Steven Feinberg, director of the state’s Film & TV Office, seeks to lure entertainment dollars to Rhode Island.

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Carol Conley

PROVIDENCE — When Steven Feinberg entertains people in the television and moviemaking industry, he entertains them in style.

He sprang for the Ravioli al Filetto at Venda’s Café, the rib-eye special at Zooma, the 16 oz. center-cut sirloin at Siena , a filet mignon at The Capital Grille and along the way bottles of wine costing up to $39. He hired chauffeured cars to shuttle some of the stars of the Showtime series Brotherhood back and forth during nights out that ended at 3 a.m.

He treated actor “Joseph Pantoliano and family” to $203 worth of gondola rides along the Providence riverfront.

In his role as director of the state Film & TV Office, he sent $1,375 worth of gift baskets from Wickford Gourmet to the cast and crew of Evening, before they decamped.

And when Feinberg flew to California last summer, he stayed in a “premier ocean-view room” in the newly renovated Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica, that one magazine likened to “the city’s hottest club … a vision of movie-set cool.” Though city-view rooms went for much less, his room cost fluctuated from $419 to $499 on different nights.

Every step of the way, Rhode Island taxpayers paid the bills.

While other state agencies have been told to cut their budgets, Feinberg’s small state office has been allowed to spend money in hopes that Hollywood-style entertaining will lure more TV and movie productions here at a time when more and more states are competing for their business.

Over this last troubled financial year for the state, that spending has included $4,882 in state payments to JPMorgan Chase for purchase card charges by the two-person Film & TV Office. One month last fall, Feinberg’s food and drink bills exceeded $900. The state controller’s office has been unable to locate all of the billings and receipts for his 2007-08 charges. But those that have surfaced include a $245.55 lunch for five that Feinberg hosted at Newport’s Castle Hill Inn and Resort on April 7, 2007, that began with shrimp and littlenecks and included pork tenderloins, chicken and a $39 bottle of Tohu Pinot Noir.

A month later, he hosted a $707.39 gathering for 15 people at the Siena restaurant on Federal Hill. In December, he returned to the same restaurant for a $321.83 gathering.

As to who took part in these meals with cardholder “Feinberg/Steven,” there is little information in the state controller’s records beyond Feinberg’s handwritten notes along the margins of the receipts. Some say little more than: “Steve & Rusty Pink Panther 2.” He reports to Randall Rosenbaum, executive director of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, who felt compelled to remind him in November 2006 that he was spending taxpayer dollars.

However, in early 2007, Rosenbaum said, the Department of Administration gave Feinberg a purchase card that “allowed him to make business entertainment purchases without seeking advance approval from me. After that point, I didn’t even see the bills.”

Feinberg — in an e-mail to The Journal — identified some of his dining companions.

For example, he identified Phillip Noyce, the acclaimed Australian director of Clear & Present Danger, Patriot Games, The Quiet American and, more recently, the film adaptation of the Philip Roth novel American Pastoral as one of those at the Castle Hill Inn lunch, along with Julie Snyder, a Newport-based independent film producer.

Last week, Rosenbaum produced a copy of the missing state-paid bill for the $707 worth of saltimbocca, pan-seared Chilean sea bass, choice black angus center-cut sirloins, raspberry crème brûlée and tiramisu at Siena last May 1.

Rosenbaum said the purpose was to bring together “a number of the people in the film industry who happened to be in Rhode Island at that time … to discuss the future of film and television work in Rhode Island.” In addition to Noyce and Snyder, Rosenbaum said, Feinberg’s guests that night included Blake Masters and Henry Bromell, the creator and executive producer of the Showtime series Brotherhood, the production supervisor Montez Monroe and several of the show’s actors, including Annabeth Gish, Jason Clarke and Jason Isaacs; Luke Ramsey, location manager for Underdog, and Adam McCarthy, a location manager who has worked on a number of Rhode Island-based productions.

FEINBERG, a Cranston native, returned to Rhode Island to direct the film office after 22 years in Los Angeles writing movie scripts, including Fortress and Fortress 2, working on a pair of TV series and trying to get his own film, Peter York, off the ground.

At $85,220, he is not among the highest-paid state workers. He runs a two-person office that includes his $35,322-a-year assistant, Carol Conley. From time to time, he has hired a photographer to shoot a potential Block Island movie location from the air or celebrities who attend the state-financed Rhode Island premieres of movies shot here.

As director of the Film & TV Office, Feinberg has been a one-man sales machine for the state’s film tax-credit program.

At 25 percent of qualified spending, the tax credits have helped to land 30 productions in Rhode Island since 2005, which have provided relatively high-paying jobs for days or weeks to a grateful cadre of Rhode Island-based actors, drivers, contractors, stagehands and the like.

