The 500 camera crews of all sizes from all over the world that converged on Tuesday night in Grant Park for the Obama rally gave the film community a much needed huge financial boost.

“Every shooter, truck, generator, light and camera in Chicago was on the scene,” said Adam Marton of AM Films.

CHEVY CHASE hosts an evening at Sundance for the world premiere of Phil Ranstrom’s doc, “Electrified: The Story of the Maxwell St. Urban Blues” Jan 25 at Harry O’s in Park City.

Narrated by Chicago native Joe Mantegna, “Electrified” tells how Maxwell Street’s neighborhood led to the hard driving sound of the urban blues and ultimately to rock ?n’ roll.

Ranstrom’s companion film, “Cheat You Fair,” documents the last days of Maxwell Street market. Ranstrom began both projects in 1994 shortly before the Maxwell Street market was demolished.

MPG’s doc “Senator Obama Goes to Africa” won’t have its world premiere and only public showing at the Gene Siskel Center as announced.

The Siskel Center cancelled the scheduled Jan. 19 and Jan. 22 screenings, saying that showing it could jeopardize the Center’s status with the IRS as a non-profit institution.

Pressure was brought by the legal department of the Art Institute, the Center’s parent institution.

“The IRS could interpret the film as a lobbying effort for the Obama campaign,” Barbara Scharres, the Center’s programming director.

When one of her butter ideas melted before she had a chance to spread it around, “Citizen Kate” webisode creator/producer Carey Lundin wasn’t as mad as she was chagrined.

Lundin was scooped by the national media on her very own story. She actually originated the idea of the Barack Obama butter sculpture meant for taping and posting on her citizenkate.tv site.

“Citizen Kate,” portrayed by actress Kate Soglin, follows presidential candidates on the campaign trail to determine who would make the best president.

MEDIA PROCESS GROUP partners Bob Hercules and Keith Walker will produce a documentary on the African travels of Sen. Barack Obama beginning Aug. 18.

To raise awareness of African issues, Sen. Obama will visit South Africa, Kenya, the Sudan and Congo and tour the Darfur region, site of tribal genocide.

Political consultant David Axelrod is co-producer. Hercules directs, Walker is DP, Rich Pooler handles audio. The independent production likely will air on PBS when completed.

Filmmakers seeking investors can offer them a federal tax credit that’s sprung back to life: Section 181, which permits a healthy 100% deduction for the cost of films, television shows, documentaries and other genres.

President Obama signed Section 181 into law effective through Dec. 31, 2011. The bill had been allowed to sunset on Dec. 31, 2009.

The Section 181 incentive was originally designed to thwart runaway film and television production, which took effect in October, 2004 as part of the American Jobs Creation Act.

Even as it works through Chapter 11 restructuring, the Show Department, Inc. and its subsidiaries, Resolution Digital Studios and The Screen Works, recent staged two high-powered benefit events.

One was for Chicago Community Trust’s 95th Anniversary Gala Oct. 12 at the Harris Theatre for Kurtis Productions and producer Scott Jacobs; the other for President Obama’s recent rally in Madison, Wisconsin.

COO Jeff Facklis says Show Department has done small projects with Kurtis over the years, but “this was our first major show with them.

BOB HERCULES AND KEITH WALKER’S Media Process Group celebrate their 25th anniversary with a retrospective screening of excerpts from six of their documentaries starting with 1989’s “Baseball’s Heirlooms” (1989) at the Gene Siskel Center Oct. 21.

Other films are “The Democratic Promise: Saul Alinsky and His Legacy ” (1999), “Forgiving Dr. Mengele” (2006), “Senator Obama Goes to Africa” (2007), “Radical Disciple: The Story of Father Pfleger” (2009).

Also screening is MPG’s in-progress “A Good Man,” Bob Hercules’s collaboration with Gordon Quinn, about choreographer Bill T.

When Bob Hercules and his two partners started Media Process Group (MPG), in July, 1985 in a small Wicker Park loft, they took part-time teaching jobs at Columbia College to support the new venture.

It looks like the 385,000-sq. ft. Michigan Motion Picture Studios — the former GM Pontiac plant — is finally coming to life. County officials have stated the sale for the property has closed and financing is nearly complete.

A 185,000-square-foot addition is planned for the facility, and studio heads are looking to hire as many local contractors as possible, according to the Oakland Herald.

County officials have put their own backing behind the project. The Oakland County Economic Development Corp. is in the process of selling $28 million in bonds to support the studio.

New York-based Vladar Company is coming to Chicago this June to shoot a 90-minute documentary about Chicago rapper Twista.

