Film: Tax credit should keep cameras rolling in N.C.
RALEIGH — State film boosters said this week a more generous tax credit agreed to by Gov. Beverly Perdue should help return more lights, cameras and action to North Carolina with more movie and television deals — and ultimately more jobs.
In a ceremony at the old Capitol building, Perdue signed into law a bill approved by the General Assembly that raises the credit companies can receive for shooting productions in the state from 15 percent of qualifying expenses to 25 percent.
North Carolina has been a prime film and TV location over the past quarter-century, but its share of the cinematic pie has dropped recently as 28 other states offered better credits, led by places such as Louisiana and New Mexico.
“We see it as a perfect opportunity to create jobs immediately without any true dollar investment,” Chris Cooney, president and chief operating officer of the EUE/Screen Gems studios in Wilmington, said after the signing. “It’s really stopping the exodus of jobs leaving the state and creating jobs.”
While direct film industry spending in the state reached $161 million in 2007, according to the North Carolina Film Office, it fell to $91 million in 2008 and may drop below $50 million this year.
Most recently, Georgia scooped up at the last minute production for a new Miley Cyrus movie, “The Last Song,” based on a script by New Bern author Nicholas Sparks and being distributed by The Walt Disney Co.
Perdue had started traveling to Wilmington in April to announce the $17 million movie would be filmed in North Carolina when officials in Georgia, which offers a credit of up to 30 percent, stepped in.
“The money and the bottom line are richer for Disney,” Perdue said. “This is a business. They go where the money is.”
The film industry employs more than 2,500 workers statewide, and the credit has been used by 34 productions in 28 counties since taking effect in 2006, generating $163 million in direct expenses, Perdue administration officials said.
An outside study commissioned by the state film office and film industry found the 15 percent credit has generated $1.30 in additional tax revenues for every $1 credit, but that the 25 percent credit would not generate a positive return at first.
But credit supporters argued successfully to the Legislature that even fewer productions would be filmed in North Carolina without the change.
Studios will start putting North Carolina back in their budget models again when considering where to film and the higher credit should help the state’s film industry rebound in 2010, said Aaron Syrett, director of the North Carolina Film Office.
Despite North Carolina’s recent production slide, a number of recent high-profile movies still has used the state as a set, including “Nights in Rodanthe,” “Leatherheads,” and “The Secret Life of Bees.” The CW Network’s “One Tree Hill” is now filming its seventh season in Wilmington.
Cooney said the higher tax credit increases the odds that EUE/Screen Gems will build a sound stage in Charlotte. But he cautioned it would likely occur if there’s a large project that needs a stage in addition to filming in and around North Carolina’s largest city.
“There’s going to be opportunities that present themselves to us from the studios in California to do maybe a television show in Charlotte,” he said. “That’s what we’re hoping for.”
BY GARY D. ROBERTSON of Associated Press