Among the slogans he uses to market Rhode Island to moviemakers: “smallest state, greatest backlot.”

A big fan, House Speaker William J. Murphy says Feinberg “almost single-handedly” put Rhode Island on the map as an attractive location to the film and television industry. “He has worked tirelessly to educate the Hollywood decision-makers … has provided tremendous service and assistance to those affiliated with film productions, including the directors, producers and actors.”

“With very limited resources, Steve has done an outstanding job of marketing our great little state to interested parties throughout the country,” Murphy, D-West Warwick, said in an e-mail last week. “In less than three years, more than $200 million in economic activity in the film industry has been generated in Rhode Island. It has been a tremendous return on the investment; one that I would make every day of the week.”

Adds Rosenbaum: “Anyone who understands this “courtship process” knows that it involves the occasional lunch or dinner, gift basket or other trinket.” But Governor Carcieri has “very serious concerns about how these state tax dollars have been spent,” his spokesman Jeff Neal said, in response to questions about The Journal’s findings.

“While the governor understands that attracting film companies to Rhode Island requires an extensive outreach effort, it is impossible to justify some of these expenses in light of the state’s budget crisis. Even in good fiscal times, these expenses would be unacceptable for Rhode Island taxpayers,” Neal said. “The governor plans to explore the concept of moving the film office back to the Economic Development Corporation,” he said.

Feinberg’s $268,724 budget for this year includes $8,000 for out-of-state travel, $2,000 for his personal mileage reimbursement, $3,000 to pay his mobile phone bills and $25,000 for what is broadly described as “miscellaneous expenses.”

At the pace he has been spending, the controller’s office currently projects he will run over budget.

During the first few months of this fiscal year, that spending included more than $9,091 the state film office paid to rent the Providence Performing Arts Center on Aug. 2, Sept. 27 and October 23 for the first Rhode Island showings of two movies and a TV series shot here: Underdog, Dan in Real Life and Brotherhood.

That covered the rental fee, a $50 city licensing fee and the hiring of stagehands, police, fire marshals, ushers, janitors and security.

Asked why the state — not the movie companies — paid these expenses, Feinberg answered this way: the producers provided a free advance copy “to the state, the ‘showcased’ communities where the filming took place, and to the local Rhode Islanders who participated in the production. The Film Office provided the venue. All tickets were free and open to the public.” Up to a point, Feinberg was given freedom to entertain those he views as influential people with money to spend on Rhode Island’s fledgling movie and TV production industry.

On Nov. 1, 2004, the Department of Administration adopted a special set of rules for the state film office that allowed him more latitude in his state-paid “entertainment” spending than the typical state employee.

Food and liquor was anticipated under certain circumstances.

The policy stated: “payment for consumption of alcoholic beverages will be permitted when staff of the RI Film and Television Office meet with business or community leaders and/or individuals with a high level of influence in the business community to discuss plans, goals or objectives related to … Film and Television Office projects.”

“Consumption is expected to occur after normal work hours, unless culturally dictated in another country.”

But the policy also required “express advance approval” from the director of the Department of Administration or one level down, the executive director in charge of operations, a job held by the current Administration director, Jerome Williams, from April 2003 to early 2005, and later, by the governor’s current chief of staff, Brian Stern, and more recently by Ronald Renaud.

As Williams explained in a recent e-mail: “Mr. Feinberg’s role at the RI Film Office is similar to that of members of Economic Development Corporation. They are selling the attributes of the State of Rhode Island. In doing so, there are times when entertaining film or television decision-makers is an ongoing practice for Film Offices.”

Feinberg sought advance approval on some occasions. For example, the expense reimbursement request he filed for a $190.27 sliced filet and 10-oz. filet mignon dinner he hosted at The Capital Grille on March 22, 2006, said: “Drink with ‘Underdog’ line producer and dinner/drink with Disney executive Jerry Ketcham to discuss the $80M production currently filming in RI, and collaboration on future film projects suited for our state. Pre-approved by Jerry Williams.” (The $9.5 million in tax credits subsequently awarded Underdog was based on $38.1 million in production-related spending.)

But providing this kind of detail was apparently the exception, not the rule, for Feinberg, who was more apt to just scribble the names of his dining companions and their affiliations on receipts –– “Underdog,” “Waterfront,” “Prince of Providence” –– without further explanation.

In fact, Feinberg received a Nov. 1, 2006, memo from Rosenbaum, executive director of the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, after running up a $697.95 tab the previous month:

“While I will approve the expenses you have submitted … they suggest that it is important to remind you of some of the ground rules that were established two years ago by the state controller’s office, and establish some other ground rules to ensure the accountability for the expenditure of state funds.”

