County ready to give entertainment industry red carpet treatment

To lure more entertainment business to RiversideCounty, the Board of Supervisors today took a major step toward abolishingvirtually all the fees film and television producers would otherwise have topay to shoot in unincorporated areas of the county.

“Under these provisions, we will be well-positioned to bring filmbusiness here,” county Foreign Trade Commissioner Tom Freeman told the board.“These are sweeping changes, the best in California.”

In December, the board authorized a committee comprised of countystaffers and led by Chairman John Benoit to scrutinize the county’s FilmOrdinance and come up with revisions intended to draw film and TV interests tothe region.

The committee sought recommendations from entertainment industryrepresentatives and proceeded to draft proposed changes that had to be vettedby the California Film Commission, Benoit said.

The end result was a revamped ordinance bursting with incentives,according to the chairman.

“This is a significant step,” Benoit said. “Even if we get just 10percent of the business going out of the state, it would make such a hugeimpact. There is potential for making positive changes here.”

Under the revised ordinance, which was approved today on first readingand will be formally adopted at the end of the month, the county will offer thefollowing incentives:

— Elimination of all permit fees for film and television productions,of any size;
— a 48-month suspension of transient occupancy taxes paid by members ofa production crew working in the county;
— free use of all county facilities, including buildings and parkinglots, for projects lasting 10 days or less; and
— waiver of a requirement for productions to have a county-issuedbusiness license.

Permits will still be required for a film or TV project to move ahead,but there will be no cost to obtain one.

The county Executive Office will handle all inquiries related to aproject or designate another county agency to coordinate with crews, includingprocessing all paperwork related to a production, according to Benoit.

Freeman said a single person will serve as a point of contact tosimplify communications between the county and a production office.

The county will unveil a website in the coming weeks geared specificallyto film and TV interests.

So-called “runaway production” has led to billions in lost revenue toCalifornia, as well as tens of thousands of lost jobs, according to FilmLA.comand other sources.

By one estimate, the number of studio-backed feature films shot inCalifornia dropped from 66 percent in 2003 to less than 40 percent in 2011.

According to Freeman, because of its hefty tax breaks for labor andother incentives, Canada remains a big draw for many projects that originate inthe U.S. He used the city of Toronto as an example, noting that the $1.13billion in location film and television spending there in 2011 represented a 25percent increase from the year before.

Freeman said American film and TV production companies have spent anestimated $2.2 billion in Toronto over the past seven years.

In 2009, the California Film & Television Tax Credit Program went intoeffect. However, there’s a backlog of companies applying for the 20-25 percentcredits for labor. The program is limited to $100 million in credits annually.

According to Freeman, a single five-day TV episode creates 165 jobs andgenerates about $2 million in revenue to the community where it’s shot.

Benoit and other officials hoped that councils in the county’s 28 citieswould use the new Film Ordinance as a model for their communities.