Reasons Why It is A Great Thing To Shoot In North Carolina Stages

By George Harris


North Carolina stages have often been a good chameleon in terms of film locations, although that is not the primary reason Leatherheads is now being made there. Universal Pictures is benefiting on a new economic incentive, passed by the General Assembly last summer season, meant to lure feature film production to North Carolina. The film is also taking advantage of South Carolina's even more generous incentives. Thanks to the new state incentives package, North Carolina has returned in the game. There is new management in place, as well: The state hired a new film director to head the office responsible for selling Hollywood on what they have to offer.

Screen Gems is definitely the core of North Carolina's film industry. With nine soundstages which range from 7,200 to 20,000 sq. ft., it is a Hollywood-style facility built on the site of a former coastal plantation. Screen Gems doesn't produce any movies in-house and it has less than 30 permanent staff. North Carolina stages are a big, studio or sounndproof room widely used in making movies. This type of location is tailor-made to cater to the basic needs of a film production. Deciding to shoot in a sound stage rather than an actual location provides a number of benefits. However, it also entails extra effort in terms of making props and sets to make the sound stage appear like an authentic location for the motion picture.

Some other states started to offer their very own incentive packages; Louisiana, South Carolina and New Mexico for example. But not until last summer season did the North Carolina legislature pass a revised movie incentives package that made the state competitive again. North Carolina provides a simple 15 % rebate on cash invested within the state on goods, services as well as labour, up to an overall total of $7.5 million per production. The incentives originally passed the General Assembly in the year 2005, but a provision needing certain accounting practices meant the major studios were truly collecting only eight %. This past year, the "add-back" provision was removed, and the full 15 % incentive is now available to all the comers.

Even at 15 %, North Carolina's incentives aren't as competitive as those in various other states, which range from twenty to thirty %. And even though North Carolina is endowed with geographical variety that can provide a number of locations, they might be found just as effortlessly in South Carolina or Louisiana or New England. The state has 2 primary things that others don't have: several professional film lots and skilled crew base of around 2,000 individuals statewide.

North Carolina stages in the movie is a component of the Commerce Department instead of the Division of Cultural Resources. It shows that movie matters and it is huge business, having contributed more than $7 billion to the state since the year 1980, as per the N.C. Film Office. But these days, various other states want a piece of the action. Over the past several years, the majority of Wilmington's electricians, gaffers, production managers and set artists were pushed to look elsewhere for work. A few worked part of the year in Los Angeles or New York City, or in nearby states including Louisiana and South Carolina.




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