The scene is Chicago O’Hare International Airport. It’s jammed with people wearing lumpy winter coats maneuvering for position at the security check conveyor system. One man stands out. We see his pained expression. We hear what he has to say to the man next to him. His name is Will—sort of. “Will” is actually actor Clive Owen and he’s not at an airport; he’s not even in Chicago. He’s at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, in one of the 30 buildings formerly owned by Pfizer, Inc., recently purchased by U-M and renamed the North Campus Research Complex.

The complex turned out to be a perfect place to make a movie. The independent film, “Trust,” produced and directed by David Schwimmer, of “Friends” renown, needed a variety of scenes and the complex—unoccupied for now—offered many of them in close proximity. Starring Owen, Catherine Keener and Viola Davis, the movie is about a 14-year-old girl who is sexually assaulted by a man posing online as a teen. The movie portrays the pain this crime causes in her family, especially her father, “Will.” Other scenes filmed in the complex included an office at Chicago’s FBI headquarters, a hospital room and a dorm room. Filmed in late 2009, this movie was not the first to be made at and around U-M—it was the sixth—and it won’t be the last, not by a long shot.

Both of these facts are the fruit of efforts by the state of Michigan and U-M to foster a Michigan-based film industry. The state legislature approved in 2008 hefty tax exemptions—up to 42 percent—for any film industry activity taking place in the state, following the lead of several other states (and Canadian provinces) to lure moviemaking capital from California. U-M has played a major role, pun intended, in this effort from the get-go. Back in late 2002, former Michigan Gov. John Engler appointed Jim Burnstein, coordinator of the screenwriting program at U-M, to the original Michigan Film Advisory Commission. “There were very few of us on that original commission who had any real connection to the filmmaking business,” Burnstein says. “I’d been going back and forth to Hollywood for 20 years and I told them flat out there is no way we’ll have increased production unless we have incentives to bring them here.” He adds that the mission of incentives wasn’t just creating jobs—it was stemming the exodus of taxpayers, talented U-M graduates among them.”When the governor [Jennifer Granholm] signed the bill in April 2008,” Burnstein says, “she said, ‘Jim, tell your students.’ She was seeing all these people leaving. In the back of my mind, I was thinking it would take a while. But I was stunned that so many of our graduates decided, ‘You know what, let’s stick around and see what happens, and see if we can be part of this.’ I underestimated how many of these kids felt a strong attachment to this state.”At the same time, U-M’s screen arts and cultures program, which Burnstein says is one of the best in the nation, was all dressed up and waiting for a date—as in, tax incentives. “U-M was uniquely poised to take advantage of the increased production in Michigan. Our undergraduate program is equivalent to graduate programs in screenwriting anywhere else. I think it’s the most extensive screenwriting program in the country. It’s taught by working screenwriters, so our students are prepared in a very professional way.”

Due credit goes also to Frank Beaver, a film historian, critic, and professor emeritus of Screen Arts and Cultures at U-M. Beaver, who writes Michigan Today’s Talking About Movies column, began teaching film courses at U-M in the late 1960s, when there were just a smattering of courses in different departments and one wind-up camera. Beaver led the development of U-M’s program until his recent retirement.

Beaver led the development of Michigan’s screenwriting program and helped expand its production capacities. Today, both the screenwriting and production arms are outstanding. Better yet, they offer students real opportunities to produce real movies. Students make dozens of films, from very short to feature length, every semester.On top of that, every year film professors select two student-written screenplays for production. And the movies are made by students from across campus. There are student directors, actors, cinematographers and production assistants, and even composers and musicians from the School of Music.

