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Welcome to Hollywood, Wisconsin

By Laura Ferguson

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The thunderous roars of enthusiastic fans echo throughout Milwaukee’s Miller Park. A shirtless young male clad in blue and yellow paint waves his arms as he jumps up and down. Two rows down, a woman in a jersey and baseball cap places her thumb and forefinger into her mouth, shuts her eyes and pierces through the screams with a high-pitched whistle. The stadium falls silent. Then the crowd chants in unison, “Stan Ross,” followed by “hall of fame.” The crowd’s reactions are not triggered by the performance of the local baseball team, however, but by Bernie Mac and the direction of a film production crew.

Twenty-five thousand Milwaukee-area residents took part in the filming of Mr. 3000 in 2003, the first major motion picture project Wisconsin had hosted in 15 years. Residents exercised their theatrical abilities, playing baseball fans, but were only included in two weeks of the film project. Despite being set in Milwaukee, the baseball comedy was filmed primarily in Louisiana, with the exception of several scenes featuring expressive baseball fanatics and Miller Park’s dazzling interior. Capturing Wisconsin’s diverse climate and picturesque setting in a few scenes, while resuming full production out of state, has been a common practice among filmmakers due to the high cost of film production in Wisconsin.

“I’ve often been asked through the years why I, or my brother David, have never shot any of our films (‘Airplane,’ ‘The Naked Gun,’ ‘Ghost’) in our home state of Wisconsin,” filmmaker Jerry Zucker writes in a letter to Wisconsin Sen. Ted Kanavas, R-Brookfield. “The answer is simple: even if the setting was exactly what we needed, the studios wouldn’t let us because the cost of filming is too expensive in Wisconsin.”

Wisconsin remained among a handful of states not to offer tax incentives to filmmakers until this year. In May, Wisconsin passed a bill granting film companies a 25 percent tax rebate on production costs for films produced in Wisconsin. The bill also offers tax credits to production companies looking to purchase property and become permanently established in the state.

“The whole idea of creative economy is something new for Wisconsin,” says Anne Katz, Arts Wisconsin executive director. “It’s nothing more than potential. It’s just full of opportunities. The response we’ve gotten in the past year and a half has been very positive.”

Numerous Wisconsin-born film professionals have contacted Kanavas, the senator backing the bill, expressing interest in producing films in Wisconsin. Among them were Jerry Zucker, producer of Airplane, The Naked Gun and Ghost, and David Koepp, director of Jurassic Park, and Spiderman and War of the Worlds. The desire to produce films in Wisconsin but the financial limits of doing so are common themes throughout the correspondence.

“As film budgets keep going up, cost-conscious executives are more intent than ever to make their films only in areas that offer such incentives,” writes Koepp, in a letter to Kanavas.

Financial restrictions force filmmakers into states that offer tax incentives such as New York, North Carolina or Louisiana, and eliminate opportunities for local film professionals to become involved in the filmmaking industry. Many film professionals are torn between the affordable and attractive living conditions Wisconsin has to offer and a desire to pursue a professional career.

“Wisconsin has a real edge in that it’s an affordable, nice place to live,” says Katz. “It’s amazing how many people live in Wisconsin and fly to California once a month or work on a sound stage in Waukesha because you don’t have to be in California necessarily.”

The new tax incentives would place Wisconsin among the most affordable states for film production, yet an obstacle still remains. In passing the bill, several members of the finance committee amended the effective date from 2007 to 2008, excluding it from this year’s budget because of concerns these incentives would cost the state more than they would generate. This pushback not only slows the flow of films, and therefore local spending, but it gives other states an opportunity to match Wisconsin’s incentive package, removing Wisconsin’s competitive edge.

Supporters of the bill attribute apprehensions to misconceptions about the economic effects of this legislation.

“There’s definitely an educational gap,” says Shawn Lundie, assistant policy director to Kanavas. “The way people see it is that the state is losing money. We don’t agree with that mindset. We look at filming here as a 75 percent increase, not a 25 percent decrease.”

The tax incentives are awarded in the form of a rebate. A film company would receive funds as a credit from the state of Wisconsin after filming is complete. The incentives apply to every direct production expenditure, from set construction and operation to food, lodging and rental cars.

According to government statistics, the television and film industry produces more than $40 billion a year. States with competitive tax incentive packages, such as New Mexico, New York and Louisiana, have generated state film project revenues anywhere from $125 to $600 million per project. Direct expenditures within the local economy account for half of the total budget of a film, so hotels, catering companies, automobile rental companies and restaurants all reap the fiscal benefits of local filmmaking.

“The state doesn’t look at that money as tax revenue,” says Lundie. “They’re not saying that the money they’re getting from the Concourse Hotel is a result of the film industry, but it would be. The point is that no one is filming here now, so we wouldn’t be losing a thing. We’d actually gain a lot.”

Louisiana, New York, California, Illinois and New Mexico currently offer the most ecompetitive tax incentive packages. In 2004, North Carolina, ranked third nationally in film, television and commercial production venues, generated $235 million from the 88 major productions created in the state that year. In addition, these film projects provided production jobs for 20,000 state residents.

Kanavas says Wisconsin would likewise benefit from film production by giving the state national and international exposure, a task the Wisconsin Film Office was responsible for prior to its close in July 2005. Film Wisconsin, a non-profit organization, has since assumed the office’s duties of promoting Wisconsin and the new tax incentives to film producers nationwide. Film Wisconsin teamed with numerous professionals in the film community and organizations such as the Wisconsin Arts Board, Arts Wisconsin and Film Wisconsin to initiate the drive for a tax incentives package.

Film Wisconsin now hopes to amend the effective date of the bill to commence before 2008.

“We have to try and enlighten leadership to how much of an economic boost film and television could give the state,” says Scott Robbe, a Madison-based director and owner of Mondo Productions. “Globally, the film industry is a billion-dollar-a-year business. Wisconsin should be able to have a piece of this business, but in order to do so; they must put into place the incentives.”

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