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Even After Death, Stories Of Recovery Can Give Hope

West Virginia filmmaker Tijah Bumgarner is creating two projects that depict the experiences of women in recovery through film. Both are inspired by the life of Ashley Ellis, who passed away last November due to substance use disorder.

West Virginia filmmaker Tijah Bumgarner has looked at opioid addiction from every angle. It’s personal — she lost her father to an overdose in 2020. Recently, she’s embarked on both fictional and real-life narratives that highlight the experiences of women in recovery through film.

Both of these projects are inspired by the life of Ashley Ellis, who passed away at the age of 34 last November due to substance use disorder. Ellis helped write “Her Hope Haven,” a TV series in the works about a group home for women in recovery. The pilot episode premiered for a Charleston audience last month. Ellis is also the subject of the yet to be screened documentary “Picture Proof.”

“All Ashley and I wanted was to save a life,” said Debi Ellis, Ashley’s mother, who is another subject in “Picture Proof.”

Ashley told WVPB during the filming of “Her Hope Haven” that she wanted to be open and honest about her addiction and recovery. She hoped her story would fight against stigma and remind folks that recovery is possible.

Debi said for about three years, Ashley was steadfast in her recovery.

“Even when she’s doing well and somebody would ask me, ‘How’s Ashley doing?’ I’d say ‘She’s fine at this moment,’” Debi said. “I always tagged that, because the sad thing with addiction is it roars out of nowhere. I knew it was a possibility every single moment. I knew she could die every single moment.”

Lauren Brothers plays Rachel in the pilot of “Her Hope Haven”, an episodic series in the works based off the experience of Ashley Ellis.

Ashley’s Story

After getting out of rehab, Ashley started making a name for herself in the recovery community. She worked as a peer support coach for Recovery Point. In her free time, she would get up in front of exhausted grandmothers to offer advice on how to cope with addiction in their families.

That’s how filmmaker Bumgarner met Ellis. Bumgarner was looking for subjects for a documentary.

“I just sat there in awe of her. Even at that point, I was just like, ‘Oh, I love her,’” Bumgarner said.

Bumgarner was drawn to Ashley, and in turn Ashley and Debi offered complete access to Bumgarner.

“This story that we don’t get to hear as often in the media about a family that worked so hard to build back what could have been shattered,” Bumgarner said.

Bumgarner began filming moments of their lives. She captured sticky situations, like custody proceedings, and solemn moments, like when Ashley found out her friend died from an overdose. But Bumgarner also filmed uplifting milestones in Ashley’s life, like Ashley getting engaged and having her second child, as Ashley described for the documentary.

“I can feel my kid moving inside of me, and it’s really cool, because I’m like ‘my god’ he’s moving because he’s healthy,” Ashley said in a clip. “It’s just so different now, I have a lot of stuff to live for now and before I felt like I didn’t.”

Debi Ellis (left) walks with her daughter Ashley Ellis (right). They hold tight to Ashley’s children Asher and Piper (center).

No one can know exactly what Ashley was going through days and weeks before her death. But she did lose her finance to an overdose, and Debi knew Ashley was grieving and depressed.

“I was looking at some texts last night, and I’m asking her if she wants to go ‘home.’ And ‘home’ is our code word for the treatment center in Louisville, because they have a sign above their door, ‘Home Sweet Home’,” Debi said. “So that was our code for ‘I need treatment.’ All she had to say to me was `I need home’ and we’re on the road.”

Debi said in that text conversation, three days before her death, Ashley reassured her that she was doing okay. She was reaching out to friends.

“And so we thought she was okay, and then I got a call that she wasn’t okay,” Debi said.

Folks close to Ashley came to her home, even though there wasn’t anything that could be done at that point. Bumgarner also rushed over, this time, without her camera.

“Debi got there. And I just wanted to hold her and not let her go. And then Debi’s like ‘Are you filming this?’ And I was like ‘No.’ And she’s like ‘Oh, you’re not really a documentarian then are you?’” Bumgarner said.

Bumgarner said she reacted as a friend in grief before considering the project at that moment. But since then she’s had space to consider how the documentary will reflect on Ashley’s death. The film will disclose Ashley’s passing, but it will end on a scene of her alive with her two children, her mother, and her recovery community.

