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IN WEST MICHIGAN, Ryan Phillippe and Jenna Dewan joined Bruce Willis, Paul Walker and 50 Cent as stars of the action heist film, “Set Up,” shooting in and around Grand Rapids. Its estimated budget is $20 million.

The new movie is being produced by Randall Emmett’s and George Furla’s Emmett/Furla Films and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s Grand Rapids-based Cheetah Vision company. It’s part of a $200 million, 10-picture deal for Cheetah Vision and will be released sometime in 2011.

Emmett expects to film two or three more movies locally next year.

The pan-European team behind Great River Productions, LLC has set up shop in Rock Island to produce its $15 million 3D motion capture fantasy feature, “Troll: Tale of a Tale,” over the next two-and-a-half years.

Great River Productions will hire an estimated 100 animators, artists and crew from Illinois. Modeling starts in early January and casting begins in late February.

There are a number of firsts associated with this film, said Davenport-based J. Douglas Miller of the Quad-Cities Film Coalition, who worked for two years to bring and keep the project in the Quad-Cities.

Filmworkers Club is getting set for the new world of stereoscopic 3D with a multi-million investment in four top-of-the-line FilmLight Baselight color grading systems with S-3D capability.

Two new Baselight EIGHT systems will be installed in Chicago and two more systems go into its Dallas and Nashville facilities, enabling Filmworkers to establish complete non-linear post-production workflows, said Filmworkers president Reid Brody.

Michigan Film Office director Carrie Jones, 34, hadn’t previously worked in arts or entertainment, but when the film incentives were created, “I knew that it was something I wanted to get involved in, just because it’s such an exciting thing for Michigan.”

Jones was running Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s political office when she learned that MFO director Janet Lockwood planned to retire.

Jones then campaigned for, and won, the job. She began serving as the deputy director in February, then became the MFO director on July 1.

Construction resumed on the Museum of Broadcast Communications’ unfinished, 62,000-sq. ft. building at 360 N. State, after four years of broken promises and starts and stops on the long-awaited building.

Gov. Pat Quinn personally announced the long overdue $6 million grant to the MBC at its “At Salute to Chicago Television” gala and fund-raiser Friday night at the Chicago Hilton.

“The first installment check is in the bank,” an elated MBC founder/president Bruce DuMont told the 365 guests at the $350-per plate dinner, to thunderous applause.

Singer/songwriter and recording icon Robyn Hitchcock performs “Ordinary Millionaire” co-written by guitarist Johnny Marr (The Smiths/Modest Mouse) from the forthcoming Robyn Hitchcock & The VENUS 3 CD, “Propellor Time”

ABOUT THE SHOW: Following the CIMMFest screening of “I Often Dream of Trains in New York” and Q&A with director John Edginton, Hitchcock returned to Schuba’s for an SRO one-man concert armed only with acoustic guitar, harmonica, soaring voice, and biting, spontaneous wit.

Michigan film spending jumped to $214 million in 2009. More than 130 applications for movie and TV show projects were approved for the incentives, and 84 projects finished filming already.

That’s almost double the $125 million spent in the state in 2008, which created 2,763 production-related jobs, and a giant leap over the total 44 productions made in Michigan from 2000 through 2007.

L.A.-based Omar McClinton embarks this month on his first animated feature as writer/director, the $5 million local production “Stork.”

McClinton, a native Chicagoan, is a veteran production and visual effects manager who is working with several local companies to produce the feature, which will be delivered next fall for a 2010 holiday release.

Mt. Zion comic book, production and effects company Heroic Age Studios is the lead animation house and will do the bulk of the work flow “and this will determine if I’ll have to utilize other vendors,” McClinton says.

The bitterness Museum of Broadcast Communications president/CEOBruce Dumont felt over ex-governor Rod Blagojevich’s broken promise to help fund a new home for the Museum of Broadcast Communications was washed away by a $6 million grant to get the museum building underway.

The same Senate bill #1181 that appropriated the $5 million grant for Chicago Film Studios included the MBC grant.

