TO ALL INCENTIVE PARTICIPATING PROJECTS IN OREGON
Thank you for choosing Oregon for the production of your project. We greatly appreciate our creative community and its contribution to the state in every way.
As a part of our incentive program, there are few things that I wanted to make sure you were aware of:
First – we are available for any questions. For accounting and incentive questions, either myself (tim@oregonfilm.org) or my colleague Nathan (nathan@oregonfilm.org) can help. Ideally, we like to set up a call or meeting with the accounting team once it is in place to ensure that they have a chance to ask questions early in prep. Please let us know if that’s possible and/or of interest.
In case it is helpful, you can find “Cost Qualification” a chart on this page of our website.
Second – for film and television projects we’d like to be added to your callsheet distribution (more specifically both myself, tim@oregonfilm.org and my colleague Dallas, dallas@oregonfilm.org). We don’t share these documents or the information contained within them but it does allow us to generally answer questions that come into our office from time to time as well as track the overall schedule of the production.
Third – if you could set up a production email for things like resumes and inquiries that we are able to share, that would be appreciated. Please send that along to us when it is available.
We also encourage every production to check out, sign up and take the #CreateResponsibly Pledge.
Every incentive participating company is required to have a written diversity, equity and inclusion policy to hire or contract with individuals from underrepresented groups as of the date on which the company submits an application for reimbursement. In accordance with that written policy, each company must actively engage in good faith efforts to hire or contract with individuals from underrepresented groups for the production. This written policy needs to be submitted during the application process and then adhered to during the hiring, prep and production periods. The tracked groups include women, BIPOC, LGTBQ+, Veterans, Recent Immigrant and Living with a Disability amongst others.
In addition each company is required to report diversity statistics for all employee hiring related to the production to Oregon Film (“OFVO”) during or after completion of the production.
There are several ways to do this:
- Most payroll companies ask for this type of data in some form as part of their onboarding and start forms. In some cases this could suffice. Please contact Tim Williams (tim@oregonfilm.org) to discuss what data your payroll company is collecting and whether it will be enough.
- Productions can have individuals self-report directly to OFVO upon hiring (here is a link to a questionnaire to do that https://forms.gle/K6uzGFn8ZghTWu4t9);
- Productions can provide a Company wide report to OFVO upon completion of spending in Oregon (here is a link to a form to do that https://forms.gle/Pz1xXHRZjSZ4Kdm56).
If you choose option 2, the self-reporting link above should be sent to all crew members at the start of production. Then we can help ensure there is comprehensive reporting (which is a requirement of the incentive) by reviewing your Crew List and matching that up with previous and current responses and then working with you to actively request information only from those individuals that are still needed.
Individual data will be kept confidential, but it will be used in the aggregate to inform our office of hiring deficiencies and then help explore ways to approach correcting those deficiencies.
Lastly, each participating company is required to have a written process for addressing claims of harassment, discrimination and other misconduct related to the production (including, but not limited to, procedures for reporting and investigating harassment claims, a phone number for an individual who will be responsible for receiving harassment claims, and a statement that the company will not retaliate against an individual who reports harassment). This needs to be a specific “process” by which complaints and reports can be made and then followed up on in some form. This can be a monitored “hotline” of some type or even a procedure that is handled by a third party (such as All Voices).
The applicant shall also indicate how the policy will be distributed to employees. We want each production to really think through these requirements and find the policies and procedures that work for them and their project in order to make their sets and studios safe and welcoming places for all people to work. Here is a link to a document containing some DEI and Harassment Policy Sample & Guideline links.
We suggest not only distributing this policy to everyone you are working with, but also having all of your cast and crew sign and acknowledge that they have read and understood it. Incentive funds can be withheld for unresolved complaints and/or unpaid wages or vendors.
Thank you. Please let me know if you have any questions. I’m happy to help.
Best,
Tim Williams
Executive Director
(971) 254 4021