Last May, the Oklahoma legislature passed three laws with four new film-related incentives: a film enhancement rebate funded up to $5 million each fiscal year, a point of purchase tax exemption, a tax credit for Oklahoma film and music projects, and a credit for construction of Oklahoma film and music facilities. The first three incentives went into effect in June and the last in November. To find out more about the package, SHOOT talked with Jill Simpson, director of the Oklahoma Film & Music Office, about the laws and locations that are drawing production to the state.
SHOOT: What is the state of commercial production right now in Oklahoma?
Simpson: Commercials in the past four or five years have kind of been the bread and butter for Oklahoma and we passed three new state laws last year, which are designed to bolster the industry. But that’s [commercials are] basically how our crew base has made a living for a few years. We have various regional TV spots that are shot here, we had a national Toyota commercial shot in Oklahoma City–I believe it was in May or June of last year. But that’s basically the lifeblood for our crew and I anticipate that is going to expand as our incentives catch on.
SHOOT: Tell me about the three new state laws.
Simpson: One [the film enhancement rebate] is a fifteen percent rebate on expenditures made in Oklahoma if your minimum budget is $2 million and the Oklahoma spend is $1.25 million. That was a little bit prohibitive for commercials and local productions so what we’re doing is going back to the legislature this session, which starts in February, to try to make that cumulative so that if a company came in and did two or three independent features for lower budgets that totaled two million, or say a company did two or three commercials within a fiscal year that totaled $2 million, that would still qualify.
The point of purchase tax exemption is part of the rebate bill. What that did is it took an existing sales tax refund and turned that into a point of purchase sales tax exemption so that if a company comes in here, pre-applies with the Oklahoma tax commission, they get a card that they can take around when they are making purchases and they don’t pay Oklahoma tax, which can be anywhere from seven to nine percent. That’s an either or–you can either take advantage of the rebate or the sales tax exemption.
And then we have two additional tax credits designed to kind of bolster homegrown industry in Oklahoma. One is a twenty-five percent tax credit if you make a profit on a project and reinvest that into a second project. And that really, probably in the strictest interpretation, would be designed for film and music or TV shows. But there is a tax credit that would give you anywhere from a ten to twenty-five percent tax credit back if you build a facility in Oklahoma. Again that’s designed to try to encourage people to come here and set up shop and do their productions here.
SHOOT: So they all apply to film, television and commercials?
Simpson: And commercials. We’re trying to make sure that our legislation is written in such a way that commercials would definitely be included.
SHOOT: It looks like the point of purchase would be an option for budgets that didn’t meet that qualification of $1.25 million, right?
Simpson: That’s right, or the $2 million minimum. So in the instance that you can’t qualify for the rebate, there is alternative B, which is seven to nine percent in the form of sales tax exemption.
SHOOT: Are these are the only filming incentives in Oklahoma?
Simpson: That’s it for now. We’re going back this session to try to refine them to make them more user-friendly and to make them cumulative.
SHOOT: Have you seen any changes since these incentives have taken effect?
Simpson: I have. I’ve only been the director of the office for a year and a half, but the person who used to be the director is now our field representative doing a lot of scouting and customer service and based on what he tells me, and what I’ve seen as far as records in the files, the amount of productions that we have on our potential list is constantly growing and we’re on the radar screen.
SHOOT: What is the state of your infrastructure right now?
Simpson: Well what I’m challenged with right now is–I mean there’s one school of thought–build it and they will come. But I’ve watched that happen in other states and sometimes they didn’t come. So what we’re talking about, the people that are my inner cabinet, is getting the production to come in. … Phase one was the incentives, and phase two is building the crew base. Phase three is facilities. We do have some equipment. We have several key grips and gaffers who have grip and electric packages and trucks. But as far as sound stages, there are one or two small ones but we don’t have state of the art yet — what I’ve seen is that when the facilities are built before the activity is there, that has not been a successful model. I think it’s wise to have the work flowing in before you take on something like that.
SHOOT: Tell me about the range of locations in the state.
Simpson: Oklahoma has twelve eco-regions, which is more than any other state in the Union. The diversity here is incredible. We have sand dunes and salt plains in the west. We have pine forests in the east. We have mountains. We have prairies. It’s very diverse here and just seeing how the state’s laid out, you can kind of get an idea why.
All of these different locations afford us [the ability] to duplicate almost anything with the exception of really high mountain peaks with lots of snow or the coast with sandy beaches … We’ve got an 1,800 acre park called Little Sahara that looks like something out of the Middle East. That’s located in western Oklahoma. And there is an area up north, more toward the panhandle, that looks like a moonscape and it’s a naturally occurring salt plain, which also has incredible wildlife and is rich in minerals. That is called Great Salt Plains State Park.
SHOOT: What are the most popular locations?
Simpson: We are constantly asked about Route 66 and Americana nostalgia. And we’re focusing our ad this year on that because we’re coming up on our centennial year and we’ve got the longest stretch of Route 66, I believe, in the nation. When Elizabethtown came in 2004, that was one of the draws for [director/writer/producer] Cameron Crowe. He came to shoot a day and ended up shooting three days. And he shot the National Memorial here, which is another big draw. We’ve had two or three productions interested [in filming here] specifically because of the bombing memorial in Oklahoma City, which is really quite beautiful and unique.
