On Villa Muse and Why Louisiana Loves the Austin City Council
posted by
txactor at txactor.com

According to a story in today’s Austin American Statesman headlined Villa Muse looking elsewhere, well…you get the picture. I don’t know whether the Villa Muse developers are posturing in an effort to swing the Austin city council their direction after last week’s rebuff of the request to be freed from city development rules. Maybe they do have realistic alternatives. I hope so.

What I do know is that over the past five years or so, Austin has lost its place at the top of Texas filmmaking locations. Per SAG leaders at a meeting this weekend, Dallas, home to much more commercial and industrial film production has reclaimed the top dog position in Texas. Fine. But that level of work does not provide a sufficient level of job opportunities to allow Texans in the film business to make a livable wage in-state.

With the lack of a competitive film incentive program in Texas, film production dollars that COULD have been spent in Texas, many of them in Austin, continue to be spent instead in Louisiana and New Mexico. I don’t know if the ambitious Villa Muse development is ever going to get off the ground here or elsewhere. What I do know is that it is a project that could help secure a lot of film industry jobs for the dwindling base of Austin based actors and crew people who now struggle to make a living and stay in Austin.

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