“We film the first act of both of these screenplays and we sort of turn them into stand-alone shorts as well,” Burnstein says. “They’re 20 to 25 minutes each. So way before any incentive law, this was designed to mirror the real world of filmmaking.”Young, U-M trained filmmakers are swarming the industry. Their independent films have played at the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, the Traverse City Film Festival and the granddaddy of indy films, the Sundance Festival. And more and more of them are working on the sets of Hollywood-based movies being shot in Michigan and on the U-M campus.Two recent U-M graduates who have benefited by U-M’s advanced program and the tax incentives were all over the set of “Trust.” Brian Flynn, 24, originally from Grand Rapids, and Michael LaFond, 23, originally from Plymouth, both earned their bachelor of arts degree in screen arts and cultures from U-M in spring 2009. Now residents of Ann Arbor, both had had opportunities as undergrads to work on films, which helped land them subsequent jobs as more and more filmmakers have come to Michigan and Ann Arbor. For instance, they worked on one of the first movies shot on campus in 2009, “Trivial Pursuits,” written and directed by U-M alumnus Michael Farah. Flynn works as a location scout; LaFond is a production assistant. “I graduated in May and I’ve been working ever since,” LaFond says – a real statement in today’s economic climate. “I would like to stay in Michigan as long as Michigan is a viable place to work in film,” Flynn says, echoing LaFond’s sentiment. “Michigan’s a great place to be working in film right now. I love it. I’m just getting the most incredible experience here.” Both men say that because Michigan isn’t L.A., where everyone is trying to make it in films and because so many movies are major motion picture projects, opportunities for young graduates are limited. But recent activity in Ann Arbor has afforded them far more access to the business. (For the record, LaFond says he’s had just eight days off since graduating.) U-M’s film industry efforts have made a huge difference in all of this. Lee Doyle is chief of staff and chief Freedom of Information officer in U-M’s Office of the Vice President for Communications. She also is director of the recently created Film Office at U-M. “We could see about a year-and-a-half ago after the tax incentive bill passed that we were getting a lot of location scouts,” she remarked at a November 2009 press conference during the “Trust” project, “and I said to my boss, ‘You know, we need to set up a film office here.’ My life hasn’t been the same since.”That’s an understatement. Doyle and Ann Zalucki, the film office’s associate director, are working long days. Doyle reads scripts; Zalucki finds locations and works with building managers, facilities staff and anyone else to make the scenes happen. All of the films made on campus have been independent films, and “Trust” is one of just two portraying U-M as U-M. Indie films have limited budgets. When Schwimmer went looking for a good bargain, Michigan called, he said at the press conference.”We wrote the story for Chicago,” he said. He and his staff looked at filming in Illinois. “And it really came down to, on an independent film like this, when we have very little money, it’s a critical difference with the incentives here in the state of Michigan. It’s anywhere between 40 and 42 percent…. And that’s a significant difference from Illinois, which is about 30 percent. And that might not seem like much, but on a budget as tight as ours, it’s a lot of money. It’s equivalent to four or five days of shooting. So we all thought, ‘All right, it looks the same (as Illinois), it feels the same, we’ll shoot here.'”Schwimmer extolled other benefits – how the Pfizer facility saved him boatloads of money by condensing expensive location changes, and how friendly people had been. While shooting in Plymouth for one exhausting day, “suddenly this lovely couple that owns a little tea shop came out and set up a table with a big thing of hot tea for the whole crew. That doesn’t really happen in L.A.,” he said as everyone chuckled.Actor and director Jeff Daniels, a strong advocate for transforming Michigan’s economy, said at a press conference following U-M’s winter 2009 commencement, that the film tax incentives were crucial—but that Michigan also has more benefits to offer. “We have a work ethic here,” he said. “And that’s a good old-fashioned, Midwestern, ‘I will outwork you’ work ethic.” Meanwhile, Michigan reaps its own benefits. Films typically employ at least 100 people and on “Trust,” about 35 percent of the crew was local, “people who were out of work beforehand,” Zalucki says. “Those kids coming out of Michigan,” Daniels says. “They can run to Austin or L.A. Or they can hire on here, because there are 60 movies being shot here this year.” At the same time, crew members who are not local use hotels, rent apartments, frequent restaurants and much more. For their part, LaFond and Flynn can’t say enough about their alma mater’s new film office and the overall support. Both received generous internships that allowed them to work on films before graduating, giving them important experience – and rent money – while at the same time saving indie film producers money. As recent as all of this tax-incentive activity is, LaFond and Flynn have predecessors already, Burnstein points out. Right after the law passed in April 2008, Burnstein got a call from U-M alum Miguel Arteta, who directed “Youth in Revolt,” one of the first films shot in Ann Arbor after the incentives law passed. Arteta asked Burnstein to recommend one of his best screenwriting students to help with production rewrites.Burnstein recommended Marc Zakalik, a fresh graduate. Three days after he graduated, he was working for Arteta. When all was said and done, Arteta and his staff had dubbed Zakalik “Marc the Shark” for his screenwriting prowess.Meanwhile, two other graduates, Danny Mooney and Eddie Rubin, have created a film company, Deep Blue Productions, so they could stay and film in Michigan. So far, they’ve hired some 50 former students on various projects. Any critics of the tax incentives should take notice, Burnstein says. “One of the main purposes of the law was to reverse the brain drain, to keep these kids here. And they have: they’ve decided to stay in Michigan.”