New TV drama Blood & Oil has become the first network series in nearly a decade to film on location in Utah. The western US state is not known as a production hub but in recent years has hosted movies like survival drama 127 Hours and Disney’s sci-fi epic John Carter.
Blood & Oil stars TV veteran Don Johnson and will get a filming incentive payment of USD8.3 million.
The production is set to hire some 3,000 local cast and crew and is forecast to have a local economic impact of nearly USD35 million.
Five other much smaller productions have also been granted filming incentive support and will spend a little over USD3 million between them.
In 2015 filmmaker Rob Reiner was awarded incentive support of a quarter of a million dollars to shoot his new film Being Charlie in Utah.
Neighbouring New Mexico is one of the top US locations for desert
shoots, partly because of its generous filming incentive programme.
he site was always envisioned to be versatile and unique so whenever the Utah Film Commission gets the opportunity to have television shows, this site and the stages will handle the productions that come its way, and the sound stages will also be large enough to handle most of the film production opportunities that will come down the pipeline.
Britt Penrod, Raleigh Enterprises
The climate in Utah is generally semi-arid to arid. Winter temperatures in Salt Lake City fall to about -2C, while summer temperatures reach about 26C. The year-round mean temperature is 11C. Mountainous regions of the state can get more than 40 inches of rainfall in the space of a year, but lower regions get less and Salt Lake City gets about 17 inches.
The relatively dry conditions are due to the state being sheltered by the Sierra Nevada. Utah gets about 60 inches of snowfall a year, which remains on the higher peaks for much of the year.