As soon as the check is cut, construction can begin on the 62,000-sq. ft., museum at 400 N. State St.

Raleigh Michigan Studios, formerly known as the Motown Motion Picture Studios, has obtained the $75.8 million in financing it needs to convert the idled General Motors plant in Pontiac into two buildings that will house seven new soundstages.

The stages range from 12,000-sq. ft. to 30,000 square feet. The stages could be ready for use by next summer.

Construction will start within the next 30 days, said Steve Lemberg, the company’s CFO.

“We are very methodically and successfully moving forward,” Lemberg told the Detroit Free Press.

“PUBLIC ENEMIES,” with a reported $100 million-budget that provided a bank vault of welcome revenue for Illinois and Wisconsin (although unappreciated by Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle ), is grossed $26.2 million over the five day July 4th weekend.

The Michael Mann movie opened in 3,337 theatres nationally on July 1. The production spent $47 million in Chicago, which gave the state an indirect economic impact of $117 million. It spent $7.5 million in Wisconsin.

The estimated $25 million spent by Michael Mann’s blockbuster “Public Enemies” in the state last year pumped up officially-tallied 2008 revenues to $141 million, from production of film, TV shows and commercials production.

Nine features and one TV series contributed $132.5 million to the total, while spot production tumbled to $18.5 million, the Illinois Film Office reported.

Michigan’s film industry took a giant step forward with Los Angeles-based Unity Studios launching a $146-million state-of-the-art production studio in Allen Park, a Detroit suburb.

When completed, the eight sound stages will be housed in a 750,000-sq. ft. full-service production/post facility on 104 acres, along with a full-time training institute and residential/retail Unity village.

Heading Allen Park will be 30-year entertainment industry veteran Jimmy Lifton, a Southfield, Michigan native, who owns Oracle Post in Santa Monica.

Any substantial, new advertising account that lands in Chicago these days is a reason for rejoicing and DraftFCB’s winning MillerCoors’ Miller Lite was reason to break out the, well, Miller Lite and celebrate.

Its reported billings of more than $100 million are a good start in making up for the heavy hits the Chicago ad business has taken in the past three years.

The MillerCoors’ account moved over after two years at Bartle Bogle Hegarty, New York. BBH and DraftFCB had been competing for assignments on the brand since late last year.

California is determined to keep its feature film and TV production in its own backyard with a stunning new five-year $500 million tax credit that will make producers think twice about shooting in states with tempting government incentives.

Passed by the California legislature Feb. 19, the Production Incentive Program covers 20% of below-the-line expenses for production of up to $75 million and 25% of expenses for indie feature productions of up to $10 million and for all TV series relocating to California.

The Detroit area is shaping up as the biggest movie center between coasts, with a $150 million investment in two film studios to be completed this year that will create about 5,800 new jobs.

The $86 million Detroit Center Studios will locate in the defunct MGM Casino and the $70 million Motown Motion Picture Studio will be built in a former auto plant.

Detroit’s new studio “makes us a 12-months-a-year film center,” said Chris Baum, SVP/sales and marketing at the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau and Film Detroit.

“It makes us a legitimate contender ?

Sales expectations are high for the audio drama of “The Old Testament,” budgeted at $5 million, that’s currently in production by the Falcon Picture Group and Cerny American Creative.

Set for an October release, it follows the success of their earlier “The Word of Promise” a 25-hour, 20-CD production of the New Testament that’s already sold 450,000 copies at a retail price of $49.99.

“The Old Testament” features a cast of almost 700 voice and will run over 80 hours. Falcon’s Carl Amari is producing and JoBe Cerny is directing at his Illinois St. studio.

Energy BBDO took home the prized Illinois Lottery’s $105 million worth of general market advertising business, winning over competitive agencies JWT and Marc USA for an initial term of two years.

“Each agency brought innovative ideas to the table, but we found Energy BBDO to be best-suited for the Lottery’s needs,” said Sarah Cummins, the Lottery’s marketing director.

