Roll credits

Editorial by Greenville Daily Reflector, September 14, 2014.

It looks like one of our state legislature’s new policies is going to lead to a significant increase in an important and creative industry. No, not in North Carolina, but in Georgia and Louisiana. That’s where our film and TV production industry is likely to relocate when North Carolina ends its current tax-incentive program, according to a story published last week in Variety magazine.

“It’s a shame,” Chris Cates, president of 15-year-old C3 Studios in Charlotte, told Variety’s Dave McNary. “We’ve built up a crew base. The state has a lot of attributes, but producers are not going to shoot here with a subpar (incentive) program.”

Cates is weighing whether to close or to move operations either to Georgia or South Carolina, Variety reported. “They do have incentives in South Carolina,” Cates said, “but there’s not much of a crew base, and the major cities don’t have the variety of locations that there are in North Carolina.”

On Aug. 20, North Carolina lawmakers decided to replace the state’s current incentive program — which is providing 25 percent tax credits on more than $300 million in production coin spent there this year — with a grant program that will cover just $40 million in 2015, Variety reported.

North Carolina has been home to some 800 productions over the past three decades, including “Iron Man 3” and “The Hunger Games.” Supporters of the tax credit assert that the industry provides regular employment for more than 4,000 actors, producers, set designers and other film professionals.

The Journal has reported that the film industry in North Carolina is a proven money-maker. From 2007 to 2012, it spent more than a billion dollars here. The return on the tax incentives has been rated as high as nine to one.

In Georgia, film and TV productions generated an economic impact of $5.1 billion during its fiscal year 2014, with 158 productions spending $1.4 billion during that time, Variety reported. Nearly 23,500 people are directly employed by the industry in Georgia. Louisiana trails only California and New York in film and TV production. It looks like our loss will be their gain.

It’s not too late for the legislature to reverse itself, especially with some urging form Gov. McCrory, but that reversal is looking less likely all the time. In the meantime, we’ve heard little justification for the change. It’s like throwing away money.

 http://www.reflector.com/opinion/editorials/nc-editorial-roll-credits-2650995