The month ahead holds very much for the country with a presidential election as well as the state of the film industry with the first American Film Market event in Las Vegas. For Babs Do Productions and the future for Babs Do Studios, this is going to be a key time to follow news and events as they come and we will continue to work towards establishing Babs Do as a key industry player for shaping the future of entertainment with the growing Hollywood 2.0 movement.

Nevada Film Tax Incentives Update

Warner Bros.

We have been in contact with multiple groups in regards to the Nevada Film Tax Incentives campaign for 2025 and there hasn’t been much spoken about the now separate film incentive bills from Sony and Warner Bros. This past Wednesday there was a town hall meeting at UNLV about Warner Bros. and UNLV’s bill that gave a few updates:

• Warner Bros. is looking to “partner with smaller filmmakers”.
• They will invest $900 Million Dollars into building the studios with $500 Million Dollars being spent annually for production.
• Warner Bros. would receive around $100 Million Dollars in tax credits annually for 17 years.
• Warner Bros. is looking to convert a warehouse into a production space for the meantime as studio construction will take 1-2 years and possibly further development before they open.
• The legislation from Warner Bros. will not be finished until around January 2025.

Unfortunately, we were not notified of the town hall to receive these updates, ask direct questions, or to even help explain to the public why Nevada needs new universal film tax incentives. From what has been shown on news recordings of the event, the town hall was met with skepticism, confusion, and an air of negativity towards the call for new incentives. Most concerning was that these updates from various news sources indicate that the bill may not be much different from the original 2023 bill’s wording and fair inclusivity for independent filmmakers and other developments like Babs Do Studios may still need to be worked in. The late writing of the legislation also is worrisome as the original bill failed to make the floor of the legislature by being so far behind in the schedule.

Until further notice, we can only hope that Warner Bros. and UNLV take a hard look at their film tax incentive bill and provide the necessary adjustments and provisions to present a winning universal film tax incentive bill that will put Nevada on the map for film and media production, especially in the face of even California now having to revise their own film tax incentives to compete for film production in the state.

Sony Pictures

As far as Sony Pictures and Howard Hughes Corporation, we have watched the recent video from IndyFest 2024 with Ravi Ahuja from Sony and David O’Reilly from Howard Hughes Corporation and their interview at the show went over very well. While some additional details of their own bill since the breakup with Warner Bros. were not shared, they did discuss some of the economics of their studio proposal. The only concern was their reiteration of the need for film tax incentives, cementing that both Warner Bros. and Sony will not build if a film tax incentive bill doesn’t pass. A summary of their bill follows:

• There must be physical infrastructure.
• There must be production.
• They must use local employees.

While it sounds like Sony Pictures may also have plans to “partner with smaller filmmakers”, the details were kept at the minimum. The host was also skeptical of the need for film tax incentives and made similar remarks as Warner Bros. received in the UNLV town hall. Despite this, an emphasis on growing the economy and bringing major production work to Nevada was particularly mentioned throughout the presentation so, much like Warner Bros., we can only hope that Sony and Howard Hughes Corporation consider making their bill open to everyone looking to produce films and build new studios in Nevada.

Babs Do at the American Film Market

We are excited to announce that Co-President Zack Birlew will be at the American Film Market to find new potential investors for Babs Do Studios as well as to network with professionals in the distribution sphere to work with Babs Do Studios in the future as well as to potentially partner with for Babs Do Productions’ upcoming slate of films. While our current film, “The Diner”(working title) is missing the market by a hair in order to finish and finalize its post production, the American Film Market presents an amazing opportunity to discover the right distributor for the film ahead of time. In addition, there are many sessions and events to help us evaluate the state of distribution for 2025 in order to help us plan out our distribution strategy going forward. We look forward to meeting professionals across all levels at the AFM and invite investors, distributors, and filmmakers alike to reach out and let us know if you would like to work with Babs Do Productions and Babs Do Studios towards establishing a new Hollywood 2.0 in Nevada!

Our Academic Outreach

We have steadily been working on our foundation of Babs Do Studios with our academic outreach efforts and we now officially have interest from UNLV, Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film & Media Arts, and now University of Nevada Reno for offering internships and out of school work opportunities for graduating students at Babs Do Studios! As with our other connections for Babs Do Studios, it all depends on us getting our studios built and the key at this point is to find the right investors to help build our studios.

Establishing these connections and commitments right away will work perfectly with our development which is still the fastest film and media infrastructure plan to deploy in Nevada. With one of our builders now able to provide modular sound stages as soon as 3 months with streamlined operations, we can now build our sound stages almost as fast as repurposing commercial warehouse and office properties into production facilities.

Example of Babs Do Studios stages with a Steel Building design