The Arts are the Lifeblood for Any City
The Vision Behind the Houston Creative Endowment
Houston, Texas
Around $800 billion is made in the creative industry in the United States of America annually. As the fourth largest city in the U.S., Houston doesn’t capture nearly enough of that revenue.
To encourage the development of a creative economy in Houston, and to provide a support system to the existing professional crew in the city, and connect our creative industry globally, Bird House Productions Executive Producer Lynn Birdwell has partnered with like-minded film professionals to establish the Houston Creative Endowment (HCE).
“There are a lot of creative people in Houston. We can develop projects here,” says Birdwell, founder of Houston Creative Endowment. “We created HCE to be a fiscal sponsor for films. We’ll model it after the Austin Film Society, which has done a really great job of building a large group of people who are professionals and who are serious.”
The Houston Creative Endowment, a non-profit 501(c)3, is dedicated to preserving, protecting, developing, fostering, and supporting the creative industry by focusing on the film and television production industry in Houston, Texas, to build a stronger creative economy. The organization is encouraged by the United Nations pronouncement of the year 2021 as the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development. Many other countries and cities are thinking similarly and building a creative sustainable industry.
“Most of us know the feeling of being touched by an individual work of art: a painting, song, play, poem, or novel. When touched, we are moved and transported. This, through one particular form of art,” shares Birdwell. “Film, the combination of so many different types of art forms, provides the transformative experience that art is constantly seeking to provide.”
Birdwell firmly believes film is the only art form that supports all other art forms. Making quality film and television is a team sport. It’s not just one human engaged in a creative process. There can be hundreds of people engaged in the development and execution of the single creative vision of the film or episodic series.
When a film is truly great, it’s only due to a masterful collaborative spirit of all the personnel involved because film requires so many specialties and skill sets. A great film must have all cylinders firing in every department, all the way through post-production.
Our global creative industry economy is valuable and affects the quality of life and financial well being of all manner of peoples. As the most diverse city in the United States, any progressive movement developed in Houston, to better the lives of others and build education and vocational outcomes,has a decidedly global effect.
HCE is committed to the development of Houston’s creative industry economy and supports the United Nations declaration of 2021 as the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development. HCE desires to develop global creative partnerships, focusing on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals will provide a foundation for economic growth in Houston..
In line with that initiative, Bird House Productions and the Houston Creative Endowment are hosting and sponsoring Film Finance Seminar Houston. This event is part of a larger initiative to develop a profitable film arts industry in and around Houston and serves as the next major step in building the Houston creative economy through film.
This 2-day seminar will deliver a high-caliber panel of industry experts to teach investors and executive producers how to develop, fund, produce, market, and distribute profitable films and episodic series.
For more information about Film Finance Seminar Houston, please visit https://filmfinancehouston.com.