Susan Godfrey is a seasoned production manager, producer, and advocate with over 15 years of experience in creative project management across animation, live-action, and digital content. She is the founder of The Productive Studios and has led the successful execution of a wide range of independent and studio-based productions, including network series, branded content, and web-based storytelling.
Susan is also recognized for her leadership in tax incentive advocacy on both coasts. She played a key role in New York’s inclusion of animation in the state’s film tax credit program and now serves on the Political Action Committee of The Animation Guild (IATSE Local 839), helping shape legislative campaigns in California. Her efforts are driven by a mission to protect domestic animation jobs and create sustainable pathways for working artists and independent creators to benefit from public funding incentives. In addition to advocacy, Susan provides consulting and filing services for small companies and independent filmmakers seeking to navigate state and local tax credit programs.
With a background in animation from the School of Visual Arts in New York, Susan brings a hands-on understanding of creative production and a systems-oriented mindset. She’s known for her enthusiastic, collaborative and supportive approach to leadership, her deep fluency in budgeting and logistics, and her commitment to delivering projects that meet creative vision, financial rigor, and audience impact.
A conversation with Doug Vitarelli
To survive in New York [as an animator], it’s very difficult. I know that we lose a ton of people to California.
Oh yeah, it was such a huge migration, like all of the really talented people in my class at SVA, where I went, just Hemorrhaged in that direction. Living here (In LA) now it’s obvious, having a union makes for a much more livable situation being an animator. New York animators are scrappy though, they make it work.
So you had your own studio, The Productive?
It was a co-working studio on top of being an animation studio.
Like a WeWork thing, right?
Yeah. I remember hearing about that model and thinking, ‘That’s a really good idea’. My studio being a co-working studio was key—without that constant membership support, we wouldn’t have stayed afloat.
I Had a lot of great experiences running it,but the marketing and membership demands were a burden Doing the animation projects was great but finding good work was difficult. I closed the studio just before COVID hit, and thankfully that timing turned out to be a real blessing.
So the reason I’m calling is because I’m very much interested in New York and animation. And ever since COVID the studio system is pretty much dying out here. There’s a few left, they seem to make it work but it’s a tough thing because how do you justify the space.
So what I wanted to talk to you about is tax credits for animators.
Well when I opened my studio the Empire State Development Group only offered tax incentives for live-action. As a small animation studio looking to finance our own pitches, we realized we needed to make New York’s program “animation-friendly.”
So we mounted a campaign to expand New York’s credit to include animation, and the ESD team was surprisingly receptive. What had happend was Blue Sky Animation packed up and moved from White Plains to Connecticut for a sweeter deal—proof that without comparable incentives, productions would follow the money.
Our timing was perfect: they wanted to keep production—and jobs—here. After several rounds of advocacy, the credit was amended to cover all below-the-line roles (animators, colorists, production assistants, etc.), though it still excludes above-the-line talent like directors and art directors. Voice actors don’t qualify unless they’re singing -then they’re a musician and do qualify, writing was explicitly left out (which upset the WGA, but that’s a separate conversation).
There’s no minimum spend, so even indie projects can benefit. For example, I secured the credit for a fully animated pilot produced for YouTube Red by the creators of The Key of Awesome—an independent YouTube channel at the time.
I’m not sure you’re familiar with Signe Bauman?
We all are. She’s amazing.
Signe is a wonder. I secured the New York tax credit for her feature length animation, My Love Affair with Marriage, and I’m super proud to be handling the accounting and filings for her next film project, Karmic Knot.
So, how do you get a tax credit for a film?
Let’s just stick with Signe. How does she get a tax write off? She applies for it and then she does her taxes and gets to take 40,000 off of her income?
I’m really glad you asked because it’s not intuitive for people. What you’re describing is a ‘deduction’, like writing off your Cintiq or something -and that’s not an uncommon misconception. I’ve heard people say ”So you get a discount on your taxes, who cares?” How could that be important? But in reality, ‘tax credits’ are a dollar-for-dollar return on qualified production expenses, and animation is EXPENSIVE, so these returns are large. Tax credits, unfortunately mostly from other countries, are what make producing animation viable in the modern age.
I personally campaign for tax credits. We’re actively voting for the expansion of a tax credit program now in California, and to truly keep our industry viable in this country, we’ll need a federal program as well. People are saying “What do taxes have to do with making movies?” And it’s everything BUT you’re asking about smaller indie stuff so using Signe’s film-making as a (vague -nothing number specific) example, here’s how it’s done:
- Application: She submits a pitch book plus a form listing key personnel (director, producer, voice talent) and a preliminary budget to the program.This application is filed before any artist puts pencils to paper.
- She submits a Qualification Breakdown: a worksheet showing what percentage of work happens in New York versus elsewhere, and what qualifies as post-production.
- Production: Signe then makes her movie with whatever money they’ve pulled together, however the hell they can make it -and everyone in New York animation knows what a machine Signe is in gathering financing and animating her films into reality; the woman is an animation force.
- Expense Reporting: After wrap, every expense is itemized into line items on the New York tax credit’s official forms and submitted to the state.
- Audit: The state audits her claims to confirm qualified expenses.
- Credit Issuance: The approved credit of 30% for all qualified costs of her film is applied against her (or her businesses) state tax liability for that year—if she owes taxes, it reduces her bill dollar-for-dollar; if she owes nothing, the credit is refunded to her. THIS is why its called a ‘tax credit’ -she’s getting cash back on the money she spent producing her film in New York State in the form of a credit on her or her business’ State taxes.
