The California film tax incentive works for LA, but not the rest of the state.
The City of Angels and its surrounding countryside, mountains, beaches and deserts have stood in as “Location Doubles” for places across the globe. If you want to film an external scene in Manhattan (but your cast and crew are all in LA) and you know a street corner in downtown LA which looks like NYC, then it saves money to stay in southern California.
That’s a no-brainer and has been happening since motion pictures began.
But, here’s the thing: those of you with the major million dollar budgets (and even those of you without this), when you go film somewhere outside of the LA "zone," you always have a massive, long-lasting economic impact on the area you visit.
And that’s not just because you pay hotels to put up your crew, and crews spend their hard earned cash in local restaurants and bars, but it’s because the film commissioner in the area you’re shooting can use the publicity of your movie being there to attract film-loving tourists...and sometimes for many years in the future.
Take the northern Californian counties of Humboldt and Mendocino, for instance. Both have gorgeous Redwood trees, magnificent coastlines, country roads, idyllic small towns and are around four hours drive north of San Francisco; basically, in the middle of nowhere. Yet Mendocino just had a huge party celebrating 40 years since the filming of the little-known 1970s coming-of-age movie Summer of ’42 which was shot there.
People flew up from LA and over from the East Coast to visit Mendocino for the event (and you thought it was just about cannabis growing up in them thar’ woods, didn’t you?). This type of event is a result of the impactful legacy movie makers can have on areas other than LA for both locals and tourists alike.
There are 46 film commissioners across California in the state’s 58 counties. They serve as friendly facilitators, permit authorities, fundraisers, location scouts, movie marketers and negotiators of disputes between location managers/production companies and residents. If you’ve never spoken to one whilst you’ve been filming, why not?
“Besides the obvious economic impact that a film production company brings to a community, the promotional exposure is priceless to a small community.” says Debra de Graw, Mendocino Coast chamber of commerce chief executive officer and film commissioner. “The footprint that film production leaves behind can be long lasting. For example, to this day we still receive phone inquiries from visitors looking to stay at the inn where the 1978 movie ‘Same Time Next Year’ was filmed. Then there are visitors who delight in the news that they can actually stay at the location that was once used as Jessica’s house in ‘Murder She Wrote’".
Of course there are many other American states – and countries worldwide – that provide excellent incentives and tax breaks for filmmakers, but I’m focusing on the home of movies here: California.
