Ireland will be reviewing its location filming tax relief programmes in the wake of the UK’s plans to launch its own TV incentives. Ireland has become a TV production hub in recent years and its filming industries want to keep it that way.
[slideshow id=267]Park Pictures in London has recreated 1930s Europe in Slovenia in its new commercial for Audi. The Swan shows a classic Audi Union struggling with an image problem in the 1930s to the tune of The Ugly Duckling, before turning into a sleeker modern-day vehicle and becoming a swan.
The first quarter of 2012 was a period of decline for TV location filming in Los Angeles, with the total number of permitted shoot days falling by nearly 10% on 2011, figures from FilmLA show. Filming for TV drama fell by nearly 19% and reality shows by nearly 20%.
New Zealand’s screen industries grew by 4% in 2011 on the previous year, generating nearly NZD3 billion in revenue. The figures from Statistics NZ show that feature work in the country increased by 15%, with nearly 25% of revenue coming from feature production.
Authorities in Washington State in the north-west US have re-launched the location filming incentive that was officially cancelled only a few months ago. The state seems to have conceded that a programme is needed to help its filming industry, although the scheme itself remains very small-scale.
Utah in the western US was used extensively for the filming of Andrew Stanton’s epic sci-fi John Carter. Rebecca Puck Stair was one of the Location Managers on the project tasked with finding eye-catching filming spots in the sparsely-inhabited state.
Lobbying from the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) has helped extend New York State’s commercial location filming tax credit. The credit has produced a net 3% increase in commercial production since 2007 and in 2009 more than USD100 million was spent in-state.
A senate panel in Alabama has approved a small increase in the state’s filming incentive. The existing annual film fund will increase from USD10 million to USD15 million by 2014, which is better than nothing but still means Alabama’s out of contention for large-scale projects.