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Motion Picture Act brings 'action' to state
Charleston must revamp image to get its name in lights
By Sarah G. McC. Moise
Staff Writer
Edward Burn didn’t star in the feature film The Patriot, but his business helped make it. The president of Hughes Lumber & Building Supply Co., Burn has sold lumber, hardware and building materials not only to the film crew of the Revolutionary War drama, but to the crews of The Notebook, Forrest Gump and many others.
“A lot of crews buy from us,” he says. He estimates that for different movies, Hughes Lumber has done between $1,000 and $80,000 worth of business. “It depends on the movie’s budget and how long they film here. But it’s great business and it’s fun.”
His brother, John Burn, president of Hughes Equipment and Party Rental, has rented tents, landscaping equipment, generators and miscellaneous tools as well. Burn explains that film projects require local materials, resources and services from portable toilets and paint to lumber, accommodations and catering.
John Burn also discovered a niche within the South Carolina film industry, and started Motion Picture Marine, which has rented boats and helped with boating locations for 32 movies. “Forrest Gump was the first big one I did. And for The Notebook, I hired three local boat builders to make some beautiful wooden boats.”
“If a film has a $10 million budget, they’re going to spend it in three to four months. Think of the impact,” says Burn. “When they’re here, it’s great. The problem is that we haven’t had any recently.”
Fortunately for the Burns, the South Carolina Film Commission is suddenly seeing more projects interested in filming in South Carolina, several specifically looking at Charleston. It seems both the state and the city are making headway in luring Hollywood back into the fold, as the state has overcome outdated legislation and Charleston has been making progress on living down a reputation for being difficult.
Part of the Film Commission’s job is to attract studios to the Palmetto State, a task made easier with the September passage of the South Carolina Motion Picture Incentive Act, which provides financial incentives to the film industry.
The act allows film projects that spend a minimum of $250,000 in South Carolina to receive exemptions on sales tax and accommodations tax. Studios that spend $1 million or more receive a 5% rebate on South Carolina labor and 7% on local supplies and services, such as camerawork, hair styling, set painting, catering, office supplies and dry cleaning, among others.
“These incentives are significantly greater. Before, all we had was a bunch of exemptions. Now we hand them a 12 percent rebate as soon as filming is over,” says Jeff Monks, commissioner for the state film office. The new incentives have generated a lot of energy, with studios sending scripts and requesting location packages.
“The film industry has become far more sensitive to economic development incentives than it has been in the past,” says Burnet R. Maybank, director of the South Carolina Department of Revenue, who works closely with the S.C. Film Commission. “Facing problems in California with labor costs and taxes, incentives are making a big difference. Films have been going to low-cost areas like Canada or underdeveloped nations like Romania, which offer good tax incentives, exchange rates and lower costs.”
Considering that a company generally spends 33% of its budget in the location, South Carolina lost a substantial amount of money when Cold Mountain decided to film the majority of its scenes in Romania, where the cost of doing business was significantly lower.
Other states like Louisiana and New Mexico use their petroleum and mineral funds to develop entertainment clusters with massive tax incentives for facility creation, as well as tax credits and incentives for production.
What are the state’s interests in drawing films? First, they provide highly skilled, highly paid jobs; the average starting wage is $18 an hour. And filmmakers want to hire as many South Carolinians as possible to avoid having to pay for transportation, accommodation and other services to bring in people.
“A company typically finds all its supplies from local businesses: film, construction, office supplies, limousines, food. And the impact to the community is immediate and substantial,” says Monks.
For instance, a 2003 commercial for Toyota Prius shot in Chester County brought in $57,700 over the course of two days. And the 1999 big-budget filming of The Patriot resulted in $215,000 every day for 153 days, or more than $33 million in South Carolina alone. The Film Commission estimates that this money turns over in the local economy twice before leaving the community.
“There’s a big difference in the cost of recruiting a film compared to recruiting other industries,” says Monks. “Any other industry involves some cost to infrastructure, whether it’s a water line, running new roads to a facility, even educating the employees’ kids. None of that is incurred when we recruit (films) to South Carolina. On a budget of $300,000, we recruited roughly $32 million to the state.”
Following the passage of the act, Monks and Maybank traveled to Hollywood to meet with seven of the major motion picture studios and the Motion Picture Association of America.
“The studios have gone from a posture of not meeting with us to actually meeting in large numbers. They all said with the level playing field, they would bring projects back to the U.S.,” Maybank says.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that while the state’s incentives are good, they are not good enough to change the behavior of most studio executives.
“We’re at a 12 percent rebate, but 20 percent remains the magic number and it is edging upwards,” explains Maybank. “South Carolina is always going to get a certain amount of business based on its natural beauty, but as far as pulling projects slated for Louisiana, Canada, Romania or New Mexico, we’re not quite there yet.”
With the Palmetto State now back on the incentive stage, Monks is seeing more projects interested in scouting for potential shoots, including several queries about the Charleston area.
But the city that has hosted Cold Mountain and The Notebook has another surprising hurdle to cross. While traditionally known for its welcoming attitude, its “difficult” reputation in the film industry has resulted in a number of lost opportunities to other coastal cities like Wilmington, N.C.
“Its reputation is improving,” says Monks. “The Notebook walked away with a good feeling after filming in Charleston, but the city still has a ways to go.” Now that North Carolina has chosen not to play the incentives game, thereby losing virtually all of its film projects, Charleston has an opportunity to lure in the golden goose.
“Businesses are most certainly welcoming to the film industry,” says John Burn. “The problem is that while some residents get a kick out of it, others see them as a huge bother because of the lights and noise. Crews have had a lot of opposition south of Broad, and that is one of the locations film scouts like because it’s so unique.”
One alleviating factor would be if more citizens would show up in support of film projects at filmmaker’s pre-shoot neighborhood meetings, as it is primarily the naysayers who show up to speak at those events.
“If business owners have an opportunity to express the benefit of the industry, they should share that,” adds John Burn. “Because motion pictures are not just a pain; they’re dumping a ton of money into the community. My only complaint is that they’re elsewhere and not with us.”
Sarah Moïse is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at smoise@crbj.com.
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