Aerial view of the ten-stage EUE/Screen Gems complex and support buildings
about the future of the state’s tax incentive program, because television productions, in particular, are looking for long-term commitments that even here, in the early days of 2014, will have an impact on plans being made for 2015, after the current incentive program has expired. Thus, the mixed blessing of Governor McCrory’s statement, which appears to support renewal of the incentive, while falling short of an actual endorsement. In the weeks just before Christmas, Salt magazine sat down with EUE/Screen Gems Executive Vice President Bill Vassar to discuss the studio’s history, its current success, and the challenges it faces in the future. These discussions were not linear. Like the films that are produced at the studio , the temporal order of the questions and answers that follow are something of an illusion, and they start, as a matter of convenience, with a glimpse into Vassar’s personal history. SALT: How long have you been an executive vice president for EUE/ Screen Gems? VASSAR: Well, I’ve had the title for twelve years. I’ve been with the company for sixteen years; started with them in New York, running the TV facility up there. They asked me to get involved down here, and I started overseeing this place out of New York. SALT: How did you get started in the business? VASSAR: I’ve been in the media business for forty-four years, and what I love about what I’ve been able to experience is that it’s been a renaissance career. I’ve done so many different things, and worked in so many jobs, that it’s always stayed interesting. The first fifteen years were exclusively radio — DJ, program manager, morning man in New Haven. I went into sales, sales management and then, station management. I ended up working for the Boston Globe in Springfield, and they transferred me to White Plains [New York]. Then I found myself on the street when they sold the station. My dream had always been to work for NBC television, and through an absolute miracle, and a blind box ad in The New York Times, [I landed a job] in the entertainment division of NBC Productions, which is where I learned TV The Art & Soul of Wilmington
production. Myself and another guy handled shows from independent producers, and I was the No. 2 person moving The Cosby Show. It was the most bizarre thing, having just come from running a radio station to being where I always wanted to be, doing what I always wanted to do. SALT: How long were you there? VASSAR: I had a wonderful five years there, interacting with Saturday Night Live, Letterman, the Macy’s parade, soap operas, doing Bob Hope specials. SALT: So how did you end up landing the job with EUE/Screen Gems? VASSAR: After NBC, I went back into the radio business as an owner of a station in Syracuse, New York. Then, I moved back to New York City and worked for a large nationwide TV facility supplier for six years. I got to know the Cooneys over a period of time, and they asked me to join EUE/Screen Gems in New York . . . I was brought into this operation eleven years ago to evaluate it and determine what we had to do to make it work. I worked in New York and Wilmington for three years before relocating full time to Wilmington about eight years ago. SALT: What were some of the particular challenges you faced? VASSAR: A few years before [the Cooneys] bought this place, all the networks were doing these made-for-TV movies. You’d get a star from this show, and a star from that show and put them together in a movie. They were low-budget and usually took about three or four weeks to do. You’d have four or five of these going at the same time. You could go downtown in Wilmington on a Sunday and see three different productions going on. In the early-to-mid 90s, this place was the “Made-for-TV” capital of the world. Then, Canada and its provinces, too, got into the incentive business; offering very lucrative incentives. The first stuff that went up there was the “Made-for-TV” movies, which basically turned this place into a ghost town. SALT: How did you turn that around? VASSAR: [One of the advantages we started with was that] when Dino Februar y 2014 •
Salt
39