills that specialized in set construction. Now we've got two. We've got lenobyl and prints, so now you don't need to go across the river to get that. Those are all things that you know, when you're buying lumber for your set construction, you're buying it now in New Jersey and that's part of the qualified spend and that means there's full time employees that are working at these places too, So we've really got it all going on. Whatever your production needs, New Jersey's got you covered. Well.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: You made me think of something I hadn't thought of before, and obviously you did because you were just talking about it. But not only does the stages open, but there's a lot of businesses, there's a lot of colonialized businesses in that they build a colony around them that are also springing up. This isn't just a studio with a studio, as you said. You know, there's electric companies, there's prop companies, there's all of these other companies that are going to bring up around those studios. Am I correct on that? I think that's what you were just saying right.
00:07:05
Speaker 5: One hundred percent. There are so many different industries or businesses that our shoulder adjacent to what a production needs. As I always say, when production comes New Jersey, they're obviously not coming with hotel rooms. They're not coming with groceries to feed their crew. They're not coming with car rentals or hardware like paint and brushes to build and paint their sets. They're going out to the local businesses. You know. Well, Spielbert was down by the way. The trailer for that just dropped yesterday for his new project. It's a new sci fi project to film down to Cape Maine. Also up here in Newark. When he came into state, we have one of the state senators out of the set and I said, you see everybody that's here, there's three hundred and fifty crew members. Well, they're not going home at night. They're staying in hotel rooms here in your district at an average two and eighty five dollars per night. And then when they get home from filming each day, they're taking their per diem and they're spending that on restaurants at dinner again in your your district. And he was like, how soon can you get more production down here? You know? So that's one of the roles of the film commission is trying to spread that qualified spend all throughout the state. So they're spending that money all around wherever they go. But you can see the number of businesses that you wouldn't necessarily think of, Like you think, oh, camera rental, I get it, but you wouldn't necessarily think of a hardware store or dry cleaner or you know, Billy Aiker did his film and he did a parade sequence and he needed balloons. Well they did nineteen thousand dollars worth of balloon purchases in one day from the local supplier, you know, a local balloon business. Well, that was huge for them. The filmore was doing all sorts of rentals, you know, at the various golf courses around the state, and for a lot of a lot of people. Well, you know, COVID is still looming large. Right. Business has taken a bit of a hit, and it's taking a while to get that business back. So production comes in and you can you know, really bolster your year, you know, in just a few short days of yeah, make a.
00:09:19
Speaker 1: Lot of money back. I heard I heard the governor say something that really stunned me. He said, for every dollar invested in the movie and TV in production industry, you get seven dollars back. That's seven hundred percent profit for the state. I had never heard that before.
00:09:38
Speaker 5: If you if you do the math, and you see how much is being spent. So last year was eight hundred and thirty three million dollars. We were up forty one percent a year over year. We went from five hundred ninety two million to eight hundred and thirty three. Larry, I can't tell you what we're gonna do in twenty twenty five because we're still adding it up. Let me just tell you it's gonna be another fantastic up year for New Jersey. And we were the only state in twenty twenty four that was was up. New York was flat, California was down, Georgia was down, Louisiana was down, Texas was down. Right, they were all down. We were the only one that was up. Correction, Illinois was up.
00:10:18
Speaker 1: That's okay, let's leave Illinois out of it. John, Congratulations, Executive Producer, New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission. Couldn't be prouder of you. Way to go, John.
00:10:28
Speaker 5: The thank you, sir. Great to hear your voice
Speaker 1: Good morning to you all, Thanks for listening. This morning. Cardinal Dolan leads off the Big Three. He is retiring as Archbishop of New York and will reportedly be replaced by Bishop Ron Hicks of Chicago. He's a really close friend of Pope Leo's.
00:00:18
Speaker 2: I think this is basically a certainty that Bishop Hicks will become Archbishop Hicks. And I think this is probably going to happen on Thursday morning, because there's been some activity scheduled and Thursday afternoon at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. So from the looks of it, this thing is basically a done deal.
00:00:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like that's what's going to happen Thursday morning. President Trump ramps up the pressure in Venezuela, officially labeling the government of Venezuela as a terrorist organization and setting up a military blockade of oil tankers coming in and out of the country, basically strangling them economically. Venezuela and Nicholas Medora's president responded in a national address.
00:01:05
Speaker 3: Impedialism and the Nazi fascist right wing want to colonize Venezuela to take our wealth, oil, gas, gold, aluminum, and other minerals. We have wanted to defend our homeland, and in Venezuela, peace will prevail.
00:01:21
Speaker 1: President Trump will talk to the nation tonight in a live television address from the White House.
00:01:26
Speaker 4: It's going to be a really good speech. I was just in the Oval Office with the President discussing it. He's going to talk a lot about the accomplishments over the past eleven months, all that he's done to bring our country back to greatness, and all he continues to plan to do to continue delivering for the American people over the next three years.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: And in New Jersey, they are breaking ground on another movie studio on the East coast in bay Own, Man. That's several movie studios they have right now. So let's talk more about that with John Crowe, the executive director of the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission. And as we've said before, I've worked with John before on a couple of projects. John, it's good to talk to you again. You are a harry.
00:02:13
Speaker 5: How are you.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: I'm doing well, You're becoming big time. I heard I heard the Governor yesterday give you a shout out in complimenting you with the work you've done so far. Let's start off by talking about this new studio, the eighteen eighty eight studio, Well.
