As covered in last week’s SHOOT (6/24, p. 1), Illinois’ Film Production Services Tax Credit Act will become more flexible in terms of transferability effective January 1, 2006. The change could result in a greater number of commercials taking advantage of the wage-based tax credit and shooting in the state.
“This legislation is a boon for commercial production in Illinois,” assessed Mark Androw, chairman of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP). “The tax credit savings are significant, generally around ten percent of the total gross commercial production costs. Jobs with large talent costs and use fees will see significant savings. The improvements in the legislation from the previous bill makes this a very easy to use, effective incentive for shooting commercials in Illinois.”
Androw is the Chicago-based executive producer of The Story Companies, which also maintains offices in New York and Santa Monica. He just stepped down from his post as a board member of the Illinois Production Alliance (IPA), an organization formed in ’02 to help make the state more competitive in filming, content creation and development. The AICP and the IPA lobbied legislators for the passage of the original Illinois tax credit bill in ’04 and its subsequent renewals covering ’05 and now through ’06.
According to Androw, the savings realized thus far have been substantive in the commercialmaking community. He said that due to the tax credit program, an advertiser–whom he declined to identify–got back $145,000 over the course of a year’s worth of production in Illinois. He estimated that the average savings on a spot project amount to $30,000 to $50,000.
Androw noted that commercialmaking in Illinois additionally benefits from increased feature and TV program lensing in the state resulting from the tax credit program. The incentive is credited with helping Illinois visual media business to rise 200 percent in ’04 with 1,200 new production jobs as major motion pictures such as Ice Harvest, Amityville Horror and Batman Begins came to the state. The growth has continued in ’05 with six feature films currently slated to shoot in Illinois this year, according to the Illinois Film Office. Fox Television recently green lit 13 episodes of a new series, Prison Break, to film in Chicago and Joliet, Ill.
Increased filming activity, said Androw, helps to groom new crew talent and makes it more inviting for companies to invest in Illinois production support resources, such as stages. Androw noted that a new stage complex, Resolution Digital Studios, opened this year in Chicago, making the state’s infrastructure stronger.
But for Androw, while he’s glad to see the Illinois anti-runaway incentive take hold, the big picture benefit is the momentum that’s starting to build nationwide. “At the AICP national board meeting [in New York last month], we discussed all the other states doing incentive programs,” he related. “You have states like Louisiana and Illinois looking to encourage commercialmaking. States are starting to realize that commercials are a major contributor to the economy and represent a business worthy of incentives. This is great because ultimately it helps reduce the cost of shooting in the U.S. As a result, more commercials will be shooting in the country.”