Energy BBDO, an Omnicom agency, succeeds R. J. Dale, which had the account since 2006, and was the first African American agency to handle the Lottery’s advertising since the state agency was founded in 1974.

A SAG strike will cost members $2.5 million a day — or $250 million if the guild matches the WGA strike and stays out 100 days, according to their calculations, reported Variety.

The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers issued the estimate Tuesday, based on earnings reported to SAG’s pension and health plan. As a result, the estimate doesn’t include the portion of earnings from individual members who take in more than $230,000 annually, since P&H contributions are capped at that figure.

The AMPTP posted the loss estimates on its website at amptp.org.

According to Michigan Film Office director Janet Lockwood, film production within the state is booming. Five movies have been finished, three are in production, three in prep and a dozen or more coming into the state.

Projected Michigan revenue from the 47 productions approved to date is $288.4 million, compared to $2.2 million from film revenues last year.

Opening Friday, Sept. 15 at a computer near you is “Assisted Living,” semi-improv comedy webisodes from Dave Miller’s new ViralFilmVideo (VFV), which is deep into producing videos, spots and promos for the web.

“We won’t heavily promote the new series until about five episodes are released,” says producer Miller, who also heads Mindlight Films.

“That way, a visitor can watch more than a couple episodes and hopefully get hooked,” he explains.

The scrupulous restoration of the Cultural Center’s 101-year old Tiffany Dome to its pristine condition has been captured by Malachi Leopold’s Left Brain/Right Brain in a documentary scheduled for mid-August completion.

The Dome’s 38-feet in diameter, contains more than 30,000 pieces of glass in 241 sections, and is estimated at $35 million, although many have described the dome as “priceless.”

Restoration specialists painstakingly handled, cleaned and washed every one of the Dome’s 30,000 pieces.

Janet Lockwood, Michigan’s feisty film office director ? who has the distinction of being the longest serving film office director of any state ? dismissed the report that she brought 97 scripts back from Location Expo in L.A. last month.

“We already had 60 or 70 scripts in the office before I left,” she states, “and we’ve constantly added to the pile since mid-February.”

Weeks before Michigan’s ground-breaking 40% tax rebate was enacted into law, Lockwood’s then-tiny office ? herself and one paid intern ? was being deluged with scripts and application requests.

Whooee! Illinois revenues from film production soared to $155 million in 2007 ? an all time record high for movies, TV shows and commercials, an 80% increase over 2006’s $86 million.

Undoubtedly, says Illinois Film Director Betsy Steinberg, “the huge increase underscores the importance of the Film Tax Credit, combined with our amazing locations and the best crew in the country.”

The 2007 gain was the biggest jump in production dollars since the previous record of $125 million in 1998.

Armed with a $1.5 million grant from the Wallace Foundation, Oscar nominee Tod Lending is in production on a feature-length documentary about principals turning around their troubled public schools.

Lending is directing the presently untitled film with David Mrazek, for planned broadcast in 2009. They’re producing through Lending’s nonprofit Ethno Pictures.

“When I look at where substantial change needs to occur in our society, I look at the educational system,” Lending said. “That’s where the culture grows out of.

With two months to go before Wisconsin unleashes its delayed film incentives package, Film Wisconsin executive director Scott Robbe is confident the state will boast “at least $100 million in production in 2008.”

Some of that business should spill into a Chicago-Milwaukee film production corridor, which Robbe foresees as “a new film friendly and affordable Third Coast.”

In that synergistic scenario, he says, “Crews and equipment from both states would work on projects on both side of the border.”

Film Wisconsin, a public-private, non-profit partnership, was founded in 200

JWT’S CHICAGO OFFICE is on the brink of extinction after the loss of $180 million worth of Kraft business, an account this office has held for 70 years.

Not so, insists New York-based president Bob Jeffrey. The agency that was once Chicago’s biggest and brightest will remain open.

“We are committed to Chicago,” Jeffrey reassured the troops right before he relieved the two top executives of their duties.