Of one Feinberg bill, Rosenbaum wrote: “While no one in this office is questioning that the expenses incurred were for anything other than legitimate purposes … The policies require that you be ‘reasonable and prudent’ in your expenditures. Be aware that public funds are being expended. A $200 bill for dinner for three people, including $60 for liquor, stretches the boundaries somewhat.”

Of another restaurant bill, he said: “I realize you can’t control what people order at lunch, but you’ve asked for reimbursement for a glass of Merlot for lunch at Angelo’s and the policies say that alcoholic consumption is expected to occur after normal work hours.”

Referring to Feinberg’s failure to file required paperwork for one of his trips to California, he said: “Be aware that the state travel regulations — and these requirements — are not designed to prevent you from doing the important work of the Film & TV office. They are in place because you are operating with public funds, as part of a public agency and you need to be fully accountable before and after-the-fact for your expenditures.”

After that memo, Feinberg’s spending slowed. But it picked up again a few months later, after he was given his own charge card, which he used to run up as much as $1,412 in a single month, according to records provided by the state controller.

After a month of trying, the controller’s office was able to locate most, but not all, of Feinberg’s purchase-card bills for the last year, and the receipts that went with them.

It has had better luck finding the bills for the 2007 Cadillac and the SUVs Feinberg rented from Enterprise Rent-a-Car for periods of up to a month last spring and summer, including some days when he was billing the state for mileage on his own Mitsubishi Spyder.

One of the bills says: “ATTN: Julie Snyder.”

Snyder is the Newporter who produced an independent film called Tanner Hall, that featured Tatiana von Furstenberg and Francesca Gregorini as co-writers and co-directors. As described in a November 2007 Journal story, Snyder was in charge of “overseeing von Furstenberg and Gregorini’s entire whirlwind, monthlong trip to the state: Burrillville, Providence, Pawtucket, Lincoln and Newport.”

When asked, however, who drove the rented 2007 GMC Yukon, a spokesman for Enterprise said Snyder’s name appeared on the bill in error: the car had been rented to Feinberg.

Snyder did not respond to inquiries and Feinberg responded in general terms to specific questions about the need for the car rentals, which cost the state upward of $5,689 over the last year. Feinberg described Snyder as a local filmmaker who assisted on several local productions, including Brotherhood, and I am Paige Armstrong.” He, too, said: “Her name on one of our invoices is a clerical field error by Enterprise Rental. They must have lumped our Film Office within a category of filmmakers.”

As for his own need for a rented SUV, he said: “My personal vehicle is only equipped for one passenger. Therefore, the Film Office needed to rent a Suburban to assist with the many visiting location scouts/producers/directors.

“I drove the Suburban and showcased the various locations they were interested in seeing. Among these many productions include: the comedy 27 Dresses, Warner Brothers’ The Clique, the Richard Gere family drama Hachiko, the Josh Lucas/Brian Cox thriller Tell Tale and the coming of age drama Tanner Hall.

Asked why he charged the state mileage for his own car on some of those same June 2007 days, Feinberg said: “The Suburban was used for scouting. On many occasions, we would scout in the morning, but not the afternoon or vice-versa. On these particular days, I also attended film-related events in Newport. … I took my own vehicle as I would be driving alone to these other Newport film events.”

At this point in late June 2007, the 10th annual Newport International Film Festival was over. He did not specify what other film-related events he attended.

Though unwilling to provide his trip itineraries, Feinberg provided some details about two of his four trips to California last summer, in which he stayed at the luxurious Huntley Hotel and totaled more than 300 rental car miles each trip. Asked where he went, what he did and with whom he met on these trips, he e-mailed these answers:

On his July 20-26 trip to California, he said, he “promoted our state” in meetings with unnamed “filmmakers and executives representing The History Channel, Inferno Entertainment, New Line Cinema, Walt Disney Pictures, Warner Brothers and Showtime.”

As a result of the trip, Feinberg said, “I was able to bring the Warner Brothers-Tyra Banks production of “THE CLIQUE” home to Rhode Island. Based on a popular, New York Times best selling book series for young adults, this $5 million production of “THE CLIQUE” is expected to be the first installment in a series of nine movies or more to be filmed in Rhode Island.”

As a result of more meetings with unnamed filmmakers and executives at Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios and Inferno Entertainment during an Aug. 22-28 return trip to California, Feinberg said, “I was able to bring the $16 million family film, HACHIKO,” starring Richard Gere and directed by Lasse Hallstrom, to Rhode Island.

In September, he made two more trips to California. The state picked up a $277 dinner tab for Feinberg, Newport’s Julie Snyder, director Phillip Noyce and his assistant, Voyo, at the Sushi Roku Santa Monica on Sept.18.

