National TV Play Slated : Newport Firm Producing Tourism Videos for State

The California Office of Tourism has selected Jim Ryerson Productions of Newport Beach to produce a series of videos for “The Californias” tourism campaign.

Jim Ryerson, owner of the firm that makes marketing and training videos, said each of the videos will be about a minute and a half in length and will feature a different area of the state. Two videos already have been completed and three others are in the final editing process, he said. Topics of the videos are “California Movie Locations,” “Gold Miners of the ‘80s,” “California Victorians,” “Skiing the High Sierra” and “Russian River Wine Country.” “The Californias” campaign identifies a dozen areas of the state. Orange County is one of the 12 areas and may be the focus of a future video if the state authorizes further productions next year.

All of the initial five videos were shot earlier this year on a budget of $65,000.

“It was a significant contract for us,” Ryerson said. “It was a fun project.” California’s Department of Commerce, which authorized the productions, said the videos will be distributed to television stations and cable networks across the nation for their use on news or special programs.

About 55% of the 100 million tourists in California each year come from other areas of the state; most of the rest come from other areas of the country. According to the state’s Commerce Department, tourism in California is a $31-billion annual industry; about $2.5 billion of that is from foreign tourists.

Terrorism Fears Cited

California’s tourist industry is the largest in the nation, the department said. Florida is second, with about half of California’s tourism revenue total.

Warren Rashleigh, a spokesman for the department, said the fear of terrorism abroad, the declining price of gasoline and the lower value of the dollar relative to foreign currencies could give California its best year ever for tourism.