President Ros King, the expert who managed the Kraft business for JWT, will leave within a month and return to the London office.

If feature film production alone continues through the end of the year, 2007 could shape up as a $90-$100 million year, according to early projections.

Revenue estimate is $50 million for the first half of the year. It includes the $30 million expected from the latest Batman movie, “The Dark Knight,” which has a projected $150 million budget.

The Warner Bros. sequel to the 2005 “Batman Begins” shoots in Chicago for three months beginning in June.

Illinois’ best year for film production was 1999 when revenues hit $125 million.

While commercials have risen like cream to the top of 2006’s total film revenues, income from features went flat at an estimated $35 million.

The Illinois Film Office 2006 estimate misses by a country mile an optimistic projection of $125 million, the most revenue ever generated in 1999, and yet to be repeated.

Only six studio features and just one studio film in its entirety shot here last year, marking a disappointing decline of $55 million from the estimated $90 million racked up in 2005.

Chicago’s postproduction landscape again seismically changes with the Dec. 15 sale of Mike Fayette’s old-line Post Effects to Jeff Bohnson’s techno-savvy AnswersMedia broadcast and interactive production company.

Starting first of the year, AnswersMedia will begin an ambitious multimillion dollar reshaping of Post Effects’ space into a HD communications services company.

Trio Video is expanding its fleet for the second time in less than two years with the infusion of a $10 million investment from two venture capital companies.

Management of the company is unchanged. Trio is owned by partners Jack Walsh and Gary Meagher, who will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their company next year.

Through the investment from Marquette Capital Partners of Chicago, BIA Digital Partners of Chantilly, Va., Trio is building its third HD/multi-format truck and a Beta support vehicle for delivery next March.

For the producer who wants to get away from concrete and congestion, the wide open spaces of the Total Living Network complex in Aurora might be just the ticket.

The Christian TV production company has opened its two-year old state-of-the-art facilities to outside companies, offering a variety of competitively priced rental options.

After eight features and more than 100 shorts that have made him a favorite of museum and underground festival programmers, James Fotopoulos is embarking on his first commercial production.

This spring and summer, Fotopoulos will direct “Area Six,” a $2 million adaptation of local crime novelist Jay Bonansinga’s 2001 police procedural novel “The Sleep Police.”

Fotopoulos was already thinking of making a police film when Santa Monica producers Kimberly Shane O’Hara and Eric Klein approached him late last year, having already acquired rights to the project.

The fate of the proposed Central City Studios, the largest studio complex between the coasts, is in the hands of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The Governor’s Office is in the process of carrying out due diligence on $40 million in state empowerment bonds toward construction of the complex, after the Chicago City Council authorized the bond issuance Jan. 11.

“We think this is a good project to create jobs and augment the governor’s efforts to bring more development to the state through this industry,” said Lena Parsons, deputy communications director for the Governor’s Office.

The Illinois Film Office estimated that state production revenues reached $90 million in 2005, up from $77 million reported in 2004 and $25.6 million in 2003. Projections for 2006 put production on track to approach the $125 million levels set in the late ’90s.

Studio features shot for a total of 150 days, according to the Chicago Film Office, up from 109 in 2004 and 80 in 2003.

Citing customer demand and a general upswing in production, Fletcher Chicago, a top five U.S. rental house, is opening its doors to film camera rentals for the first time in its 18-year history.

Fletcher will take delivery of $1.5 million worth of Arriflex cameras and Zeiss master prime lenses in late December.

“Our customers said they wanted more depth in rental sources and increasingly asked us to rent film cameras, and we felt the time was right to make the move,” said VP/marketing Tom Fletcher.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications documentary that’s in the works by Brian Boyer Productions will be used as educational kiosk in MBC’s new building and for future on-air shows.

Boyer has been filming all aspects of the Museum’s departure from its former long-time home at the Cultural Center and construction of its new $21 million building at State and Kinzie.

The documentary is part of a major GREEN educational project, said MBC Bruce DuMont, MBC founder and executive director.

