The Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners today voted unanimously today to provide a total of $300,000 in financial incentives to ensure that two major film productions make their movies in the county.
Responding to what Commissioner Ken Hagan called an urgent request, commissioners approved $250,000 to go toward producers of The Infiltrator, an adaptation of the book, The Infiltrator: My Secret Life Inside the Dirty Banks Behind Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel, written by Robert Mazur of Tampa. The producers of the picture had originally wanted to film in Tampa this month, but have now delayed the production, in part because of the uncertainty on whether they will receive sufficient financial tax credits from the state to make it worth their while.
The problem is that the state has already exhausted tax incentives that were initially made available through the legislature several years ago. FIlm Florida, the agency that represents the film industry, is advocating that new funding be approved to bring more film productions to Florida. But though that may occur, it may not be anytime soon. Meanwhile, Dale Gordon,executive director of the Tampa Hillsborough Film and Digital Media Commission, said the film's producers are being wooed by officials in Georgia, Louisiana and even England to bring the production to their neck of the woods.
"The local incentive is somewhat of a safeguard for them, gives them a sense of confidence going into this market," Gordon told the BOCC. "We feel confident that the state will give them the incentives, but there is no guarantee."
Although Clearwater and Pinellas County have reaped enormous dividends from the filming of 2011's Dolphin Tale, there has not been a similar feel-good success for Tampa and/or Hillsborough County in recent years. Commissioner Ken Hagan has been determined to change that scenario, and he told his colleagues today that providing tax incentives for film and digital media companies to bring their talents to the Bay area would be a huge economic driver for the region.
"Georgia and Louisiana are dominating this industry," he remarked. But the fact is it's up to lawmakers in Tallahassee to see the light and ultimately create such incentives to get Florida on the same playing field. In the meantime, the county is doing what it can.
While Hagan was looking for (and receiving unanimous) support for the $250,000, Commissioner Al Higginbotham then spoke out and asked essentially: What About Bollywood?
Specifically, the commissioner — who has been the major local lawmaker working with IIFA (the International Indian Film Academy Awards ) representatives as Tampa prepares to host the IIFA Awards ceremony late next month — said that Indian star Anil Kapoor is thinking of making the film Saat Hindustani in Tampa, and the request for tax incentives was as urgent for this film as it was for Hagan's request. The film is about seven college students in America, but Higginbotham stressed that it's a positive film. "Not an 'Animal House' movie," he added.
Commissioner Victor Crist later asked Gordon if, with Bollywood coming to Tampa next month, it's now incumbent upon the area to have its "ducks in a row" in terms of being able to offer all the professional services to welcome an American or international film production to make movies in the county, and was that possible right now?
Gordon said that the Film Commission will officially be relaunching later this month, including the unveiling of a new website. She admitted that a challenge right now is that the area doesn't have a lot of post-production facilities, but says that shouldn't be a major issue when it comes to film production, where most producers like to return back to California (or other home locations) to work on editing their productions.
Looking over at his colleagues who have been championing high-tech and bio-tech industries to the area, Crist said that television, film and digital productions were also something that the county need to be "pioneering."
At the end of the discussion, both productions received the funding requested by Hagan and Higginbotham: $250,000 for The Infiltrator, and $50,000 for Seven Hindustani.
This article appears in Feb 27 – Mar 5, 2014.