OK legislature and the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program

[Townsend]

State Legislature Attack on Oklahoma Film Industry Also Impacts Oklahoma Music Industry


http://www.oklahomarock.com/blog/?p=5477

The Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program is being targeted by some lawmakers for abolishment during the 2012 Legislative Session, which began today.

Two bills have been filed that include language to both reduce and to cancel the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program:

1. Senate Bill (SB) 1435 (Section 7, page 93 of this 94-page bill) would repeal the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program, effective immediately upon passage. It is important to note that, as is customary in legislation, the repealer language is not underlined as a proposed change in the text of the measure, so could easily be missed by those reviewing and considering this bill.

2. Senate Bill (SB) 1623, (Section 33, page 176 of this 186-page bill), recommends reducing the current 35-37% film rebate to 17.5% as of January 1, 2013. The bill further sets forth that no rebate be payable on or after January 1, 2014, thereby shortening by six months the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate's current statutory sunset date of July 1, 2014.

Doing away with the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program will all but kill the film production industry in Oklahoma that we have all worked so hard to build in recent years. The Oklahoma Film & Music Office has already turned away almost a dozen projects in the first week of January due to lack of incentives, which should speak to how much the film industry has grown in Oklahoma in the last couple of years.

Crippling the Oklahoma film industry also means a detrimental impact to Oklahoma's music industry. The program these bills plan to cut or eliminate also include a 2% additional rebate for using Oklahoma music in film. Once a film has spent $20,000 on music from an Oklahoma artist that was recorded in Oklahoma, the 2% additional rebate kicks in.

This additional rebate was most recently used on the untitled Terrence Malick Project, due later this year. Norman composer Jerod Tate has selected to compose and record an original orchestral soundtrack for the film.

The Oklahoma Film & Music Office also recently put producers of the upcoming film Cowgirls N' Angels in contact with Norman's Maggie McClure. The film will use McClure's song "Good Morning and Good Night" in the opening credits.

The Oklahoma Film & Music Office also works to have a strong presence at the South by Southwest Music Conference every March in Austin, Texas. A couple dozen Oklahoma bands make the trek to play an official showcase in front of fans and those in the music industry. We fear once funding to bring films to Oklahoma is cut or eliminated, other forms of Oklahoma art (like music) will also come under attack.

Please find and contact your Oklahoma legislator to voice your disapproval of SB 1435 and SB 1623.

More reasons why the Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program should not be cut or eliminated.


•The return in direct dollars for Oklahoma as a result of the rebate program is 3 to 1 for FY12. For every dollar paid out in rebate money, films are spending triple that in Oklahoma on labor, goods and services. We are using no multiplier in this calculation. That is an excellent return.
•Economic impact numbers are up 400% over where they were just five years ago. Oklahoma's film industry economic impact is now at approximately $40 million per year and growing.
•The Oklahoma Film Enhancement Rebate Program is both transparent and fiscally responsible. The program is administered evenly across the board on a first come-first served basis according to stringent and clear published guidelines. All productions are now required to undergo an Independent Third Party CPA Review by a pre-approved accounting firm at the production's expense prior to submitting their final rebate claim.
•The program is a rebate not a tax credit. A production must spend money in the state and the rebate is given only to taxable transactions in Oklahoma after the money has been spent here.
•The rebate program is being used to maximum capacity with all of both FY12 and FY13 funds being prequalified before the fiscal years began.
•While the film industry is still in its infancy in Oklahoma and is only beginning to create full-time jobs (158 in FY10 according to a Meinders School of Business Economic Impact Study), it is growing a series of temporary jobs that are portable – similar to jobs in construction and oil and gas.
•Film locations are spread across the state; the jobs move with productions, which benefits even our smallest communities at a time when many are experiencing economic challenges.
•The State of Oklahoma is not required to frontload the film industry by footing the bill for workforce training and infrastructure. Both are created as production companies infuse new money into our economy.
•They will not come anyway. Some lawmakers believe films will come into the state without incentives. We can easily disprove this with just two examples in the last few months where productions were happy to take their business elsewhere, even out of the country for the sake of incentives:
1) Warner Brothers relocated Thunderstruck, a film about the OKC Thunder and Kevin Durant to Baton Rouge when Oklahoma had no film incentives to offer, handing over those film jobs, the millions of dollars in economic impact and priceless positive PR to the state of Louisiana. Oklahoma was left with only a few scenes shot in Oklahoma City: three days of pick up shots in January.

2) Extensive pre-scouting for Robopocalypse was done in Oklahoma last summer. The film, to be directed by Steven Spielberg, is based on a book by a Tulsa native and is set in futuristic Oklahoma. Oklahoma had run out of incentives money. Originally, that was not a major concern for Dreamworks. However, when Fox Studios joined Dreamworks as a partner on the project, the film was promptly relocated to Canada based on incentives.

[cannon_fodder]

I'm not familiar enough with the "rebate" programs to know how the work.  Is it a rebate of taxes paid, or just cash handed out?  Generally, states are starting to ax these things as the benefits have not outwieghed the costs.  I would be more apt to agree with the program if a film was run through some kind of committee to see if the rebate was good for the state EITHER fiscally or perceptionally.  If a movie has a story "based" in Oklahoma and is filmed here it does more for the State than just some temporary expenditure here.

Think "Field of Dreams' being filmed in Iowa, or Bridges of Madison County (I know this was a book first...).  The actually filming was a minor part of benefit of those movies to the communities/state.