The largest loan in the three years of state treasurer Judy Baar Topinka’s Lights, Cameras, Illinois! loan program was approved for the production of a feature that starts filming in Chicago in July.

The $10 million loan, at 4% interest, was made to producer Robert Billian of Boca Raton, Fla. for his independent film, “Realms Beyond,” starring Linda Hamilton (“Terminator 1 and 2,” “Judgment Day”).

Hagopian said “Realms Beyond” will provide 140 cast and crew jobs during its eight to 10 weeks of filming here.

Director Dan Halperin and his producing partner Carey Lundin have set a late summer target date to start shooting their $3.5 million Stuart Dybek adaptation “Sweet Home Chicago.”

The project has been long in development, but a new influx of local private equity investment has brought the film back to the front of the production slate for Halperin’s Los Angeles-based Epiphany Pictures and Lundin’s local Viva Lundin Productions.

Matt Pletcher of Baby Galigo Films said he’s weeks away from signing financing deals worth $10 million to shoot two films here this summer and fall.

Pletcher plans a September shoot for the $2.5-$3 million high school comedy “Sophomores,” a co-production with writer/director Joseph Weisman’s Hidden Treasure Productions.

Then in October he plans to start production on his directorial debut, the $7-7.5 million “Two Loon Inn,” a drama about the friendship between two women, set on a Wisconsin lake. Script is by Laurie Johnson and Pattie Hall.

Breadline Theatre Group artistic director Paul Kampf is in post on his debut feature “American Gothic,” the $1 million 35mm Utah-shot drama starring John Heard (“Pollock”).

“We went from [finishing the script] to completing shooting in less than a year,” Kampf said. “I’m aware of how rare that is.”

Executive producer Robert Last personally invested a substantial part of the $1-2 million budget, and raised the rest from private investors through American Gothic LLC, a subsidiary of his Last Line Endeavors.

A memorial service for multifaceted musician/composer Shelly Elias will be held Jan. 2 at 2 p.m. in the Alice Millar Chapel at Northwestern University.

A Chicago native, Mr. Elias, 58, died Dec. 24 of a lung infection at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. “He died peacefully in his sleep,” said Kathy Elias, his wife of 36 years.

Beginning in 1976 and for 17 years Mr. Elias, a percussionist and composer of admusic, shows and classical music, was a partner with Ted Kay in the successful music production company, TMK/Elias Productions.

If they build it, will they come? That’s the expectation of Canadian-owned Raleigh Studios of Santa Monica, and the local developers behind the $43.7 million Central City Studios. The Chicago Plan Commission last week approved the plan for the West Side movie studio.

The studio will be located at 4300 W. Roosevelt Road on a proposed 180,000-sq. ft. complex that is ironically situated less than two miles from John Crededio’s now-defunct Chicago Studio City. It will have five stages for film and TV production, and a three-story office building.

When it came time for Panasonic’s consumer division to deliver on its agreement to supply new images for its multi-screen Panasonic display at Abt Electronics’ giant appliance store in Glenview, it turned the entire job of creating new images over to I-Cubed’s Arturo Cubacub.

The display ? the only one in the world of its kind ? consists of four 42-inch plasma screens stacked vertically and rotating like a windmill.

Four DVD players run the images into the screens and a center mechanism controls its rotation.

Director Zack Parker will take his mostly Chicago crew to his native Richmond, Indiana this September for five weeks to shoot his second feature, the projected $2 million “Quench.” Parker shot his debut feature, the horror pic “Inexchange” on the campus of his alma mater Ball State University in summer 2001.

The Illinois General Assembly is set to approve $18.5 million for the Illinois Arts Council (IAC) for Fiscal 2005, the same amount as last year. While the bulk of the money goes to performing arts organizations, presenters and museums, the IAC budget includes $5.2 million for the broadcast industry. Specifically, the funds will support Illinois’ nine public televisions stations and 14 public radio stations. In Greater Chicago, those outlets are PBS affiliates Chs. 11 and 20, and National Public Radio affiliate WBEZ.