“It ends in this hopeful way, that I think it would just do a disservice to all of the work and love of this family to make it feel so finite, and maybe not leave enough hope for others as well,” Bumgarner said.

The Power Of Narratives

The Ellis family didn’t take much convincing to have their life caught on tape.

“But I did tell her, I have one rule throughout all this. And that was to be raw. And I want people to see how it really is,” Debi said.

The documentarian and the subjects believed the story could shape perspectives.

Director of the Opioid Policy Institute Jonathan Stoltman said the way addiction and recovery are portrayed in the media do have consequences. Alongside the West Virginia based news outlet 100 Days in Appalachia, Stoltman educates reporters on how to cover addiction in a way that is accurate and minimizes harm with the project Reporting on Addiction.

Stoltman said the public needs to know addiction is a treatable, chronic condition. If they don’t, policy makers won’t be pushed to find and implement solutions.

“If we still think about it as a personal failure, or moral failure, then I’m not out there advocating for services to help in my community. Or if a treatment center wants to open up in my neighborhood, I might be more likely to say ‘Hey, I don’t want treatment in my neighborhood, because that’s bad. These people just need to figure it out on their own,’” Stoltman said.

Without viewing Bumgarner’s complete documentary, Stoltman said the filmmaker’s approach to a tragic story is helpful in a number of ways. Personal stories convey the true impact of addiction and need for services better than numbers alone. Showing all the good years of Ashley’s life lets others know that treatment helps and recovery is possible, and that fact doesn’t change just because Ashley died.

“All medicine is designed to extend life and increase quality of life. You saw with Ashley that quality of life, it came back in spades for her. Unfortunately, that does not mean that you’re at no risk of returning to use,” Stoltman said.

Stoltman also said there should be hopeful and gritty narratives around addiction, and they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

“When we talk about addiction, and treatment and recovery, there are so many different paths. And one of the paths, unfortunately, with opioid use disorder, is death. It’s not the most common path, but it is a path worth exploring and talking about the barriers that lead to that,” Stoltman said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 100,000 people in the U.S. have died from a drug overdose in the past year, but millions more people are experiencing opioid use disorder.

Only Ashley would know, but Debi suspects her daughter’s active, forward facing role as a recovery advocate put pressure on her.

“Yes, she did very well. She was clean. She was extremely, over the top active and accessible to anyone who needed her 24/7. But what happened was they put her on a pedestal. And anytime you are put on a pedestal, you get knocked off eventually by yourself,” Debi said.

Jonathan said that pressure is real. Peer recovery advocates take on the demands of social workers and have the pressure to be perfect in the eyes of those who admire their sobriety.

“You were the person that everybody talked about. And so now you’re not even like back to zero [days since drug use], you’re back to like negative 100. Because everybody looked up to you. In reality, that’s not the case of course, but it’s hard to get past that barrier that you’ve built for yourself,” Stoltman said.

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visitfindtreatment.gov.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Unique Partnership Brings Shakespeare Into W.Va. Homes

With theaters still closed last spring, West Virginia Public Broadcasting collaborated with West Virginia University’s School of Theater & Dance to create an opportunity for their students by filming a production of King Lear.

The film will be broadcast on WVPB channels starting March 13. To find the WVPB channel near you, visit wvpublic.org

Chris Schulz spoke with director Jerry McGonigal about the unique production process.

Schulz: Professor Jerry McGonigal, thank you so much for joining me today. Why King Lear of all the different plays that you could have put on?

Mcgonigle: It was supposed to be originally a part of our season. You know, we do five or six shows every year. Those are chosen for a lot of different reasons, which students we have, and what are the educational needs.

It was pithy, challenging, and it also created an opportunity for us to bring in a guest artist. So quite often, we like to bring in a professional actor to work alongside. Well, then COVID came, and it was pretty clear, it wasn’t going to be good in terms of public performance.

Schulz: You chose to do a full film production and treat this like a movie. What went into that decision?

Mcgonigle: I think even my colleagues would agree with me that I complicate things a lot, because I always feel like it’s the best experience for the students. And everybody around the country was facing the same thing. How do we give them a production experience, when we can’t even have an audience come in the theater? So I don’t really know why, except that ambition and the rise to a challenge. I don’t know, I thought it would be a lot more fun.

