Producing : New Zealand Announces Changes To Film And TV Production Incentives And Funding by Andrew Heard

Thank You!

Sounds great. How about for $200,000 budget feature movies? Any incentive?

Here in Vancouver,British Columbia, Canada we boast the third largest film & television production hub in North America after New York and followed by Toronto,Ont., then Atlanta, Georgia. For a city just over one million, there are currently (Jan.1 ,2014) 38 productions shooting in and around the city. Originally U.S. Producers such as Stephen J. Canell came to Vancouver in the early 1980's to shoot series such as "21 Jump Street" and "Wise Guy's" due to the favorable U.S. Vs Canada dollar exchange plus the Vancouver's close proximity to L.A. Over the next two years more and more U.S., European and Asian producers came and with in just a few more years the city and province had opened a Film Commission office in L.A. and.become known as a favorite destination with excellent locations that could double for the U.S.,, first rate eager crews, top equipment & post houses and brand spanking new studio space. Studio's consisting of two to ten sound stages started popping up. Which facilitated features such as Stallone s first Rambo picture "First Blood" and "Rocky V". Suddenly in Vancouver alone there were 30,000 people indirectly employed in filmed entertainment. & the unions; The Directors Guild of Canada, I.A.T.S.E., A.C.F.C., Teamstirs and A.C.T.R.A. all opened local offices which was a first outside of Toronto. Seemingly over night the motion picture industry became a major provincial industry. Banking on the exchange rate isn't a good long-term investment and with the Canadian dollar becoming stronger (eventually over powering the US dollar) the local industry found itself loosing production as producers went to new places where they could get more bang for their buck so the B.C. Provincial Government introduced Film and Television Tax Credits available to both Canadian and Foreign producers of up to 35% on monies spent shooting in the province. This attracted more and more production and soon L.A. Found itself losing a significant amount of work, what they called 'runaway production' and a massive smear campaign began where as they attempted to pursued public opinion on the tax credit issue claiming it was a 'free hand out', 'buying production' and against the UN's policy on trade. That didn't last long. The bottom line is B.C.'s Film & Television Tax Credits keep Canadians employed which is one of the things a government is responsible for. Our Tax Credits are not free money hand out to foreign producers, if they don't come here and spend the money they they don't get the credit and the credit is only good for what they originally spend. The motion picture industry in British Columbia contributed 2.7 billion dollars in local profits during 2012 and it is growing. Tax Credits work and keep people employed.

What about DaytonCreate? and FilmDayton?, Cleveland Film Co-op, Dayton/Cleveland Film Makers Meet -Up?