00:02:30
Speaker 5: It's gonna be huge. It's going to be the largest studio complex in the Northeast. There'll be twenty three stages by the time they're complete. I think they're going to be breaking ground first quarter next year because they did a big ten year deal with Paramount and the Commission was grateful to be able to be in a position to introduce Paramount to the eighteen eighty eighth studio group. So they did a ten year deal and ultimately, as I just said, one point six million square feet and twenty three stages. Then you combine that with Netflix, which is doing twelve stages on two hundred acres, and then Lionsgate, which just had a ceremony last week in Newark, and that's you know, you're looking at another probably six stages there. So we've got seventy stages in state right now, but most of them are warehouse conversions and they're great ones, they're really great. But this is going to raise the total, you know, to well over forty purpose built stages.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: Wow.
00:03:36
Speaker 5: And the singularity the thing that makes us different, Like you could say, well, why are all the stages sitting empty in California, and we're building more stages here. And it's really it's sort of the elegant design of our tax and centive program that these people, you know, they're signing ten year deals. That's a commitment to the state for ten So Paramount, Netflix and Lionsgate are here for a minimum of ten years to take advantage of the incentives. But they're also going to take advantage, like we've talked about with our workforce. We've got the third largest experienced workforce outside La New York. And then not everything takes place on a stage. And that's the other great thing that we've talked about with New Jersey is that, you know, we've got a ton of lookalike locations within the state and we're the fourth small estate in the Union geographically speaking.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you've got, as you were saying, you've got mountains, You've got you have the ocean right there, you have beautiful lakes, you have big mansions, you have little houses. I mean, you do the studio work, but you go out in New Jersey and there's a movie set everywhere you turn, isn't there.
00:04:51
Speaker 5: I mean, anything that a script would call for in terms of a location, chances are we've got it. And you've heard me joke on the air here that I used to say, Well, you know, growing up in California, we don't have the variety of looks. I mean, we have earthquakes and so things get knocked down all the time. But you need something that's you know, looks like Washington, d C. Or a brick facade, you a small town, big city. We've got all that. But also it's you know, time is money, So for a production to move around, that is taking that down time from production and you can move from all these different looks and relatively little times. So you combine that with the stages and then we've got this infrastructure. By the way, your listeners are more than welcome to attend April thirtieth at the Metelands Arena. We're doing the second annual Njfilm Expo, which is really a great showcase for our workforce but also our infrastructure. So our grip and electric rental, our audio rentals, are set design and construction. It's growing well. We didn't have cameras Larry in Date a year ago. Now we've got Airflex, Panasonic and Sony are here, we didn't have lumber mills that specialized in set construction. Now we've got two. We've got lenobyl and prints, so now you don't need to go across the river to get that. Those are all things that you know, when you're buying lumber for your set construction, you're buying it now in New Jersey and that's part of the qualified spend and that means there's full time employees that are working at these places too, So we've really got it all going on. Whatever your production needs, New Jersey's got you covered. Well.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: You made me think of something I hadn't thought of before, and obviously you did because you were just talking about it. But not only does the stages open, but there's a lot of businesses, there's a lot of colonialized businesses in that they build a colony around them that are also springing up. This isn't just a studio with a studio, as you said. You know, there's electric companies, there's prop companies, there's all of these other companies that are going to bring up around those studios. Am I correct on that? I think that's what you were just saying right.
00:07:05
Speaker 5: One hundred percent. There are so many different industries or businesses that our shoulder adjacent to what a production needs. As I always say, when production comes New Jersey, they're obviously not coming with hotel rooms. They're not coming with groceries to feed their crew. They're not coming with car rentals or hardware like paint and brushes to build and paint their sets. They're going out to the local businesses. You know. Well, Spielbert was down by the way. The trailer for that just dropped yesterday for his new project. It's a new sci fi project to film down to Cape Maine. Also up here in Newark. When he came into state, we have one of the state senators out of the set and I said, you see everybody that's here, there's three hundred and fifty crew members. Well, they're not going home at night. They're staying in hotel rooms here in your district at an average two and eighty five dollars per night. And then when they get home from filming each day, they're taking their per diem and they're spending that on restaurants at dinner again in your your district. And he was like, how soon can you get more production down here? You know? So that's one of the roles of the film commission is trying to spread that qualified spend all throughout the state. So they're spending that money all around wherever they go. But you can see the number of businesses that you wouldn't necessarily think of, Like you think, oh, camera rental, I get it, but you wouldn't necessarily think of a hardware store or dry cleaner or you know, Billy Aiker did his film and he did a parade sequence and he needed balloons. Well they did nineteen thousand dollars worth of balloon purchases in one day from the local supplier, you know, a local balloon business. Well, that was huge for them. The filmore was doing all sorts of rentals, you know, at the various golf courses around the state, and for a lot of a lot of people. Well, you know, COVID is still looming large. Right. Business has taken a bit of a hit, and it's taking a while to get that business back. So production comes in and you can you know, really bolster your year, you know, in just a few short days of yeah, make a.
00:09:19
Speaker 1: Lot of money back. I heard I heard the governor say something that really stunned me. He said, for every dollar invested in the movie and TV in production industry, you get seven dollars back. That's seven hundred percent profit for the state. I had never heard that before.
00:09:38
Speaker 5: If you if you do the math, and you see how much is being spent. So last year was eight hundred and thirty three million dollars. We were up forty one percent a year over year. We went from five hundred ninety two million to eight hundred and thirty three. Larry, I can't tell you what we're gonna do in twenty twenty five because we're still adding it up. Let me just tell you it's gonna be another fantastic up year for New Jersey. And we were the only state in twenty twenty four that was was up. New York was flat, California was down, Georgia was down, Louisiana was down, Texas was down. Right, they were all down. We were the only one that was up. Correction, Illinois was up.
00:10:18
Speaker 1: That's okay, let's leave Illinois out of it. John, Congratulations, Executive Producer, New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission. Couldn't be prouder of you. Way to go, John.
00:10:28
Speaker 5: The thank you, sir. Great to hear your voice
