Florida shoots sizzling

Production heats up in the Sunshine State

Florida locations such as Tampa offer off-season bonuses to productions shooting 75% or more of their principal photography in the state.

Tropical storms aren't putting a damper on Florida film/TV production.

The state, which has endured more hurricanes than normal in recent years, bounced back by offering a 5% "off-season" bonus for productions shooting 75% or more of their principal photography during June-November.

The state also provides a hurricane preparedness plan, which offers productions a decrease in the cost of production insurance.

Florida's incentives offer feature productions a 15%-22% cash rebate with a $625,000 qualified spend. Since July 2004, recipients have spent more than $256 million in the state on Florida wages, local services and products and provided approximately 35,000 industry jobs.

Indie films reap a 15%-17% cash rebate with a $100,000 minimum spend; multiple commercials and musicvideos with $500,000 or more in combined qualified expenditures and a $100,000 minimum are eligible for 15%-20% rebate; and a 10% rebate is allocated to digital/interactive media with a $300,000 minimum spend.

Incentives are key and 2007-08, the first fiscal year Florida considered its incentive competitively funded at $25 million, saw 55 projects with an estimated $142 million spend on wages, services and products. (That tally is subject to change as some productions crossed over the state's fiscal year, wrapping in 2009.)

Fiscal year 2008-09 reports 17 projects with an expected spend of $62 million, in spite of an 80% drop in incentive funding due to Florida's budget challenges.

"Unlike many other states, Florida is constitutionally required to balance the budget -- we don't run in the deficit," said Lucia Fishburne, state film commissioner, Governor's Office of Film & Entertainment.

Budget restraints affected not only the incentive, but also caused painful cuts to critical core areas such as education, health care and public safety.

"The governor remains very supportive of the industry and the incentive," added Fishburne.

To that end, the governor has charged the Office of Film & Entertainment with creating a Music Recording Industry Task Force to make recommendations for enhancing and expanding that sector.

Additionally, the film/TV/digital media industry, in concert with Fishburne's office, is working on government strategies in anticipation of next year's legislative session.

"This is a big election year in Florida, so there could be many new faces," Fishburne said. "We feel that having our new numbers from the economic assessment and fiscal impact study will allow us to better show how the film and entertainment industry can be a part of our economic recovery."

Miami and the South Florida area, in general, remain the state's largest production center with 35% growth from 2002 to 2007 and holding steady on industry employment numbers through 2006-07.

Jeff Peel, director, Miami/Dade County Office of Film & Entertainment, reported $13 million in 2007 film revenue and $77 million in teleproduction.

"So far this year, we have seen almost $24 million in filming and about $37 million in teleproduction -- the drop in TV probably due to the writers strike," Peel said.

Productions lensed in the Miami area include Universal's "Chilled in Miami" with Renee Zellweger; 20th Century Fox's "Marley and Me" with Jennifer Aniston; the Bollywood film "Dostana" with John Abraham; six days of Jim Carrey's, "I Love You Phillip Morris"; Steve Brill's "Stepdude"; Touchstone/Jerry Bruckheimer Prods.' "Confessions of a Shopaholic" with John Goodman; USA's "Burn Notice"; and CBS' "CSI: Miami."

The state has no shortage of production facilities such as Disney-MGM Studios (Lake Buena Vista) and Universal Studios Florida Production Group (Orlando). New and expanding studios include: Telemundo Studios (Miami), Digital Video Arts (Jacksonville) and House of Moves' 3,500 sq. ft., 46-camera motion-capture studio (MoCap) on the grounds of the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, U. of Central Florida's graduate videogaming school (Orlando). MoCap's work appeared in "Titanic," "Spider-Man 2," "Beowulf" and "The Polar Express," in addition to work for vidgame makers Nintendo, Sega, Ubisoft and Electronic Arts.

West Palm Beach boasts G-Star School of the Arts for Motion Pictures and Broadcasting, billing itself as the largest film, TV production and acting high school in the nation. The school offers its on-campus 93,000 sq. ft. studio free of charge to filmmakers, and its 750 students work on major pics as crew interns and actors.

G-Star announced plans to build an $8 million, 45-ft. high stage that will be 80 ft. by 120 ft. with mobile greenrooms, dressing rooms, hair and make-up, and wardrobe (for studio and location shooting). The construction will add to the existing production offices, 20,000 sq. ft. Studio B, set construction shops, machine shop, prop shops, rehearsal halls, TV production studios, recording studios (including Foley, ADR), and theater.

Additional no-charge features for filmmakers include: a portable 500 amp generator, 20 ft. camera boat with 200 hp engine, lighting and grip trucks, camera trucks, production vehicles including a police car, a lighting and grip package, an on-site free-standing shooting house, and free multimillion- dollar mansions in the area for shoots.

The studio's back lot also contains two WWII airplanes: a DC-3 and a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter, and a 1978 American LaFrance Pumper fire engine (35 ft. long, 17 tons empty).

Filmmakers may contact Greg Hauptner at [phone].