The largest film and television studio lot east of California will soon become even larger.
EUE Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, has broken ground on Stage 10, the third largest stage in the U.S. and the only one of its size and scope outside a Hollywood, Calif. studio lot.
Stage 10 has 37,500 square feet of production space with a height of 45 feet and dimensions of 150 x 250 feet. Additionally it will contain a 60 x 60 foot special effects water tank, with a depth of 10 and a half feet, making it the largest and deepest water tank in North America.
Currently under construction, Stage 10 is slated to be available for film, TV and commercial production around mid-May.
The expansion reflects the fact, said Bill Vassar, executive VP of EUE Screen Gems Studios, that “we are confident and committed to production in North Carolina.”
With nine stages already in operation, Chris Cooney, COO and president of EUE/Screen Gems Ltd., noted that the investment in Stage 10 “comes at an economic time when most private sector investments and film assets will be reconsidered or abandoned.
“We are committed to North Carolina,” affirmed Cooney, “and are steadfast in our mission to secure the future of filmmaking in Wilmington.”
Part of this bullishness on business prospects even in the face of a difficult economy is due to North Carolina’s filming incentives which have given a jump start to production activity in the state.
(Legislation that took effect in summer of 2006 provides a full 15 percent tax credit on productions $250,000 and over, and not exceeding a credit per project of $7.5 million. Commercials qualify for this incentive. Also, filmmakers pay only one percent sales and use tax on all production-related items purchased. For more information, log onto the North Carolina Film Office website, www.ncfilm.com or directly to www.ncfilm.com/incentives-benefits.html.)
Generating business
The incentives package, said Vassar, has in recent years played “an instrumental role in helping to get projects over here.”
He cited a $65 million feature film titled Bolden which came to North Carolina a couple of years ago and is currently being edited. The movie tapped into North Carolina locations, facilities and stages, and likely would not have come to the state if not for the incentives lure.
About to wrap its sixth season and slated to embark on a seventh at EUE Screen Gems Studios is the hit TV series One Tree Hill. The show is also advertiser friendly with progressive promotional tie-ins.
Vassar recalled one of the series’ characters having a band and an accompanying website as part of the plotline. This evolved into her having a band and website in real life, with Sunkist Orange Soda sponsoring both the website and the band’s popularconcert tour.
Commercials are also making their way to North Carolina and EUE Screen Gems Studios is looking to get more spotmaking activity into the state’s production pipeline.
“We’re working on a campaign to get the story out on how beneficial it is to shoot in North Carolina,” related Vassar. “It’s more than just the 15 percent incentive for any commercial that spends $250,000 or more in the state. The locations are gorgeous, the resources are here ranging from lighting/grip facility to the stages.
“And most importantly,” he continued, “there’s a depth of crew talent. Over a thousand crew members live and work in the Wilmington area…This in turn has led to more local production companies keeping their production here, companies that in the past seemingly always ended up in Los Angeles.”
In some respects the runaway production tide has thus been stemmed, if not reversed to a degree as more homegrown fare is opting to remain at home.
Vassar added that North Carolina also benefits from a down-home attitude reflected in a cooperative, problem-solving spirit. This refreshing orientation, he noted, can represent quite a departure from the dog-eat-dog competitiveness sometimes found in so-called major markets.
Optimism The optimism expressed–and backed by the action of EUE Screen Gems Studios investment–isn’t confined to North Carolina.
SHOOT found industry folk in Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee also encouraged over the future while still realistically acknowledging the uncertain economic climate.
Mississippi in particular knows about economic uncertainty as parts of the state were heavily hit by Hurricane Katrina, translating into fiscal problems that came long before the financial woes that have since come to the fore with the onset of an all encompassing global recession.
Still, there’s a sense of economic recovery in Mississippi with its film commissioner Ward Emling outlining for SHOOT a progressive incentives program designed to help encourage commercial production in the state. (See Emling’s survey feedback later on in this feature story.)
In a survey of the Southeast region’s film commissioners–including Emling who is a past president of the Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI)–we posed the following two-pronged query:
How have meaningful filming incentives–or the lack thereof–that apply to commercials impacted advertising industry business in your state? And has industry infrastructure been positively impacted in your market as a result of incentives?
Furthermore, SHOOT canvassed production and postproduction shops in the region to get a better handle on their business, asking them this multi-part survey question:
What’s the nature of the ad content business you’re attracting? National television campaigns, regional spots, broadband video/mobile content, sponsored web films, webisodes, etc.? (You can cite specific projects as examples.) How has the nature of this business changed over the past year or two? (For instance, whereas production of a web project might have been piggybacked in the past onto a broadcast :30 shoot, are exclusive shoots now the norm when it comes to “new media” projects?)
Here’s a sampling of the feedback we received:
Ward Emling, director,
Mississippi Film Office
Commercials are specifically included in our incentive program for two major reasons: (1) commercials have an immediate impact on our production infrastructure, and (2) bottom line issues are increasingly important to the commercial producer.
