By Lorinda Toledo

LOS ANGELES (AP) --

A 25-year veteran of the film industry, William Gilpin lived in Los Angeles his entire life until he moved to New Mexico at the end of 2007. The construction coordinator works on cable network AMC’s hit series “Breaking Bad,” about a chemistry teacher who turns to a life of drug-dealing after being diagnosed with cancer.

Like many TV production workers, Gilpin, 55, followed the jobs that left California and relocated to states that offered generous tax breaks to lure film shoots. New Mexico offers a tax rebate of up to 25 percent of qualifying production expenses, including actors’ salaries.

“I came here on a distant location to do a TV series, not planning to move,” Gilpin said. “But I realized, you know, what a good place to be.”

Gilpin also said fewer competitors in the New Mexico film industry means more work for him.

“In New Mexico, there’s three of me in my position,” Gilpin said. “In Los Angeles, there’s 500.”

Last year, a growing number of TV and movie productions were shot in states other than California, up 2.5 percent from 2007, or 45 productions, to 1,842, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Meanwhile, Golden State productions fell 9.3 percent, or 49 productions, to 480.

The infrastructure of moviemaking is starting to form permanently in other states. A $146 million studio complex is being planned outside Detroit, and studios and post-production facilities are going up or already exist in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Texas, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Florida.

“There are now full studios available in the states that offered large incentives,” said Paul Audley, president of FilmLA Inc., an organization that tracks Los Angeles-area location filming. “It’s created an exodus of talent — not actors, but production people.”

Workers who have moved away say that while they miss the L.A. music scene, diverse restaurants and other conveniences of big city life, being farther afield has its perks, like being closer to nature and being able to afford a home.

Sean Clouser, a native Californian with nearly 20 years of film industry experience, was surprised to find himself moving to Michigan last fall after working as a construction coordinator on the independent film “High School.” Michigan offers up to a 42 percent tax credit.

Clouser, 41, said he was attracted by the cheaper cost of living and by locals’ friendliness and doesn’t plan to return to the fast-paced life he left behind. There’s also a lot of work from films being shot locally and in surrounding states.

Makeup artist Tarra Day, 46, lived in Los Angeles for 20 years but thanks to work shifting out of California, she was able to move back to her home state of New Mexico in late 2005 to be with her aging father and grandmother.

“It was a great opportunity to come be with my family and still be able to make a living,” Day said.

Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., estimated that for every midsize film with an average $70 million budget that leaves California, the state loses nearly 700 indirect jobs and $10.6 million in sales and income tax.

The trend continues this year. More than half of the 39 hourlong TV pilots for the upcoming season were shot outside California, according to Variety magazine.

California is trying to stem the tide.

A $500 million tax credit for movies and TV shows that shoot in California was signed in February by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and will begin to accept applications July 1.

Critics say the plan does little to stop the movement of production elsewhere. The credit, for up to 25 percent of production budgets spent in the state, is capped at $100 million a year — an amount that could be gobbled up by a few big budget movies.

“My guesstimate is it’ll be gone in the first month,” said Hal Kessler, an entertainment attorney who specializes in tax breaks for independent films.

That’s just fine for those who have left.

Keith Potter, a 39-year-old assistant director, moved to Santa Fe from Los Angeles in 2006 to book some out-of-city shooting days as required by the Directors Guild of America. He kept getting work in New Mexico though, and now he’s preparing to shoot the second season of “Crash,” a Starz pay TV series about race relations that’s set in Los Angeles but shot in Albuquerque.

Potter is smitten with New Mexico and says he’d only return to Los Angeles if it was best for his career. “I enjoy the place so much, my view now is that I’d rather just stay here.”

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