“I am looking forward to shooting in Chicago and telling the story about Twista, a great American artist,” director Vlad Yudin says. “We will reveal the rich music culture and tradition that Chicago has to offer the world.”

EMI Music Label Services is slated to release “Twista” in November as a companion to the rapper’s next album. “They’re targeting for TV and VOD,” says Vladar Company producer Edwin Mejia.

A quartet of happy campers returned from three days in L.A. talking to studio execs with big smiles on their faces and signed with collective relief, as it looks like Chicago’s dire draught of film activity may be ending.

Local 476’s Mark Hogan, the Teamsters’ John Coley Sr. and John Coley Jr., and the IFO’s Betsy Steinberg brought back news of possible studio productions.

Fox Television has given a greenlight to the Shawn Ryan pilot, an hourlong cop drama, “Ridealong,” a potential Fox series that could be shot in its entirety here.

Gov. Pat Quinn’s gubernatorial campaign attempts to mitigate the reduced impact of traditional advertising with “Quinn Stories,” a weekly series of two-minute webisodes designed to reach voters who might otherwise be overlooked by conventional campaign strategies.

“Quinn Stories,” produced by director Barry Poltermann’s About Face Media, began in November and will continue through the Feb. 2 gubernatorial primary.

The Dec.

Firebrand South Side pastor Rev. Michael Pfleger is the latest documentary subject for Bob Hercules of Media Process Group, whose prior films tell the stories of then-Senator Barack Obama, community organizing pioneer Saul Alinsky, and controversial Holocaust survivor Eva Kor.

Hercules’ “Radical Disciple: The Story of Father Pfleger” premieres Aug. 28 among the two documentaries, four features and eight shorts in the Gene Siskel Film Center’s 15th Annual Black Harvest International Festival of Film and Video, running Aug. 7-Sept. 3.

Following Rev.

DIRECTOR HAROLD RAMIS receives the “Just for Laughs” Lifetime Achievement Award at the red carpet screening of Columbia Pictures’ “Year One” at the Music Box, June 16.

The special screening is the kickoff for the TBS Presents A Very Funny Festival: Just for Laughs Chicago and is being showcased locally before its June 19 national release.

Veteran actor Steven Saltz has taken his online celebrity interview show to a late night TV show concept ? a half-hour of interviews and performances by local and visiting talent.

“The Chicago Actor Show” pilot was taped at RDI studios with veteran actor Frank Vincent and comedienne Lynne Koplitz, and the house band led by Daryl Stuermer, guitarist for Phil Collins and Genesis.

The show is a natural evolution from Saltz’ having interviewed celebrities on his ChicagoActor.com website for several years.

A week before the Presidential Inauguration, “U2 3D” producer Peter Shapiro surprised Sara Yule with a call asking her company, Wiggle Puppy Productions, to provide Chicago footage of the video that would play before the massive all-star Inaugural Concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

“We dropped everything we were doing to be a part of this, to be a part of history,” Yule said.

Mutual friends had recommended Wiggle Puppy to Shapiro. In turn, Yule recommended shooters in other cities to Shapiro. Washington, D.C.

IRONICALLY, GOV. BLAGOJEVICH was going to sign the Illinois 30% tax credit bill into law next Monday at Essanay Studios! The unconfirmed signing ceremony was being set up because the governor had the time to do so.

We can safely assume that the gov’s photo op signing will be put indefinitely on hold.

That doesn’t mean the bill will languish as it did earlier this year — delayed first by the senate action and then by Blago’s demand for a photo op surrounded by celebs, taking it into May.

Blagojevich will remain governor, however, for the forseeable future.

New Spotlight Crew payroll service started off auspiciously last month when it was hired to handle payment for the massive crew covering Barack Obama’s historic speech at Grant Park.

Spotlight Crew, Inc. is the new division of Tim Hale’s 9-year old Spotlight Business Affairs, Inc. the U.S.’ second biggest talent payment and business affairs company with offices in other cities.

Heading the new division is Crew Services director John Kramer, who with his wife, were Hale’s first employees when he started the company in 2000.

Razorfish, one of the world’s largest interactive marketing and technology companies, has a Chicago office employing 170-plus digital specialists, who work with top brands like Kraft, JC Penney and AT&T.

ReelChicago’s Tim Horsburgh spoke with Razorfish’s Julie Novack, SVP/general manager, about its future plans and how the Chicago visual media industry can stay ahead of the game.

ReelChicago: Razorfish’s new report notes that 76% of consumers welcome advertising on social networks. I’d say this is a big new trend.