And over the last probably eight to 10 years, I’ve incorporated a lot more acting for the camera in our training for young actors. We also really steeped them in Shakespeare. Mainly because if you can handle the language of Shakespeare, you can handle almost anything. So I thought, ”My God, this is an opportunity to do both.” To bring all of the training from the camera class, and the Shakespeare class into one room.

Before you know it, I’m standing in a room with all the WNPB crew and cameras everywhere and microphones and lights, and the students are right in the middle of that doing Shakespeare in front of a camera. I mean, I don’t think it could be cooler than that. I just thought it was an incredible experience for them.

And these guys I’m working with, Larry and Aaron and Chuck and the gang. They’re just amazing. I trusted them every single bit of the way. And actually, that was one of the other things in terms of what happened in the room that was pretty special, too. John and Jason, the camera people, were right there with students, showing them how things worked. And the students were like, enthralled by it. And they were so patient. It was the perfect relationship of professionals and students. And I hope we get to do it again.

Schulz: What can you tell us about the production? I mean, how was it you know, with COVID restrictions, and then also the added requirements of filming?

Mcgonigle: It was crazy. We followed all of the guidelines that were in place for the Screen Actors Guild.

I never saw the actors’ faces perform the piece until the camera was rolling. We rehearsed for about four weeks in the fall on Zoom. And then we did five weeks of rehearsal to prepare for shooting where I staged it and had to figure out, Larry and I, the director of photography, consulting on how to shoot it, and how do I block it? But we did all that in masks.

The actors get on stage, we’re in the middle of a TV studio kind of feel. And then the assistant director says, “Okay, masks off.” Literally, I’m watching the monitor while they’re acting and for the first time I’m saying, “Oh, that’s the facial expression on their face while they’re acting.” I haven’t been able to see that.

There were probably 70 people interacting in and out of the room over the course of a week of shooting, including actors, technicians. We did not have one infection. We did not have one person.

Schulz: It’s been a year since you went through all that and all the filming. How are you feeling to see it next week on the screen?

Mcgonigle: I’m really excited. The post production period has been a real challenge too, composing music and sound effects. But when you put those finishing touches on and then there’s music, and then there’s sound effects. And you suddenly go, “Oh my God, this just came to life.” It’s really exciting.

It’s amazing that we made it to the end. We frankly thought that at any point, we could be deep into act five, and something could happen and we’d have to shut down and never get to finish it. So when we made it to the finish line, I was like “Oh my, this is amazing.”

So now to see it all put together is…There’s a rush that you get as a director when the audience comes at opening night, it’s mixed with incredible nerves. I get that rush when I see what we’ve cut together. And to see these some young actors put together some pretty fine performances. I’m proud of them.

Schulz: What do you think the audience is going to get from seeing this production and the story of King Lear?

McGonigle: Yeah, it’s about leadership. It’s about leadership that falls apart. It seemed kind of appropriate for today. It’s very much about the responsibility of leadership, it’s about the responsibility of passing on power, and giving up power, which is another theme in our world today.

But in some ways, it’s like a family drama. And we’re doing it in the midst of a pandemic, you know, that we’d never seen before, and it was kind of surreal. This king is going mad and we’re all struggling to breathe with our masks on while we’re making it. It just seemed kind of timely and appropriate.

One of the parts of this experience that I think will become even more important once this airs on TV: this is now accessible to students throughout West Virginia.

This is now something that was made here. I think it’s really good for West Virginia to see ourselves not just as a coal mining state or beautiful mountain state, but that we are also a state full of artists and that we can make something like this.

If I do a play at the Creative Arts Center, a little over 1,000 people got to see that play. This is limitless. We’re creating all kinds of resources for teachers. So there’s an educational component.

I’m just really excited about the idea, it really makes me happy inside to think about students in a classroom watching this or sitting at home with their parents, or even parents in the southern part of the state getting to see this. And I think it’s really good for our state to know that we can do this kind of thing.

