A little less than four months ago, the new Texas Moving Industry Incentive Program was signed into law, containing provisions that apply to commercials and branded content. The initiative offers qualifying commercial projects the opportunity to receive a payment of five to seven-and-a-half percent on eligible Texas spending upon completion of a review of their Texas expenditures.
The base five percent payout on Texas spend applies throughout the Lone Star State, and can be bumped up another two-and-a-half percent for filming in so-called “under-utilized areas.”
Bob Hudgins, director of the Texas Film Commission, related, “With this competitive program, we have seen a significant increase from commercial production companies interested in Texas. Texas also offers up-front sales tax exemptions on most items rented or purchased for direct use in production, as well as refunds of the six percent state occupancy tax on hotel rooms occupied for more than 30 consecutive days, and refunds on fuel tax paid on fuel used off-road.
“With the incentive program, tax exemptions, diverse locations and our production hubs,” continued Hudgins, “Texas continues to be a strong choice for commercial production.
Drew Mayer-Oakes, film marketing manager for the City of San Antonio and director of Film San Antonio/San Antonio Film Commission, assessed that the Texas incentive initiative for commercial production “has proved to be a viable program for producers working in San Antonio. We have a strong commercial crew base, so residency requirements for the program are easily met. And when you combine the incentive with our crew, facilities and equipment rentals, and easy-to-acquire locations, San Antonio makes a lot of sense.
“We are now seeing local ad agencies making a conscious effort,” continued Mayer-Oakes, “to keep production here in San Antonio. Directors and production designers from around the world are finding out that our city is rich with texture, a variety of locales and looks, and an attitude that makes filming here a cost effective, creatively satisfying experience.”
Janis Burklund, director of the Dallas Film Commission, noted that the additional two-and-half-percent bonus can be attained rather easily with an abundance of qualifying locations.
“We have under-utilized areas within Dallas for instance,” she explained. “For one, areas 30 miles outside the Dallas downtown radius qualify as under-utilized. Also qualifying are pockets in which the median income is less than 60 percent of the norm in the state. There are many of these pockets and they offer diverse locations and looks.”
Burklund added that the incentives apply to spending in Texas on pre-pro, production and post, and that there’s no cap on expenditures. The threshold for commercials to qualify is within practical reach, set at $100,000 in Texas spend, with 70 percent of paid crew, cast and extras combined needing to be from Texas.
The advertising category also has been expanded to include infomercials, interstitial advertising content, music videos and educational videos. Burklund observed that with new forms being explored in advertising well beyond traditional broadcast commercials, “lines have become blurred even when there’s a distinctly separate category.”
As an example of this, she cited the Texas incentive program’s separate category for video games. Pretty much the same qualifying thresholds and requirements apply to video games as those for commercials.
“We are seeing the advertising community getting into video games as a content form so it’s yet another way for ad people to tap into our incentives,” said Burklund.
In this same vein, Burklund recalled a sponsored webisode series shot in Dallas that was tied to some television movies for the Lifetime Network, one of which was the telefilm Inspector Mom. “Sponsored content is taking all shapes and forms,” she assessed.
Texas’ new incentives program is slated for a two-year run or until funding is exhausted. For theatrical motion pictures, the incentives can reach 15 percent on Texas spend.
With the recent introduction of the incentives package, Burklund said it’s hard to tell how much new business it has helped to bring in from the advertising industry.
“Sometimes you don’t know what the decision is based on to come to Texas. I received a call this morning, though, from an advertising agency because the client had heard about the incentives and wanted to see how to best take advantage of them. And what’s an added benefit to all this is that we will be able to better track commercials as more of them access the incentives in place.
“What’s good,” continued Burklund, “is that we have a strong foundation here in terms of commercial production and overall infrastructure. We have had a pretty strong commercialmaking industry in Texas for quite a long time. There are ebbs and flows over the years but even with the at times cyclical nature, the business has been solid, in many respects our bread and butter.”