We created a low minimum spend ($20,000) with the commercial industry (and our local filmmakers) in mind, and the turnaround time on our rebate is 40 to 45 days which gets the money back to the producer in a hurry.
One of our Mississippi production companies, Eyevox, has utilized the rebate in all categories: television series production, short film production and commercial production, and we expect our other companies to follow.
Several other product specific companies (Mossy Oak, Primos) have also taken advantage of the incentive.
Our crew base has grown and benefited through paychecks and experience, and our production companies through expanded equipment and postproduction capabilities.
Aaron Syrett, director,
North Carolina Film Office
The North Carolina Film Incentive we believe has had a meaningful impact on commercial business in the State. Since the inception of the North Carolina incentive program North Carolina has seen an increase in commercial production. In the past year in and around the Charlotte North Carolina region alone we have hosted @radical.media, the Go Daddy Group, and RSA Films to name a few. North Carolina’s low minimum spend threshold of $250k per project or campaign works well with commercial budgets. There is no application process. North Carolina understands the time constraints that are put commercial producers. We knew from the outset that this is a market we wanted to heavily recruit, and that is one thing we learned in putting together a solid program for commercial production. Commercials can’t afford to wait for an approval process for an incentive, that is what makes North Carolina a perfect fit for commercial production. No matter how many incentives North Carolina offers, at the end of the day it is the unspoken incentive that closes the deal; and for North Carolina it is a deep crew of professional technicians and the equipment that make it so easy to shoot in North Carolina.
Bill Thompson, deputy commissioner,
Georgia Film, Music & Digital Entertainment Office,
Georgia Department of Economic Development
Georgia’s production incentives provide a 20% tax credit for all qualifying commercial productions. Virtually all labor, equipment rentals, and other production expenses qualify for the incentives. The credit may be used toward a production company’s own Georgia tax liability or it may be transferred (sold) only once to a Georgia taxpayer.
Our state’s commercial production has increased significantly since the 2008 Georgia Entertainment Industry Incentives were passed into law in May of last year. In 2008, 204 agency commercial productions with budgets totaling more than $35 million were produced in GA . We expect this level of production to double or triple in 2009. Feature films may qualify for an up to 30% incentive in Georgia.
Georgia advertising agencies service accounts such as Home Depot, United Parcel Service, Eastman Kodak, DirecTV, Delta Airlines, Intercontinental Hotels, Coca-Cola Company, United States Marine Corps, AT&T, Dow Chemical Company, International Marriott Hotels, Texas Instruments, and many other Fortune 100, 300 and 500 companies.
Because of our new incentives, our workforce is growing, our infrastructure is expanding in terms of soundstages and production studios, and our supplier base is multiplying.
Tamera Brooks, owner/executive producer,
Stray Dog, Nashville, Tenn.
Stray Dog, a film production company based in Nashville, TN, continues to attract national and regional spot production work from within the Southeast but other markets as well. Over the last year there has been a definite turn toward more new media work such as virals, webisodes and corporate work. More agencies are focusing on a multimedia approach to branding their clients products. We are seeing viral and web specific projects being produced exclusively instead of in addition to spot work. Fortunately for Stray Dog, we are well equipped to handle whatever type work comes our way. Our diverse directors roster and relationships within the industry allow us to be flexible enough to work within any medium.
Kathleen Fitch, Vice President,
Crawford Post Production, Atlanta
Crawford Post Production’s latest projects range from national and regional commercials to content for the Internet and mobile industries with webisodes and mobisodes. Crawford Post has seen an increase of Web-based spots and can offer clients a complete in-house solution. Recent webisodes include U.S. Marine Corps (JWT Atlanta), TNT series promotion (Turner Studios) and Purolator (The Buntin Group).
Regardless of the final deliverable, Crawford Post provides all the right services to get the project to air such as conversions, captioning and encoding. Every project, whether it’s for television or large and small venues, needs talent to effectively communicate the client’s message.
Over the years, the true core hasn’t changed and that is the talent to tell the tale, create the effects, enhance the color, animate the graphics, compose the music and do the sound design to deliver the best story possible. The talent always endures the test of time.
Cathy Wilson, executive producer,
Red Truck Films, Raleigh, N.C.
By 2008’s year-end, Red Truck Films delivered a combination of spots for TV as well as broadband content. For Virgin Airways, through McKinney, we shot content for banner ads and Captivate – like you see in taxi-cabs and elevators. Due to tightening budgets we actually saw fewer multi-media jobs packaged. Clients either wanted spots for TV or content only. This year agencies are encouraging their clients to package jobs for greater efficiencies. Knowing clients are producing less, we are all thinking in ways to create work that can be multi-purposed. As budgets continue to tighten we’ve actually seen an increase in board flow since we can match a talented director roster with the ability to package post through our sister companies, Serious Robots and Blazing Music + Sound.
