By Cole Gee | Staff Writer
When many people think about the film industry, Hollywood is usually the first place that comes to mind. From the expensive and glamorous houses to the big studio lots and celebrities as far as the eye can see, it’s no surprise that California has had a monopoly on film and television for the past half-century. However, lawmakers in Texas now want a bigger slice of the film production pie, with many pushing legislation to make Texas the next big film capital of the south.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick proposed last Wednesday a massive $498 million investment to ramp up the state’s film incentive program. This investment is a part of Texas Senate Bill 1. Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program offers grants and tax credits to production companies producing film and TV in Texas to boost the economy. The 18-year program has seen great success, with around 182,000 jobs created along with earning $2.52 billion in state spending.
Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey recently went viral for their Super Bowl “True Detective” parody ad where they were both calling for a larger investment into Texas film studios. However, like the first season of “True Detective,” things are a lot more complicated, as the money from these investments come with some tight strings attached.
Like most creative grants, the Texas government has some sway over the production, mainly the content of any film and television produced. Directors in the past have had their incentive requests rejected due to their project’s content, such as “Spy Kids” director Robert Rodriguez. His movie “Machete” lost incentive funding due to an unfavorable portrayal of Texas.
Dr. Daniel Beard is a professor of producing and management for the film and digital media department. He’s a veteran producer who has helped create many short films and documentary shorts. Beard has a lot of hope for the future of Texas filmmaking but understands that Texas’ past attitude toward filmmakers might make them slightly wary.
“Texas has been kind of not very friendly to filmmakers in terms of incentives and having people come to Texas,” Beard said. “One of the examples that was given a long time ago was that TV show ‘Waco’ about the Branch Davidians was pretty much all shot in Arizona or New Mexico. So this program is definitely a step in the right direction.”
Even without the recent investments, however, they were still Texans fighting to support the film industry. Louis Hunter is one of the directors of the Waco Indie Film Festival and has seen the evolution of the Texas film industry up close. He’s been in the industry for around 20 years now and still has a passion for supporting film projects large and small.
“Texas has a lot of production work happening, especially in the Austin area,” Hunter said. “There is a lot of commercial work being done. There’s also shows like ‘Fear the Walking Dead’ that are shot down there. There’s some kinds of Amazon shows that are shot in Austin area as well as Dallas. Because it is a large corporate hub, tons of training videos are shot there.”
The films he shows at the Waco Indie Film Festival range from small student and local films to some projects from the Cannes Film Festival and Oscar nominees. While they may not all have a big budget like other Texas productions, he still believes in the importance of supporting both local and mainstream film projects. This is because they help creatives gain the experience and credits needed to move up in the industry and eventually produce their own films.
“When you bring in large productions here, they hire local costumers, they hire local caterers, they hire local camera people,” Beard said. “Then when you work on those local low-budget productions, you may not see a financial impact, but what you’re gonna see is the folks that you work with here locally will gain a lot of experience.”
Dr. Daniel Shafer is a professor in the film and digital media department. His expertise lies in media analysis and the business aspects of media. With all the potential money flowing in the near future, he believes there will be a new crop of studios making their way to the Lone Star State fairly soon.
“It’s easier to get into the film industry more than ever and there’s more outlets for content more than ever,” Shafer said. “So I think when you look at Texas, and with all these incentives that the government’s giving in particular, you’re going to see a lot more studios popping up here. I think there’s a lot of land that’s good for filmmaking, and there’s a lot of potentially cheap land too where facilities can be built.”
As it stands now, the proposed incentives will be tightly debated by lawmakers in the Texas Senate, although many hope it will be sooner rather than later before Texas filmmakers will be able to say “lights, camera, action!”