To get a handle on that bread and butter, SHOOT surveyed artists and execs with Texas-based production and post houses, asking for an overview of activity. Our request was simply:
Please provide a brief overview of the advertising industry-related work your company has been involved in most recently (feel free to cite specific projects): National TV campaigns, regional spots, broadband video/mobile content, sponsored web films, etc. You are welcome to also comment on the impact the state’s filming incentives program has had on the commercialmaking business and industry infrastructure in Texas.
Here’s a sampling of the feedback we received:
Chad Briggs,
partner, Element X Creative While Element X Creative shared concerns about the economy going into 2009, our versatility allowed us to start the year off strongly. Our team was able deliver several projects for our friends at Pizza Hut, Wingstop, Porsche and Warner Brothers. These projects touched many delivery and acquisition format from interactive web applications, 35mm, digital cinema and beyond. Recent projects include a HD motion graphics show-open for the WeTV channel’s Girl Meets Gown; produced by AMS Pictures. Girl Meets Gown gave us the opportunity to animate a 2.5D scrapbook-style piece depicting what goes on inside a bride’s head as she searches for the perfect wedding dress. The 3D department kept busy designing some early prototype Terminator robots to complement the well known film franchise mythology.
These robots were then used in the global marketing campaign surrounding the Terminator: Salvation motion picture. Our concept artists dreamed up some great ideas for a variety of robots, which our team then modeled and textured as part of a “fresh off the assembly line” presentation for the fictional Skynet Research company.
Our company was also able to take advantage of the new Texas film incentives for Season One of our animated series: Bowlopolis (http://www.bowlopolis.com). Bowlopolis is an eight-episode 3D series developed for the Bowling Proprietors Association of America and the U.S. Bowling Congress. Designed to increase youth bowler awareness and participation through entertainment, we are happy to report that both goals were achieved and the series has experienced tremendous success.
Richard Gillespie,
owner, Fast Cuts Fast Cuts continues to maintain its role as a leader in creative editorial by adapting to changing trends in the industry. While many projects still include television and radio commercials, there has been a definite increase in web-based content development, graphics, and even production.
Editor Gigi Cone Welch and Dieste garnered a win at the recent AICE Awards for the Nationwide “Lightning” spot. I am currently editing both webisodes and television campaigns for Bojangles’ Restaurants with Eric Mower and Associates.
Stein Mart partnered with editor Michael Oleksinski for their recent package of television spots. South Padre Island Tourism utilized four different mediums, including RED, for a new series of spots edited by Kristina Z. Cruse.
The design artists at Fast Cuts also recently completed a couple of graphics and compositing intensive music videos for hot new artists Caitlin Crosby and Shwayze.
You may also have seen some of Fast Cuts’ graphics genius on the Nickelodeon TV network.
The newest Fast Cuts creation is Fuzzball–a group of our young talent working under the banner of “You bring the idea, We’ll do the rest.” Fuzzball hit the ground running with a Roy Bennett music video directed, photographed, edited, composited, sound-designed and mixed by this youthful, yet extremely talented group. Recently, the boundless energy and creative problem-solving that defines the Fuzzball team produced an intensely realistic re-creation of a FBI/police raid video for the Internet.
John Gilliland,
president of AICP Southwest, executive producer and partner, Directorz While business this year has definitely been affected by the economy, overall we’re staying very busy. All of our directors have been working consistently, shooting national work for Macaroni Grill, Denny’s, Purina, Conoco Phillips, The Salvation Army, and Nestle.
Budgets continue to be an increasing challenge, so maintaining great relationships with advertising agencies as well as clients are more important than ever before. We do this by always delivering a consistent, quality product and experience.
The film incentive program promises to help draw work to the State of Texas. Right now, they are still working out the kinks, so until payments are made in a more timely manner, I don’t see much of an impact on commercial business in the state.