'Dopesick' Writer, Producer Talks W.Va. Opioid Crisis

Dopesick is a new series streaming on Hulu. Penned by author Beth Macy, it details the rise of prescription opioids, namely Oxycontin, and the wreckage it has caused across the nation.

The show takes viewers to board meetings of the wealthy Sackler family, who mislead doctors and patients into believing the drug was less than 1 percent addictive. The series plays out like a crime drama, as a pair of assistant U.S. Attorneys from Virginia and a Drug Enforcement Administration agent push to prosecute the drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma.

The show also tells the story of small town doctors who bought into Purdue’s claims and had to face the guilt that they prescribed Oxycontin to patients who would become addicted or even die. That story is based in Appalachia.

“They sent the most [drug sales] reps into those regions with data about every single prescriber,” said Macy, who helped create the show and wrote the book it is based on.

Macy followed the real life story while reporting for The Roanoke Times. She will be speaking in Charleston this Sunday with Kentucky author Robert Gipe. The event is set for 2 p.m. at Taylor Books.

Appalachia Health News Reporter June Leffler spoke with Macy ahead of her Charleston appearance.

June Leffler: While working on this series with people that are not from Appalachia, when did you say “Okay, this is really what we should do, because this is how I think we should portray the region?”

Beth Macy: I’m from Roanoke, Virginia, which is about a quarter of a million people in the Roanoke Valley. And it’s very different from a small town in far southwest Virginia, like the fictional Finch Creek, which is basically Pennington gap in Lee County. And that’s where some of the first people fought back against Purdue and you see them portrayed. I wanted to make sure that the people in the writers room got to meet these people.

Danny Strong, the showrunner, and I interviewed Sister Beth Davies, the drug counselor who fights back. We interviewed Dr. Art Van Zee, the doctor from St. Charles, Virginia, who fights back and is the first to call Purdue on the phone and say, “Hey, this drug is way more addictive than less than 1%.” We got Robert Gipe who’s a novelist from Eastern Kentucky. His trio of illustrated novels and plays are all around the opioid epidemic. We got him in the room to make sure the dialogue was right, and to really help us portray the small town aspect that I wasn’t as familiar with.

One other thing we did, we brought in a doctor from Tennessee, who at the time was Tennessee’s drug czar, and he himself was a doctor who was shopped by numerous patients, he was targeted by reps, he himself got addicted. And now he is a treatment innovator. We brought him into the room for four hours one day, and just had him tell his story, and it was a very powerful session. One other thing. Danny had two veteran screenwriters who grew up in rural areas, one in Arkansas, and the other in Montana. And another writer was somebody who himself had opioid use disorder.

Leffler: And you also made a point of filming in Virginia.

Macy: It ultimately wasn’t up to me. It was up to Danny and the higher ups at Disney and Hulu. But before he went to look at locations in North Carolina and Georgia, I just made this plea that I felt like if there was any sort of secondary economic benefit to be had that Virginia deserved to have it. Because southwest Virginia was one of the areas that was really targeted hard at the beginning.

Danny also just thought it was beautiful. And Richmond was a place that they could turn into various locations, including Stamford, Connecticut, New York City, as well as Clifton Forge which is a small town. That is where the Finch Creek scenes were shot. That is a really beautiful, mountainous town that has experienced high rates of opioid use disorder. And the people in the town really appreciated us filming there.

Leffler: The Sackler family has been taken to task for its role in the opioid crisis through lawsuits. How do you feel about the Sackler bankruptcy and the settlement?

Macy: The Sacklers are giving up the company, and they’re giving up $4.5 billion of their wealth, but by the time they pay it out over nine years, many experts believe that they’ll be just as rich if not richer than they are right now. Nobody’s going to jail. Nobody’s admitting that they did anything wrong. In fact, when asked in court recently, Richard Sackler had no idea how many people had died from opioids. And I tell you, if you are one of the family members of all those folks who died (more than a half a million) you’re not very happy with that statement. And a lot of people think the Department of Justice should go after the Sacklers criminally, and I quite agree.

Leffler: You don’t see that justice has been served in this case. And I am wondering about your take on what could happen with this $5 billion settlement. Local governments and state governments say they want to put it into addiction recovery services. How optimistic are you that that money will go to the right places?

