Film Florida had a very productive couple of days in Cocoa Beach for our Quarterly Meeting. As Film Florida President, it was my honor to welcome everyone to my home on Florida’s Space Coast. We want to thank our hosts at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront for their wonderful hospitality. Our quarterly meeting kicked off Sunday evening with Cocoa Beach Mayor Ben Malik (photo below left) welcoming everyone at a reception at the Hilton. Thanks to our members and local officials that joined us.

Monday included a full day of committee and council meetings (photo below) starting with the Education Council focusing on what Film Florida can do to better serve our member colleges, universities and students. The Industry & Association Council was next, beginning pre-production for the 2nd Annual Florida Film/Digital Focus (F3) which is tentatively scheduled for October. Stay tuned for the official announcement over the summer. Our final meeting before lunch was the Strategic Futures Committee. While our other committees and councils are focused on the present, the Strategic Futures Committee looks 2-5 years down the line, making sure the organization and industry are poised for future success.

The afternoon kicked off with the Film Commission Council recapping recent sales missions to NATPE and SXSW, previewing the upcoming visits to the Tribeca Film Festival and Produced By Conference and analyzing future sales missions. As one of our largest sales and marketing initatives, we want to ensure the organization is attending the right events to put our state, our industry and our organization in the best position to be successful. The Film Commission Council also continues to work on creative local programs to help bring additional projects to Florida. There are now 7 counties with local programs in addition to a couple of cities. CLICK HERE to learn more about the local programs.

The meetings on Monday concluded with the Legislative Committee. A member of our Government Relations team from The Advocacy Group at Cardenas Partners, Slater Bayliss, joined us to discuss takeaways from the 2018 Legislative Session. We strategized about our continued communication with the six current candidates for Governor and our efforts to speak to every elected official and/or candidate running for the 142 seats up for election in the Florida Senate and Florida House of Representatives. As we previously mentioned, we cannot accomplish this task on our own, we need your help. If you are interested in actively being involved in the effort to ensure every person running for state office understands who our industry is, what we do, and how we can be a positive part of further growing, strengthening and diversifying Florida’s economy, please respond to this e-mail at info@FilmFlorida.org so you can be included on that task force. We will make sure you are prepared and understand the task, we just need your help with execution.

Monday evening I was proud to escort our group to one of the jewels of the Space Coast, the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex. Astronaut Jon McBride- STS 41- Challenger – October 5, 1984 hosted our tour of the Space Shuttle Atlantis Experience (photo above) before being our dinner guest and sharing his story. In addition to being a wonderful attraction, the Kennedy Space Center/NASA Complex has been featured on the big and small screen through the years including Apollo 13, Space Cowboys, From the Earth to the Moon, Transformers 3, and Armageddon to name a few. CLICK HERE to see additional photos from our evening.

Our Board of Directors meeting took place on Tuesday. While our committee and council meetings are open to Film Florida members only, the Film Florida Board of Directors Meetings are open to the public and we appreciate those that joined us. In addition to recapping the committee and council meetings from the previous day, the Board meeting included updates from the Marketing, Budget & Finance, and Membership Committees.

For those who attended our meetings, we hope that your visit with us was informative and productive. Along with many of the regular attendees, we were particularly pleased that a number of new Film Florida members joined us in Cocoa Beach. We look forward to seeing all of you again at future events, trade-shows and meetings across the state! For those members who are unable to travel, we encourage you to call in to the meetings via our conference call lines to remain engaged. If you’re not a member, please CLICK HERE and consider joining so you can participate in our committee and council meetings. Our organization is only as strong as those that participate, and we welcome new perspectives. Please mark your calendar for the Film Florida Annual Meeting, June 25-27, 2018 in Palm Beach County, we look forward to seeing everyone there.

Sincerely,
Bonnie King
President, Film Florida
info@filmflorida.org