District leaders said Thursday they want to spend $100,000 for a feasibility study on how to lure more film and television productions to the nation’s capital as the city continues to lose business to Maryland and Virginia.
The study, if its funding is approved in the 2013 budget, would investigate the potential financial return if the District had a film incentive fund to offer producers, said Crystal Palmer, director of the District’s Office of Motion Picture and Television Development. She said the study would also tackle other issues the film industry has repeatedly cited as barriers to producing in the District, including exploring better access to federal monuments and ways in which the city’s production labor force could become more involved in projects.
And, after the former home of Atlantic Video went on the market, the feasibility of the city either owning that sound stage and leasing it out or acting as a property manager for a production company/owner has been thrown into the mix.
Palmer said the District falls farther behind Maryland and Virginia in terms of perks it can offer producers. Most recently, the new HBO series “Veep” opted to do most of its shooting in Baltimore — which often doubles as D.C. in films — with minimal, on-location shots in the District. Maryland had offered HBO several million dollars from its $7.5 million film incentive fund last year, which sealed the deal.
“Mayor [Vincent] Gray and Councilmember [Vincent] Orange and I had a pretty in-depth conversation with HBO,” Palmer told The Washington Examiner. “Unfortunately, in this business today, it seems to be about incentives as opposed to being location-driven.”
Maryland lawmakers are also considering nearly tripling the state’s incentive fund to more than $21 million after its fund last year was quickly snatched up by productions.
The District does not have an incentive fund. Virginia has two incentive funds totaling nearly $5 million.
Officials over the past year have unsuccessfully pitched ways to build a fund for the city, including a dedicated movie theater concessions tax.
