Florida film commissioner
sees industry’s big picture

By Boaz Dvir

Paul Sirmons, TEL 1976, believes his days as state film commissioner are numbered. He figures his term will expire with Gov. Jeb Bush’s in January, as Florida’s next governor makes a new appointment.

Sirmons, who put his movie-production career on hold to spearhead Florida’s efforts to attract more filmmakers, has been racing against the clock since August 2005, when Bush asked him to head the Office of Film & Entertainment.

Break Away Productions President Paul Meena, a member of the Florida Film & Entertainment Advisory Council, “pushed hard for Paul,” he said. The former head of the production studio at Universal Studios in Orlando had seen Sirmons in action on TV show sets.

“I was surprised he took an interest in this position. I was very happy,” Meena said. “Here’s a guy who wears several hats – he’s a first AD [assistant director], a crew member, a union member and
a producer.”

Sirmons’ background – among other projects, he worked on Quantum Leap, SeaQuest and Falcon Crest and produced and directed The First of May, which ran on HBO and Cinemax – gives him street cred among industry insiders.

“I speak their language,” Sirmons said.

In his first public sector job, he’s been picking up new linguistic skills, namely political speech and bureaucratic talk, to navigate Tallahassee’s political maze and pave the Florida-Hollywood trail that his predecessors blazed.

“I spend 14 hours a day selling the state,” he said. “I do whatever I can to help filmmakers. I can’t be everything they want me to be, but I do my best to help.”

His long days have yielded dividends, Meena said. Sirmons has united the various, sometime conflicting sectors of Florida’s entertainment industry.

“Before, they all cared about themselves,” Meena said. “Now, they speak in one voice.”

This has led to the independent producer’s one major disagreement with the state film commissioner – Meena believes the next governor will retain Sirmons.

“Paul’s done an excellent job,” Meena said. “He’s helped organize the office, he’s won over many legislators in a short time, he’s laid the groundwork for growth, and he’s kept the industry going in positive direction. Why wouldn’t the new governor keep him?”

See Sirmons go

Sirmons attends many of the state’s numerous film festivals, some of which have been gaining national attention.

At the 2006 Jacksonville Film Festival, for instance, he met with filmmakers from around the world, talked up the state’s strong points to anyone who’d listen, participated in panel discussions and tried to watch as many features, documentaries and short films as possible – especially those shot in Florida.

His presence made a difference, said Executive Director Jean Tait, a former Sundance Film Festival programmer. He gave the Jacksonville festival “one more notch of legitimacy.”

During his three days in Jacksonville – Friday morning to Sunday night – Sirmons met with producers and directors considering shooting future projects in the state, such as Todd Robinson, who produced, directed and wrote festival headliner Lonely Hearts, the John Travolta film shot in Northeast Florida.

Sirmons stayed to watch the festival’s last showing, The Gold Bracelet, at the Florida Theatre.

“I’m a third-generation Floridian,” he said. “I really care about the people in this state.”

Hungry Gator in Tallahassee

One of Sirmons’ main achievements has been to help convince legislators to double the state’s entertainment industry incentive fund to $20 million. To qualify for the 15 percent cash back (up to $2 million per project), filmmakers must spend at least $850,000 on each project in Florida.

Yet Sirmons is far from satisfied. Florida’s incentives still lag behind such states as Louisiana and New Mexico, which compete for – and often win – the same Hollywood projects.

“We’re not anywhere near those states,” he said. “However, we shouldn’t have to be. We have the third-deepest film infrastructure in the country and locations that producers want to shoot. We just need to make the most out of the incentives we have, and fix a few things to make it work better.”

Since Florida could use more of the high-paying jobs that filmmaking creates (average annual wage is $53,000), Sirmons has been advocating switching to tax credits, which, unlike cash back, are a permanent fixture. They’d allow the state to guarantee incentives for multi-year periods, which would open the door to television series.

“I have to do a better job educating everyone about this,” he said. “TV series can have a huge impact on the state – just look at what Miami Vice did for South Beach – and where most shows come and go, a TV series can come back year after year and add over $20 million each year into Florida’s economy.”

After he leaves, he hopes to take advantage of the incentive program he’s helped build: “I plan to go back to producing movies right here in this state,” he said.

That’s good news to many people around Florida, said Michael Houston King, a former soap actor and an independent filmmaker in Orlando. Sirmons produced his writing/producing debut, The Way Back Home, co-starring Julie Harris and Ruby Dee.

“He was a gem of a find for me,” King recalled. “He single-handedly opened doors for me. All he had to do was call and say, ‘I’m working on this film, do you want to be involved?’ People always said yes.”

Natalie Recio, TEL 2006, said yes when Sirmons asked her a year ago to be his executive assistant. Based in New York at the time, she had just finished working on Molly Shannon’s Shut Up and Sing and had joined the crew in pre-production for William Hurt’s Beautiful Ohio.

Recio had met Sirmons when she was a student. She took him to lunch during one of his visits as a Telecommunication Advisory Council member. She recently started working for Discovery Channel-Latin America.

“Paul is wonderful,” Reico said. “He’s ambitious, inspiring, personable and driven.”

Sirmons started out in print journalism. As a student, he wrote about sports and designed pages at The Gainesville Sun.

“I realized it wasn’t exactly right for me and switched to broadcasting,” recalled Sirmons, who recently visited UF to celebrate his son’s (Jeff Sirmons, JM 2006) graduation. “I found that I liked writing scripts. I liked using words to create images. I loved the idea of telling stories.”