Macy: Well, I’m pretty discouraged in places in Appalachia, to be honest. I’m very discouraged by the fact that West Virginia has basically outlawed needle exchanges at a time when Charleston, West Virginia, has the most concerning HIV rate in the nation. So we need that money to go to groups that are employing evidence-based practices. We know that people who visit needle exchanges for sterile needles are five times more likely to enter treatment. We know needle exchange also helps with reduced drug use. We have decades of studies of this going back to HIV.

We have to have people on the ground being listened to for their expertise. I’m thinking of the group SOAR who is doing wonderful work in Charleston, and whose operations have been very much criticized. These are people risking arrest, to help the least of us. And I think they need our support, because they’re doing the work that not a lot of people want to do.

We continue to have a really high treatment gap in the nation, 88 percent, which means that only 12 percent of people with an addiction have received access to care in the past year. That’s embarrassing. Frankly, we can do better, we know how to do better.

We need more walk-in clinics. Huntington, West Virginia, has a great treatment model called PROACT. And they work closely with the homeless shelter to make sure that anybody can walk in and get services. We need to be doing that more than turning people away, because anything that gets people into care is going to be one step towards them not dying of this lethal fentanyl that seems to be everywhere on the streets these days.

Leffler: Your book and this series I think hopes to destigmatize those that fell prey to addiction because they were targeted by legal drug pushers. Now that people are dying of illegal street drugs, what stigma remains that needs to be addressed?

Macy: Families have been hurt by this. They’ve been hurt by their loved ones’ behavior in many cases. And a lot of that behavior is because they fear being dopesick, the excruciating withdrawal symptoms. But by not offering them care, by treating them basically as criminals or lepers in some cases, they wouldn’t be committing these behaviors if we offered the medical care, and didn’t criminalize all of their activities.

I know people in my own community of Roanoke who have died of end stage endocarditis, because they couldn’t bear to go back to the hospital where they were treated so poorly, and so stigmatized, so they die at home alone. That’s a story that repeats itself in all kinds of communities.

So I’m hoping the viewer of the show will come away with a newfound knowledge of this 25-year-old story and question Richard Sackler’s language. Richard Sackler said these people are criminals. These abusers are the problem, we should hammer the abusers. So when we stigmatize people with opioid use disorder, we’re following Richard Sackler’s playbook, and he doesn’t deserve anyone to follow his playbook.

Leffler: People in Appalachia are aware of this story, and they see it all around them. I’m wondering, how have your Appalachian readers and viewers responded to you?

Macy: Already strangers will reach out to me through my author page on Facebook. And whether it’s a family member of someone who died or is still recovering, or maybe a nurse at the hospital who was targeted over and over, there’s a lot of lightbulb moments going on. Some say they didn’t realize that the start of it was Oxycontin. And then there’s also just this sense of, ‘Wow, I’m seeing my story on the screen.’ To feel seen and to feel listened to can be very healing for people. Some people won’t watch the show, because it’s too triggering for them. It’s a dark show, but it’s also exciting. You know, there’s the legal thriller aspect of it, the true crime aspect. That in some ways gives you a break from just the addiction story. But the addiction story is where my heart is. And it’s where I think viewers will learn the most frankly and come away with just a newfound understanding.

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

“Her Hope Haven” Casts West Virginia Women In Recovery For Locally Produced Pilot

The opioid crisis is at the center of a new project from West Virginia filmmaker Tijah Bumgarner. She’s producing a pilot for a fictional series that highlights the human connections formed during recovery, based on the real-life experiences of those who have endured the process themselves.

With funding from Charleston Creative Connections and private donors, the story is set at a fictional recovery center called Her Hope Haven, which is also the title of the video project. With hopes for an eventual full-fledged series, the pilot episode will air for a Charleston audience this fall.

Bumgarner enlisted women in recovery to act and shape the storyline.

“It’s based on the treatment centers I’ve been in,” said Ashley Ellis, a creative consultant on the project.

Ellis doesn’t have acting, screenwriting or video expertise. But she offers her lived experience and a willingness to share painful truths with an audience of strangers.

“I don’t care to tell my story. I don’t care if it’s out there. I think that helps people,” Ellis said.

Director Tijah Bumgarner and director of photography Taylor Napier on the set of “Her Hope Haven”.