For instance, Reggae Shark, it was about $60,000 credited back to the creators taxes the year we filed.
So Reggae Shark cost $60,000 to create that one episode?
No, those YouTube Red pilots (they commissioned many) were given a flat rate of $250,000 by Google. The production got about $60,000 back for producing in New York.
Wow. That’s a lot of money.
That’s 30% of the qualified costs from a $250,000 production. 30% of $250,000 is actually $75,000 but not all the costs were qualified (not the director, not the producer, etc…)
Also, the creator had to give half to Google.
Oh Jesus. Really?
Contracts for different studios are different: some require you to give all tax credits to them, others allow different arrangements. Understanding and knowing you can negotiate those terms is just as crucial or even more crucial than navigating the state’s application process.
For the YouTube Red pilot Reggae Shark, Google’s contract initially claimed 100% of any credits. After negotiating—pointing out Google couldn’t get the credits unless The Key of Awesome filed for them… and why would they do all that work to get nothing out of it —Google agreed to a 50/50 split.
It’s different for Signe. She funds her whole film so the tax credit goes 100% to her. And when CBS pays for “Our Cartoon President” to be done in New York State and they apply for tax credits for their production, 100% of the money goes to CBS. These applications of the credit are pretty straightforward.
But when an independent New York studio has an entity -like Google or Amazon or Netflix, paying them to do a production, they can leverage the New York State tax credit. This leverage is usually in the shape of, “Give us the amount of the tax credit we’ll get back to you as additional budget upfront” and terms are negotiated from there.
So Google gave you 250K to do Reggae Shark.
Yeah.
And it was a 15 minutes episode so it qualified under the pilot program for the New York State tax credits.
And you try to distribute it or get a buyer or something like that?
It was Google/YouTube Red. They were buying it, they were the client.
And then because you were in New York and you were producing it in New York, you applied for a tax credit.
Yep.
About how long did it take to do all the paperwork?
It’s not hard. I say this sometimes to my producer/mentor friend of mine and she laughs, but I feel like almost anybody can do it? But she may be right – not everyone loves spreadsheets and math. Like I love doing my taxes. I look forward to crunching those numbers every year and like, want to show people proudly when I’m done. I guess that’s not everybody. But really the tax credits are a matter of making a discipline out of your receipts, keeping everything organized; your expenses have to be track-able and when you file your numbers have to balance. There’s some acumen required for filing. Line it all up. Make it as easy as possible for all the people who have to review, process and approve.
For Signe, the entire time she’s making the film, every other month, Sturgis, her producer, sends me the receipts.
So every month or two, you’re starting to add up the receipts. And then the process takes the amount of time the amount of time the production takes. And then once you’re all set, once the production is in the can, you send in all your completed paperwork. And they send you a check.
Yeah, there’s some back and forth. The State looks at some line items and will email you back, “No, we’re not paying for X”. For example they don’t do subscriptions. So you might fight a little bit with them “We’ve got people working remotely and we need Dropbox. It’s an integral part of production” and they may or may not allow it. Once that type of thing all settles they’ll issue the credit and you file the credit with your next quarter or next year’s State taxes -depending on how you file.
Waiting for that credit can be a little onerous. In my experience, smaller projects don’t take as long, bigger projects, more receipts take much longer. The range my projects have waited for the credit, once they submitted their completed application, is 6 mos to a year and a 1/2.
Then New York State sends you a check.
Yep. Your tax refund.
I’m just curious. Is that check taxed?
It is literally your tax return.
That I don’t understand. So maybe this is another way of putting it: If I make $100,000 this year and I get this tax credit for $30,000 then I only have to pay taxes on $70,000?
No. You’re thinking of it as a deductible again. The tax credit you get for a film you made is a “tax credit” issued to you, in and of itself SO:
- You worked and made 100,000 dollars this year. Your tax liability was (you owe) $5,327 in state taxes.
- You also made a 100,000 film, filed and got a $30,000 tax credit you filed with your taxes
New York State will send you a check for $24,673.
So if I got a $30,000 credit but at the end of the year, I was getting $500 back, they would add that on to the 500.
Correct, with your taxes. The State would send you a $30,500 check.
If I self-funded my own pilot and distributed it through festivals or online streaming like YouTube, Vimeo, could I apply?
Yeah, I just asked for this because this streamer, his name is God, and he has a little cartoon of him being God, and he’s looking into making an animated series for his YouTube channel and I was like: tax credits, let’s check. And I just wrote and asked and if you’re streaming, whatever the platform is, you qualify.
You’d have to make your pilot either the industry standard of 12 minutes or 22 minutes.
So there’s the minimum length.
Well because the goal is really for projects made for commerce and with television programming it used to be that animated episodes were either two 12’s or 23 minute with the commercial breaks cooked in so the tax credit qualifications are built on what it used to be like and not what it is now. Those are some of the qualifications. And then there’s a certain amount/percentage of your budget you have to spend in New York, all this qualifying for and filing information, by the way, is available online.
And you apply for the credit before you put your first pencil to paper. Bottom line, New York and hopefully soon CA, these programs are out there, the talent is in both places and who wants to say “No” to free money?
I don’t know anyone.