Once we know we will receive the incentive money in a timely manner, we can pass those savings onto clients, and help attract business to the state. I’m assured the state has addressed this issue and payments will now start to be processed much more quickly.
Brent Herrington,
editor/partner, 3008 3008 is a creative commercial editorial house in Dallas, utilizing off line, on line, graphics, and recording/mixing for our clients.
We work on national and regional advertising campaigns, ranging from accounts such as The Home Depot, Ford, Hasbro, Advance Automotive, McDonald’s, Game Stop, Boost Mobile and many others.
As to the state’s incentive program: It is a great beginning. Attracting production and postproduction to Texas is terribly important in this extremely competitive industry.
The work will go to the people who want it the most, and make an attractive and pro-active place to get the work done.
JP McLean,
executive producer,
ANDTRANSFER
ANDTRANSFER has most recently completed regional and national commercials for LatinWorks, Uproar, GSD&M Idea City, Ackerman McQueen, and TracyLocke to name just a few. Our latest commercials have included, Burger King, Popeye’s Chicken, Bud Light Lime, the Texas Lottery, Domino’s Pizza, Hasbro, Pier 1, Taco Bueno, Taco Cabana, AT&T, Nationwide Insurance, and many more.
We’ve also been involved in a couple of major campaigns for Nike–Brand Jordan, and most recently The Nike “Driven” campaign.
This fall is shaping up to be a busy one as we have just dedicated one of our three suites to full Digital Intermediate, via Da Vinci Resolve,.
This offers our clients fast and easy color grading of all file-based footage (Genesis, Phantom, etc.) and especially allows us to work natively with r3d files for the RED digital camera which is growing in prominence.
Norry Niven,
partner/director,
Stone Core Films
Our goals have always been to create the best work possible, no matter where, no matter what budget.
Because of constant striving, we were just honored at the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) Show (in the Production Design category for Showtime Networks’ ‘”Funhouse,” promoting the series Dexter), Promax, BDA and New York Festivals for a variety of spots we shot over the past year.
Nearly everything we shoot is a national spot and we’re very proud of the work we’re currently doing for such clients as Electronic Arts, Hasbro, Albertsons, PetSmart, Showtime Networks and Fox.
We’ve been fortunate enough to shoot the majority of our work in Dallas, making the most of the area’s vast resources and incredible crews.
The incentives are a great thing to look at in the broad perspective. Texas is lucky to have them and they can be a powerful tool for any commercial budget, making Texas commercial production very attractive. Something we’ve always known, no longer a secret, is that it is truly attractive as a place to make great spots, not just inexpensive ones.
Jack Waldrip,
senior editor/principal,
charlieuniformtango
We indeed feel very fortunate to be working quite steadily this year–knock on wood!
Our business model has been changing over the last couple of years and I credit that with giving us the ability to flourish in the midst of this quite challenging climate.
In addition to our editorial and finishing services, we added a very talented young director named Jeremy Bartel to helm our new production arm — Liberal Media.
Also, we have added digital production and Internet services to our overall company arsenal.
Digital Tango, headed by former advertising agency and interactive creative director Matt Manroe, can help consult, design and produce online projects such as banners, web content, and microsites.
Now we can truly package a 360 solution for any client needs.
On the editorial front, we’re currently cutting a Fruit of the Loom advertising campaign as well as varied work for Conoco/Phillips, Amstel Light and AT&T.
Among the projects that we’ve completed so far this year, have been Volkswagen, Home Depot, Superpages, Buffalo Wild Wings, Rent A Center, Burger King and Zales.
We had an American Airlines commercial short listed at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, and another American Airlines spot is up for an Emmy Award.
Liberal Media has also been quite busy on the production side with a campaign for TXU, as well as some viral commercials for Starbucks, and Internet work for clients Superpages and the nonprofit Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
Digital Tango is currently turn-keying a microsite for State Farm Insurance that involves live action, editing, animation and Flash. Other digital work includes Yellow Pages and Nokia.
