Okla. Offers Filmmakers 15% Rebate

Oklahoma, indicating that it’s willing to boost financial incentives to compete for film and TV work, is offering filmmakers what its governor calls “the most generous filmmaking package in the country” through a 15% rebate of costs incurred while on location in the state.

The move comes amid pressure on state governments and federal officials to offer sweeteners to more effectively compete with low-cost areas such as Canada, where a weak Canadian dollar and government incentives typically can lower production costs by 25%.

“America’s classic cultural institution is moving offshore,” Gov. Frank Keating said in an interview.

Last month, a group of senators introduced federal legislation that would provide wage credits to productions that remain in the U.S. A 1999 study funded by the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild found that 25,000 jobs and about $3 billion in direct production work flee the U.S. annually for other countries, mostly Canada.

Under the Oklahoma program, the state will give a rebate of a maximum of $2 million total each year, although officials say they could increase the pool if the program proves popular. Expenses covered are only those incurred while filming in the state, so it wouldn’t include such things as star salaries or special effects work.

But the program would provide a significant chunk of money for a large-budget movie such as the 1996 Warner Bros. hit “Twister,” which spent $11.3 million while filming in the state, Had the program been in place then, the makers of “Twister” would have received nearly $1.7 million back as a rebate.

Producer and Oklahoma native Gray Frederickson, whose credits include working on such Francis Ford Coppola films as “The Outsiders,” “Apocalypse Now” and the “Godfather” trilogy, said the program goes beyond the sales tax rebates many other states offer and beyond other rebates such as a 5% one offered by Minnesota. (Efforts by some legislators in California to enact generous tax credits as an incentive have been unsuccessful.)

Another development in Oklahoma that may appeal to filmmakers--but is strongly opposed by Hollywood’s unionized workers--is a statewide vote next month on whether to add to Oklahoma’s Constitution a “right-to-work” law that would ban compulsory union membership. The vote is expected to be close, with business interests that support the measure and unions that oppose it pouring money into the campaign.

Even with financial sweeteners, states such as Oklahoma are still hamstrung by the lack of a significant filmmaking infrastructure, including sound stages and, most important, trained local film crews. Indeed, Vancouver and Toronto, the two major Canadian cities for filming, started making their most serious inroads in the 1990s after both cities developed dozens of competent crews.

“If you can’t get a crew, there’s only so much value to the incentives,” said Cody Cluff, head of the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., which issues film permits in Los Angeles.

Oklahoma officials say the state now has enough skilled workers for about three crews. Frederickson said more crews are being developed through film school programs.

Still, Oklahoma earns about $20 million a year, mostly through commercials, from filmmaking. That amount is roughly equal to the budget of a small Hollywood film.

State officials are distressed that a number of films set in the Midwest and Southwest--the upcoming “Texas Rangers” and a 1996 remake of Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” set in Kansas are two examples--have instead been shot in western Canada. They hope that the incentives attract a wider variety of films that want to use the state’s rural and urban areas as a backdrop.

“We like to have something shot here other than films about tornadoes,” Gov. Keating said.