North Carolina is known for its beaches, mountains and beautiful weather, but the state used to be known for its booming film industry. Features such as "Dirty Dancing," “Iron Man 3,” “The Hunger Games,” “Safe Haven” and even “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” have scenes filmed here.
In recent decades, North Carolina has been among the top film destinations in the U.S., with productions generating more than $1 billion in revenue between 2007 and 2012. The state has hosted over 800 feature films, 14 network and cable television series and hundreds of documentaries and commercials.
The focus on the local film industry was about bringing people to North Carolina because it stimulates the economy. However, there has been little interest in North Carolina as a setting for films and TV shows in recent years.
State legislation ended the state’s film incentives after 2014 and instead replaced the tax incentive program with a grant program. These grants turned many filmmakers and producers away from the area because they only offered a fraction of the money that was previously given to film productions in the state.
“As a change in the legislature started coming in, there was a look at all tax credits and allowing those tax credits to expire," said Guy Gaster, director of the North Carolina Film Office. "And so that is what took place, and in return, a grant program was set up which was initially a one-time allocation of $10 million."
In 2012, the state spent a record $377 million in movie and TV spending and $60 million in tax rebates. The tax incentive program also gave $80.7 million to film productions in 2014, while the subsequent grant program only allotted $10 million to all productions for the year. Current grants are now capped at $7 million for feature film productions and $12 million for a TV series.
This explains why in 2013 there were 34 productions in North Carolina, while in 2017 there was one TV series. However, efforts have been made to reaffirm the status of the film industry in the state.
The grant program that was introduced in 2014 has since been modified in 2015, twice in 2017, and most recently in 2018, Gaster said. The last modification was meant to increase attraction to the state as a setting for filmmaking.
“It’s about bringing people to North Carolina, because it is about building an economy," said Randi Emerman, vice president of programming and strategic partnerships at Silverspot Cinema and CEO of Film Fest 919. "It’s an economic stimulator when we have these kind of things.”
