IF YOU FUND IT, THEY WILL COME: Earlier this year, the Legislature increased incentives for the film and television industry to shoot more projects in the state. And it seems that those extra funds are already paying dividends. ABC will film the legal drama The Deep End in North Texas with a midseason debut in mind. Texas Film Commission honcho Bob Hudgins tells Joe O’Connell we can expect $20 million or so to be spent in the area.
ART HOP: JR Compton has posted the latest in his Art Here Lately series on dallasartsrevue.com. If you’re new to Art Here Lately, it’s an occasional series in which Compton hits one gallery after another, offering short reviews along the way. But the best part of scrolling through it is looking at Compton’s photos from his gallery hopping. Compton has a real eye for capturing the art on display, giving you a real sense of how it looks in the gallery space. Scroll through to his photos of the Seven Deadly Sins show at Southside on Lamar and his pictures of Deep Ellum’s Traveling Man sculpture in progress to see what I mean.
TO CUT, OR NOT TO CUT: Anyone with an ounce of business sense knows that there are two ways to improve the bottom line: increase revenue or trim expenses. Locally, there have been several theaters in the past few months that have opted for choice B, decreasing the number of performances and even the number of shows in the current season. But Andrew Taylor, who writes the arts-business blog The Artful Manager, suggests that cutting back is problematic for two reasons. First, arts organizations with venues already have high fixed costs. And second, patrons can smell an organization in trouble and are sometimes turned off by the stench. The point, according to Taylor, is to remember that, “revenue is a dynamic number, driven in large part by the excitement and energy you create among your prime supporters.” Cuts are sometime unavoidable, but Taylor’s post at least offers some food for thought if you are considering them.
