Mission Statement

Cine Studio San Antonio is dedicated to cultivating a vibrant and sustainable film industry in San Antonio and South Texas. We empower local storytellers, filmmakers, and creatives through education, mentorship, and access to professional resources. By fostering collaboration, diversity, and innovation, we aim to position San Antonio as a dynamic hub for film production, workforce development, and cultural expression.

Senate Bill 22 passed into law, marking the single-largest investment in job creation in the Texas media production industries in the history of our great state.

This is the second consecutive legislative session of record-breaking funding for the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program (TMIIIP).

Our mission at the Texas Film Commission (TFC) is to help grow local jobs and economies by promoting Texas as the premier destination for film, television, commercial, animation, visual effects, video game and extended reality production.

The bill's passage recognizes the value of high-quality media productions created in Texas and exported to the nation and the world, furthering the power of the Texas brand.

This legislation does the following:

• Sets new minimum and maximum percentage levels
• Sets new minimum percentages for the hiring of Texas residents by production type
• Sets new percentages for grants based on eligible in-state spending levels and eligible wages paid to Texas residents by production type
• Establishes new, additional “uplifts” for eligible productions
• Sets a percentage cap for total reimbursement grants

SB22 will go into effect at the start of the biennium on September 1, 2025. The TFC staff will begin working on rules, timelines and a revised application process immediately. Like all successful productions, we'll need to do some pre-production to prepare for the implementation of the new aspects of the program. We will be providing updated information on timelines throughout the summer. 

We will continue to accept applications for funding currently available under the current TMIIIP rules. You can get information on current rules and apply here: gov.texas.gov/apps/film/filmIncentivesInquiry.aspx

The TFC will be implementing the new TMIIIP legislation, developing rules, and reviewing and approving applications. While we will be accepting applications for projects beginning September 1, decisions will not be rendered until administrative rules become effective.

Our team is aware that a lot of information and summaries are being circulated. The implementation of the program modifications is solely the responsibility of the Texas Film Commission. For the most up-to-date information on the process or for any questions, please contact our team directly. 

Today marks the beginning of a bright new chapter in the history of the Texas Film Commission. We are honored to work on behalf of the people of Texas and to promote Texas as the premier destination for media production.

Stay tuned to our social media channels and sign up for our newsletter to stay on top of all the latest information. 

Illustration By Vinnie Neuberg

The Talent

Jesse Borrego
Storyline: “(Create) additional higher education programs”

Jesse Borrego comes from a family of performers. His father, Jesse Borrego Sr., is a well-known conjunto accordion player and a contemporary of Flaco Jimenez. His brother is a filmmaker, and his older sister, a singer. But he says his paternal grandmother had the biggest impact on his career.

“She was the singer and the piano player who taught my father,” Borrego remembers. “I’d come home late from my shows and she’d be watching these classic Mexican movies. I saw these leading men and thought ‘There we are, but how do we get into the (American) mainstream?’”

The Chicano actor has spent the 30 years since working to answer that question. He’s starred in films like, Blood In Blood Out, and TV hits 24, and Dexter.  Now, he says San Antonio will play a major role in bringing the Latino narrative to Hollywood and the next generation. “We have a very fertile cultural bedrock,” Borrego says. “In Hollywood, everyone has a script, but here, everyone has a story.”

An alumnus of both the University of the Incarnate Word and California Institute of the Arts, Borrego believes education is a key element. Through Cine Studio San Antonio, a nonprofit he founded with his brother, he’s helped bolster the film program at his alma mater, Harlandale High School, and is working with the University of the Incarnate Word on a potential program.

“The next Jesse Borrego is out there. The next Eva Longoria is out there,” he says. “We have them in our fertile soil and we just need to water them so they can grow into these artists and create the culturally relevant content that our society needs.”

ww.sanantoniomag.com/March-2017/The-Big-Picture-San-Antonios-Film-Industry/

The class focuses on teaching the structured process of writing a screenplay, James Borrego, radio-television broadcasting adjunct, said.

“The goal of the screenwriting class is to teach the established process that goes into writing a film script,” he said. “Within that process, there is the paradigm, a three-act structure.” Borrego described the level of thought he has his students put into their stories before they begin to write the first act. “Students first must find their muse, followed by completing a series of steps, which will help them achieve the goal,” he said. “The first step is coming up with a concept, followed by the subject of the story, and then fleshing out a character complete with character bios,” Borrego said the goal for students is to complete RTVB 1329 with a polished screenplay that could potentially be shopped around to producers.

“The ultimate goal at the end of the semester is for students to walk away with either a short film of 10 pages or create the first 10 pages of their larger screenplay, which everybody knows is the most important part of the film,” he said. “The first 10 pages are your setup. It’s when your audience is going to decide, ‘Are we going to go along for this ride or not?’” Borrego emphasized the importance of students having the ability to have their voices heard through creative writing. “The most important thing is that students in this class develop their voice through their character; each of us has something to say,” he said. Borrego sees teaching the next generation of filmmakers as a major step in building a local industry.

Borrego and his brother, Jesse Borrego, who has been acting in films since the early 1980s, started a nonprofit organization together called Cine Studio San Antonio in 2009.

The organization focuses on aiding local independent filmmakers in producing projects.

“The San Antonio community wants to start a film industry; they just don’t know what they need to do to get it,” he said. “It starts with training a workforce, creating facilities, and encouraging film funding. One of the ways to get this industry going is to start training the next generation of filmmakers.” The website for the nonprofit organization is www.cinestudiosatx.org.

RTVB 1329 has proven to be both fun and challenging, RTVB sophomore Christian Erevia said in an interview after the class. “I’ve done creative writing, but film writing is much different in the sense that it is much more focused and formulaic,” she said. “Learning how to take a story from your head and condense it down to something that fits inside of a standard runtime for a general audience to enjoy is very difficult and rewarding all at the same time,” Erevia said that the best part of the class is how informative and helpful Borrego is.

“Professor Borrego is wonderful,” she said. “He will help you carve out your ideas, no matter how general they are. You might not even know what you’re trying to say, and he is able to pull it out of you.”

Another positive for Erevia is Borrego’s extensive background in the industry. “It’s nice to know that he is someone who has that experience in the field and is still connected to it to this day,” she

said. “He isn’t someone who retired 20 years ago or just read books on the subject; he’s been there and done that,” Erevia said her goal is to direct or produce films, preferably in the horror genre.

Borrego attended this college from 1988-91 before transferring to the University of Texas at Austin with an associate degree in RTF.

He has worked with major Hollywood stars such as Billy Bob Thornton, Matt Damon and Halle Berry, according to the Internet Movie Database at www.imdb.com.

Some of his most notable works came as assistant director for films “Why Do Fools Fall in Love,” “Selena,” and “All the Pretty Horses.” “Lately, SAC has lost some of the film aspects when it comes to RTVF. With this class, we are putting the film back into radio-television-film,” Borrego said.

 Ideally, scriptwriting would be offered every fall semester with FLMC 2310, Film Style Production, offered in the spring.

“We’ve always wanted to give students the opportunity to learn to write scripts specifically for film,” Bennett said. Bennett said the reason scriptwriting was never offered before was not having of a qualified adjunct to teach the course.

“There are no prerequisites for scriptwriting, and the prerequisites for film style production can sometimes be waived by an RTVB adviser or the instructor, so we welcome other majors to explore these classes, too,” she said. Bennett said the courses are electives in the Associate of Applied Science in Radio-Television-Broadcasting degree plan.

http://www.adweek.com/tv-video/how-atlanta-became-the-worlds-fastest-growing-film-and-tv-destination/