Years ago, Ellis met filmmaker Tijah Bumgarner, who began making a documentary about her recovery process. Opioid use isn’t a new subject for the Marshall University film professor and Meadow Bridge (2017) writer-director. She has dealt with it personally through her father, who died from an overdose last year. But it is the first time she has tackled the issue from a fictional standpoint.

“There’s something about fiction that can almost get to this other form of truth, because you can actually like build this world,” Bumgarner said.

She builds that world from the stories of Ellis and other women on the set. All the characters in recovery are played by women who have lived through it themselves. There’s a script, but actors are encouraged to make the lines their own.

“A story is written. But with the women who have had these experiences, we go into it and I’m like ‘change it’,” Bumgarner said.

The cast is made up of amateur actors who are encouraged to give input on phrasing and costumes based on what feels most natural and believable.

Cast member Lauren Brothers has been through the same experiences as her character, Rachel.

“She is a young girl. And she just had a baby, and she needs to be a better mom,” Brothers said.

Brothers spent a year at a recovery center similar to the one in the film.

In one scene, Rachel and her mother, Lisa, are daunted to find out how long the recovery program will take. The intake coordinator says Rachel needs to commit nine to 12 months to the process. They thought it would take only three.

The news comes as a shock to both of them. Rachel does not want to have to be away from her toddler, Pearl, for so long. Lisa gives her tough love throughout the episode, saying treatment is the only way to keep their family intact.

Brothers isn’t a professional actor, but she brings her own process to these emotional scenes.

“I could picture my baby saying goodbye. So that’s how I can relate to that and get involved in that scene to make it look real,” she said.

Rachel’s internal conflict with herself over whether or not she can stay in treatment plays out over the course of the episode.

“You get to see how hard it is, that struggle of going and getting help, but also how bad you want it down inside. It’s like you are in a war between yourself,” Brothers said.

Monster Movie Camp Comes to Pocahontas County

For many, summer is often associated with camp and quintessential camp activities like swimming, making s’mores and telling ghost stories.

Last week, a group of nine students in Pocahontas County took telling ghost stories a step further, by learning how to make short, animated films at Monster Movie Camp.

On the last day of Monster Movie Camp, the students were standing at their workstations, hurriedly putting the final touches on the illustrations for their film. Molly Cook was drawing the shape of a funny looking monster with a magic marker.

“I just like drawing. I’m only 10. I’m the youngest person in this class,” she said. She made a short, animated film, about a legendary cryptid from Braxton County, known as the Flatwoods Monster.

After drawing the images, or creating a set with sculpture, the students used iPads to film their movies. They spent days working on their small sets and filming their stop-action animation.

Many of the students said they signed up partly because they like to draw. Jesse Kelly said he likes theatre, and performing, and he wanted to learn to make movies as another creative outlet.

One of the students’ sketches from Monster Movie Camp.

“I think I surprised myself on some of the things that I did because I didn’t think I could do it that good,” Kelly said. “Like, once I watched it, it was better than I thought it would be.”

The Pocahontas County Opera House hosted the five-day Monster Movie Camp. Artist Bryan Richards and writer Howard Parsons also helped teach the students how to animate stories.

On the final day of camp, the students showed their parents their films, which were projected on a big screen inside the Pocahontas Opera House.

In the interest of full disclosure, Roxy Todd, who reported this story, is friends with Brooke Shuman, who organized the camp.

Legislation to Reinstate the W.Va. Film Tax Credit Could Return in 2020

West Virginia’s film tax credit was eliminated by the West Virginia Legislature in 2018 after a legislative audit report deemed the credit as providing only “minimal economic impact.” But people who work in the film industry don’t agree. An attempt to resurrect the credit failed this past session, but supporters are hopeful it will make it through the next legislative session.

Robert Tinnell is a West Virginia filmmaker who was born and raised in Marion County. He’s been making movies professionally since 1980, and since 2005, he and his brother Jeffrey have been running a production company called Allegheny Image Factory out of the Morgantown area.