Feature business last year in Illinois was not only a heckuva lot better than it first appeared ? and it also looks like it’s going to significantly improve in 2004.

Clocking in at $25.6 million in direct expenditures, revenues for 2003 dipped only $2 million from 2002’s $27.6 million. Using the 2.5 multiplier, $45 million flowed into the local economy from movies.

Less than half the total came from the $12 million spent by the just-released “Barber Shop II,” the only feature filmed in its entirety in Chicago last summer.

Chicago’s next boutique hotel is certain to be a theatrical affair: 128 rooms sitting on top of the Shubert Theatre at 22 W. Monroe St. The historic, mid-rise Majestic Building houses the Shubert on its first eight floors, with offices on the upper floors.

The conversion of the Majestic Building into a hotel is a $25 million project, including $5.5-$6 million in public funds from The Loop Tax Increment Funding (TIF) district.

Program Productions of Lombard inked a two year-deal with the Chicago Wolves Hockey Team to provide remote broadcast facilities and crews for all home and away games.

A total of 80 games will be aired on Comcast cable in the Chicago area.

“Eighty games is an impressive package for a professional hockey team and a commitment to its fans,” said VP/operations John Doyle.

Big Idea Productions of Lombard, producers of the phenomenally-successful VeggieTales videos, books, games and music, has found itself in a cauldron of boiling financial water.

Earlier this month, the 10-year old company, co-founded by former bible student and computer animation whiz Phil Vischer, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Federal Court.

Ebel, Signorelli & Welke/Chicago is the result of the June 1 merger of two medium-small agencies, Ebel Dunnell Merrick and Creative Alliance/Chicago, that’s created a new $100 million entity employing 50.

Founding partners are Robert Ebel (not to be confused with director Bob Ebel); Jim Signorelli, formerly of Creative Alliance/Chicago, which had been the satellite office of a 12-year old Louisville shop, and Bob Welke, former creative chief of Creative Alliance.

The new agency brings Welke back to Chicago after three years at Creative’s Louisville headquarters.

DDB Chicago’s commitment to work exclusively with Chicago editors and post houses for its hundreds of national commercials could infuse as much as $10 million into the business-dry industry.

Grant Hill, the agency’s broadcast chief, said the agency has already begun the shift. By April local post houses should be humming with editing jobs that previously had followed production out-of-town, mainly to Los Angeles and Toronto “for primarily creative and monetary reasons,” he said.

Writer/director Eric Bednarowicz’ 18-minute comedy, “Carpe Millennium,” is not only included in a compilation of shorts from around the world, but the program will be distributed internationally starting this spring.

Oracle Releasing, a Los Angeles-based film sales and distributor, picked up Bednarowicz’ short after seeing it in one of the many festivals in which the film screened this year.

The story is about a young man (Steven Yeun of AMC’S “The Walking Dead”) who is determined to lose his virginity on the eve of the millennium.

TWO TOP AWARD-WINNING CREATIVES, Ken Erke and Matt Marcus, joined the Chicago office of R/GA, called advertising’s most creative interactive agency, as executive creative directors to help bolster the agency’s work out of Chicago.

R/GA Chicago currently has 13 employees and looks to grow to upwards of 30 by the end of the year.

Previously, Erke was an EVP/CCC at Y&R and crafted award-winning integrated campaigns for Sears, Craftsman and Die Hard, among others, and launched the Miller Genuine Draft “MGD 64” campaign.

If you are part of Generation Y, a.k.a. the Millennials, the Echo Boomers and the Nintendo Generation, one of the best places for you to work is Euro RSCG Chicago.

Euro was ranked number four, out of the Top 50 Generation Y Employers in Chicago, and the only agency to make the Top Five, according to the first study of its kind by Brill Street.

The number of multi-tasking Gen Yers, born since 1980 is estimated at 76 million by Fast Company magazine, and there is no question they are changing the workplace.