In an e-mail, Feinberg said he flew to California again in September to talk about Rhode Island’s tax-credit program as a panelist at a “Tax Based Film Financing Seminar” sponsored by Entertainment Partners, The Atlas Information Group and Stonehenge Capital.Last week, Stonehenge managing director Gordon S. LeBlanc confirmed that his company paid approximately $1,500 for Feinberg’s airfare and hotel accommodations in Los Angeles.

In response to further inquiries, LeBlanc said his Baton Rouge, La.-based company has provided financing to a number of film projects in Rhode Island, including Brotherhood and Dan in Real Life, and has collaborated with Anthony Gudas, one of the better-known tax-credit brokers in Rhode Island, on a number of financing projects, “including several film projects in Rhode Island.”

While it remains unclear who paid for Feinberg to return to California for another tax-incentives conference last September, an e-mail to Feinberg from an executive at the entertainment payroll services company Axium said: “Hotel for sure, flight if you need it.”

When asked if he knew where Feinberg went and with whom he met on his trips, Rosenbaum said the Department of Administration legal office assured him the information Feinberg provided in his own e-mail was “sufficient.”

As for his own role, Rosenbaum said: “Whenever Steven wanted to travel I would sit down with him and get a report on who he planned to see and what he planned to accomplish. Upon his return, Steven would brief me on who he met and the results of his meetings. I was certainly of the opinion that Steven’s trips were productive and beneficial to the state.”

Feinberg would not agree to an interview — or even follow-up questions about his spending. Presented with a list of written questions on April 7, he waited a full week — until the night before he said he was leaving for a vacation where he could not be reached — to respond.

But in his e-mail, he described himself as a rainmaker, master of ceremonies, major domo and goodwill ambassador for Rhode Island, who views a $20 box of Sweenor’s chocolates for Glenn Close, $1,375 worth of gift baskets for movie actors and crew and $203 in gondola rides for Joe Pantoliano and his traveling companions as the least someone in his position should do.

Of the gondola rides on a hot and humid August evening, he wrote: “Since word of mouth is important in Hollywood, this marketing expense helped create a wholesome, positive experience about the city of Providence and the State of Rhode Island for Mr. Pantoliano, who was the creative force behind the $14 million production of Waterfront.”

“This gesture encouraged him to share his enthusiasm about Rhode Island as a special, film friendly place with his influential colleagues in the motion picture industry.”

Of the gift baskets, he said: “Since Rhode Island was trying to establish itself as a film friendly destination with the advent of the Motion Picture Tax Credit Program, the Film Office welcomed productions such as “Evening” or “Dan In Real Life” with fruit baskets. $1,375 is a total amount for many fruit baskets.”

Some of his marketing-gambits paid off better than others.

For example, Feinberg hired a plane and photographer at a cost of $1,435 to scout locations for a movie about Amelia Earhart, which will not be filmed in Rhode Island. “However, after this location scout,” Feinberg said, “the director was inspired by the locales and has another high profile motion picture he plans to soon film in the Ocean State.” He did not elaborate.

Of the $434.30 in chauffeured rides to and from Newport for Brotherhood stars Jason Isaacs and Fionnula Flanagan in June 2007, he wrote: “After completing a day of filming, some cast members from the Showtime series “Brotherhood” graciously agreed to support the local Newport International Film Festival by attending the Saturday night screening and party.

“Because of their presence, the stature of the festival was raised to new heights. In fact, the “stars” mingled with the filmmakers and posed for pictures with many guests in attendance. As a courtesy and to ensure they arrived safely home, the Film Office provided the car service.”

As evidence that his spending habits are the norm for the directors of state film offices, Feinberg made public an e-mail he received from his counterpart in the Massachusetts Film Office, Nicholas Paleologos, who said: “we have often taken prospective filmmakers to lunch and/or dinner [and] hosted events for senior production executives from major studios.”

“But such a discussion misses the larger and much more important point,” Paleologos wrote. “Last week, our own Department of Revenue reported that new direct production spending in Massachusetts for 2008 will exceed $359 million…” Asked how many new productions Rhode Island has lined up for 2008, Rosenbaum provided a list of six, with an estimated $27.7 million in estimated production costs that would qualify for $6.9 million in tax write-offs. They include the third season of Brotherhood, The Prince of Providence, Hachiko, Bloodline, Providence Center for Immortality and the completed The Clique.

After 2008, Rhode Island’s production calendar is empty so far. “There are several other productions that have expressed interest in being here, but until everything is confirmed, and paperwork is submitted, we can’t announce anything,” Rosenbaum said.

kgregg@projo.com