They’ve produced award-winning films, documentaries, music videos and commercials. One of their recent feature films was, Feast of the Seven Fishes based on Robert Tinnell’s graphic novel of the same name. The film featured actors Skyler Gisondo and Madison Iseman and was filmed entirely in West Virginia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeIWozecO50

Feast of the Seven Fishes will be available later this year but possibly under a new name. Tinnell said the film will likely be released under the title, 7 Fishes & Christmas ’83.

Tinnell said production of the film benefited greatly from West Virginia’s now-defunct film tax credit. He said the movie was able to be filmed and produced in-state, attracting actors and crew from the larger-film industry outside West Virginia thanks to incentive from the tax credit.

Now, since the credit was eliminated, Tinnell said it’s been harder to attract big productions to film in West Virginia.

“Stripping us of the tax credit, effectively disabled our ability to bring feature films or TV projects to West Virginia,” Tinnell said. “I mean, it’s that simple. Whether you agree with the tax incentive business model or not, the reality is, the industry and states, and even national governments, embrace the policy. And it simply is the cost of doing business.”

After losing the credit, Tinnell said it cost his production company two films and the potential of bringing about $4 million into the state.

“We say we want to diversify the state’s economy. We don’t want to just lean on extractive industries, it’s just too, up and down, and it’s putting all your eggs in one basket,” he said. “Here’s a really smart way to do it – and in a way that boosts not only the entertainment industry, but it’s just a great way to promote tourism.”

Del. Dianna Graves, R-Kanawha, discusses HB 2941 (reinstating the film investment tax credit) on the House floor on Feb. 27, 2019.

During the 2019 state Legislative session, Del. Dianna Graves, R-Kanawha, introduced a bill that would have reinstated the film tax credit – but with tweaks and adjustments based on the legislative audit report that made 12 recommendations if the credit were to be kept.

Graves has worked in the state’s film industry as both an accountant and producer, and she argues the tax credit was working but admits it did have problems, but problems she sought to fix with her bill.

“Even the audit admitted that it brought economic benefit to the state, it just didn’t think there was enough benefit to justify keeping it, well, then fine, let’s not get rid of it completely. It’s working. Let’s make it better. That was my goal,” she said.

Graves’ bill increased the cap of the film tax credit from $5 million to $10 million, and it would have required a film production company to spend at least $50,000 in-state before they would be eligible for the credit. After that, for every $100 spent, that production company could take home $27, but the remaining $73 would stay in-state.

Her bill managed to pass out of the House of Delegates but not without pushback. House Finance Chairman Del. Eric Householder, R-Berkeley, was one of 26 who voted against the bill.

Householder admits he’s not a fan of tax credits. He said they allow the government to pick economic winners and losers. He also argues the original film tax credit just wasn’t justifiable.

“In 10 years, only $8.6 million in tax credits were used,” Householder explained. “And if it’s such an attractive, competitive force, we would see more companies coming here, wanting to come here and take advantage of the tax credits, and it just wasn’t happening.”

He also felt Del. Graves’ bill didn’t make enough of the changes that were recommended by the audit.

“If she tightens all those up or takes those recommendations, I think it will pass the scrutiny,” he said. “Right now, I don’t foresee it happening since, remember, it was repealed in 2018. So, maybe in a year or so, maybe next legislative session, [it] might stand a better chance.”

Graves’ bill may have made it out of the House chamber last year, but it was never taken up by the Senate Finance Committee. In an emailed statement to West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Senate Finance Chairman Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, said he also felt Graves didn’t make enough changes recommended in the audit report.

Like Blair and Householder, Graves identifies as a fiscal conservative, and she said she doesn’t often vote for tax credits but says the film tax credit is different.

“The West Virginia film tax credit; it functions much more like advertising expense than a traditional tax credit,” she explained. “We are trying to entice film companies and movie studios to come here and film. But instead of giving this money up front, like you do with advertising expense, we only give it if you come here. So, that means that our advertising expense has a 100 percent success rate.”

Graves said the film tax credit helps to diversify the state’s economy. She plans to reintroduce her bill during the 2020 state Legislative session.

She said she hopes she can communicate to the Senate in particular of the credit’s benefits, increase the cap, and get it signed by the governor.

**Editor’s Note: This article was edited on Jun. 28, 2019 to add the correct spelling of Robert Tinnell’s last name.