Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/61759
and Finally . . . M Feud For ThoughT ready, set… action? NEW MEXICO HAS GONE HOLLYWOOD AFTER A CINEMA-WORTHY CAMPAIGN FOR FILM AND TV SHOOTS. WHY HAS NEVADA BEEN LEFT IN THE DUST? by corey levitan ovie and television stars flock to Las Vegas to play. Then they flock to Albuquerque to work. In 2011, direct spending by film and TV production crews injected $103 million into Nevada's economy. In New Mexico, that number was $275 million. While profits from New Mexico's film industry have increased more than tenfold from $24 million in 2004, ours is down 33 percent from its 2001 peak of $155 million, according to the states' respective film offices. If this were a fight scene, Nevada would be on the pavement with its teeth kicked in, a victim of underestimating its scrawny neighbor. And the scene would probably be shot in New Mexico. The hit TV shows Breaking Bad, In Plain Sight, and Sons of Anarchy shoot the overwhelming majority of their exterior and interior scenes in New Mexico, as do dozens of big-budget movies each year. Last year, not one big-budget TV show or movie filmed most of its scenes in Nevada. "They have no reason to," says independent Las Vegas film producer Joshua Cohen, who co-chairs the Nevada Film Incentive Task Force with James Reid of Vegas production equipment rental facility JR Lighting. New Mexico refunds 25 percent of its qualifying expenses back to production companies via a tax credit. Nevada is one of only 10 states with no filming tax incentives. Because of this financial disadvantage, Hollywood studios have not built a large, permanent, modern soundstage here. New Mexico, meanwhile, has half a dozen. Reid and Cohen estimate that every $1 in tax credits would generate $4 in local business, plus $1.28 in tax revenue. "Now multiply that by 50 million," Cohen says. Yet during each of the last five legislative sessions in Nevada, no incentives passed. The assumption of the naysayers is that merely being Las Vegas is enough to lure productions here. But that argument is as faulty as the one about Las Vegas being recession-proof. Even for movies and TV shows suppos- edly set in Las Vegas, technological advancements have made it irresistibly cheap to shoot the Strip skyline and digitally insert it into scenes actually shot elsewhere. (New Mexico has two permanent casino soundstages on which it replicates the Las Vegas of the 1960s and '70s, says Tobi Ives of the New Mexico State Film Office.) Hence, Las Vegas has become what Reid calls "the exteriors capital of the world." Last year, Assembly Bill 506—into which a bill by Democratic Assemblyman Paul Aizley of Las Vegas was folded—would have created a 15-per- cent film tax credit. Yet a political wrench (thrown in by Nevada constables seeking exclusive con- tracts to police movie sets, according to Cohen) prevented the bill from being voted on during the last legislative session. Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval's Office of Economic Development has promised to consider reintroducing incentives in 2013, and Aizley says he may again present his own bill. For now, even Cohen will have to take his upcom- ing $1.5 million film project Louisiana, or Canada. "At a 25 or 30 percent credit, that's $500,000," he says. Even Hollywood's big pockets can't ignore savings like that. V to New Mexico, 136 vegasmagazine.com Only in Vegas! illustration by daniel o'leary