Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a law to revive a tax incentive program that expired last July to attract movie production to Washington state yesterday.

“We have tourists from all over the world going to the town of Forks because it was the setting of the hit vampire movie series, Twilight,” said Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D—Seattle, sponsor of Senate Bill 5539. “That's great, but imagine the economic impact the region would have seen if the movies had actually been filmed in Forks, with locally-hired crew members and all food and lodging expenses going straight into the local economy. Renewing the competiveness program will continue to spur job creation and have a multiplier effect for every dollar invested throughout the economy.”

In another example, AMC’s series The Killing, broadcast last fall about a female detective working on a murder case in Ballard, was filmed in British Columbia even though the producers wanted to film in Seattle.

There had been uncertainty about whether the tax incentive program would be renewed, so they took production to B.C. instead, resulting in Washington losing the revenue and jobs here.

“Perhaps next year they will film here because the incentive program is now extended,” said Kohl-Welles. “Reinstating Washington’s film incentive makes us a viable competitor for future film production.”

The program offers a 30-percent rebate off the amount of money spent in the state to production companies selected through a competitive process. That can include anything from wages and benefits paid to state residents to the costs of building a movie set and hotel and catering.

The film incentives program has generated almost $70 million for Washington workers and businesses since it started in 2007.

Right now, 39 states offer some kind of incentive to attract big movie projects. This measure reinstates Washington’s incentive, which had expired last July.

------Previous Story: ------

Washington film bill tries to keep the local film industry alive
By Shane Harms, Intern
2012-03-05

Two weeks ago a Senate bill to renew the Motion Picture Competitiveness Program (alsoknown as SB 5539) moved from the Senate to the House with a winning vote of 8 to 1.

The next step for the bill was to move through the House Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for crafting biennial budgets and tax policy, however it failed to have a hearing before the February 27th cut off date and therefore, SB 5539 is now part of the proposed Senate budget. The bill still has to get to the floor of the House of Representatives for a full vote.

Sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle), the bill is aimed at maintaining Washington's position as a competitive location for filming by reinstating a tax credit through 2017.

The Washington State Motion Picture Competitiveness Program was created in 2007 and was made to rejuvenate the state’s educational, cultural, and economic status in the national and international market of film production. The programs also assists and provides services for wooing the film industry by proposing and supplementing financial assistance for costs linked to motion pictures in Washington.

The contributions come with a catch. For instance, there is a spending threshold the producers must reach of $500,000 for feature films and the production has to use local workers and businesses, while offering benefits such as health care and payments into retirement plans. For commercials, television shows, and motion pictures the program gives a refund of up to 30 percent for films intended for multi platform exhibitions and distributions

Since its launch, the bill has approved 71 projects for funding assistance, including 29 feature films, 37 commercials, and five television projects. These film productions have contributed $38 million of spending with Washington businesses, and creating more than 4,000 jobs.

Representative Ross Hunter (D-Bellevue, 48th District) is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. Hunter said on his website that “It’s one thing to give someone a reduced tax rate, but in this case it is a direct subsidy of commercial work… We could provide a much cheaper tax incentive to a wide variety of industries, or we could use the money to educate children (employing teachers, for example). In comparison to other incentives, this one is very, very expensive for the benefits received.”

In February, Amy Lillard, Executive director of Washington Film Works, said on the organization’s blog that if the bill is not renewed, “Fewer and fewer projects will come to Washington and it will not be long before the Evergreen State becomes the Evergreen ‘Fly-Over’ State, as projects pass us by in favor of Oregon or Vancouver, B.C. Washington’s homegrown filmmakers, cast and crew will be forced to go out of state to work, or worse yet, move themselves and their families to states with competitive incentives in place.”

Washington’s neighbors to the north and south are not the only states in the union to see the benefits for film incentives

“In this difficult economic climate, you are seeing states across the country maintain and even increase the production incentives that they offer. New Mexico just voted to continue their incentive program with a higher cap than was proposed by the governor. Utah just voted to raise their incentive, and Governor Kitzhaber in Oregon led the charge to get their incentive program renewed through 2018, said Lillard.

Moreover, Colorado recently passed a bill that creates a line of credit for film makers and doubled the state tax credit from 10 to 20 percent.

Grace Arends, a University of Washington student and fellow Ballardite, had a role in the Washington made low budget indie film, “Safety Not Guaranteed,” which won a national distribution prize at the Sundance film festival this year.

Arends said that “ ‘Safety Not Guaranteed’ brought business to small struggling places in the community, if the incentives are not there film makers will go someplace else…there are some negative aspects of the bill but the good things out weigh the cons.”

Grace has had two other roles in lower budget films shot in Washington such as “Eden”(which has scenes shot in front of Larsen’s Danish Bakery) and “21 and Over.”
As far as the future of her acting career in Washington is concerned, Arends said that if the bill doesn’t pass “it won’t be the same.”