Peninsula Daily News
and The Associated Press
OLYMPIA — Washington is boldly going where few states have gone before: It is ending incentives for the film industry.
An arms race among states in recent years led almost all to offer various benefits to lure production studios.
Up until Friday, the start of July, Washington was offering a 30 percent rebate off the amount of money spent in the state.
Lawmakers earlier this year declined to extend the program.
The industry warns that the state stands to lose out on future productions because it can’t compete with the incentives offered in Vancouver, B.C., to the north and Oregon to the south, which both offer lucrative benefits to lure projects.
Already, the “Twilight” series of movies — although based on books set in Forks, LaPush and Port Angeles — have been filmed in Oregon and British Columbia. Not one frame shows the North Olympic Peninsula.
And the “Twilight Saga” was shot before the Washington state film incentive spigot was shut off.
“We’ve become a quintessential fly-over state,” said Amy Lillard, executive director at incentives-managing group Washington Filmworks.
“We are between two very aggressive jurisdictions. If you’re a producer and a business person, it doesn’t make sense to come to Washington.”
Even with the film incentives, Washington still wasn’t getting some of the work that would logically be shot in the state.
In addition to the “Twilight” snubs, the television series “The Killing,” though set in Seattle, is filmed in Vancouver.
Most of “Gray’s Anatomy,” the smash TV series set at a fictitious Seattle teaching hospital, is filmed in California’s San Fernando Valley.
That always hasn’t been the case.
Fewer than 20 years ago, the hit TV series “Northern Exposure,” although set in a fictitious Alaska town, was filmed in the Cascades hamlet of Roslyn and on a Seattle soundstage.
Lillard said the “Twilight” movies bypassed the state because Washington’s incentives weren’t good enough while “The Killing” recently went to Vancouver because of the uncertainty over the future of Washington’s incentives.
The industry group Washington Filmworks still has about $3.5 million raised in the first half of this year to lure additional productions and has recently approved four new projects, but Lillard said other producers are already reconsidering whether they will come to Washington.
The state Senate did approve years of additional benefits for the industry, but the measure failed in the House.
State Sen. Jim Kastama, D-Puyallup, said he wasn’t convinced that the incentives were providing a substantial economic impact to the state. And he thought it would be better to spend tax dollars in research and development — or other areas that could produce future industries and technologies that will substantially impact the state’s economy.
“I would say the film industry is way down on the value chain,” Kastama said.
“If you had to make the tough decisions, this would not be a top priority.”
Numbers provided by Washington Filmworks showed that about $5.4 million worth of incentives committed in 2010 helped bring 23 projects — mostly commercials — that included about $18 million worth of spending in the state.
A few states have scaled back their incentives amid budget crises or eliminated them all together.
Idaho, for example, has kept its incentives program on the books but hasn’t funded it.
New Jersey suspended its program for a year. A council in Georgia recommended ditching film incentives there because the benefits are fleeting.
Kansas, meanwhile, suspended its tax credit for two years — but the credit now available again.
Lillard said the industry will be back next year to push the Legislature to renew Washington’s incentives.
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Associated Press Writer Mike Baker contributed to this report.
