South Carolina Goes HOLLYWOOD

 

There’s a fierce streak of pride that runs straight down the backs of most South Carolinians. Ask just about anyone born here – or “lucky enough” to move here ­­- and it’s soon clear why: good people, gorgeous scenery that spans from the mountains to a clear coastline and a culture that protects its history and embraces the future.

Funny. That’s part of the attraction that South Carolina had on more than a dozen movie, television and video productions filmed here in 2007.

An abundance of natural assets, picturesque townscapes, available local help and – most recently – attractive incentives have conspired to make SC a major magnet for productions. In the past year, numerous big budget projects came to the Palmetto State:

Last spring, the Touchstone Television series Army Wives deployed throughout Charleston. Over the course of several months, the series (ultimately picked up by Lifetime) generated several dozen jobs for local employees. And its producers say they’ll be back in 2007-8.

Winter and Spring found the Upstate warming to the presence of George Clooney, Renee Zellweger and a cast of other Hollywood faves. In town to film the romantic comedy Leatherheads, the cast and crew used quaint South Carolina backdrops to depict 1920s America.

In late 2006, Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman lit up Florence and Darlington Counties with writer/director Bryan Bertinos’ The Strangers, a suspense thriller from Rogue Pictures.

Around the same time, Kevin Bacon and John Goodman added firepower to the filming of Death Sentence throughout the Midlands. At the time, EVP Andrew Sugarman told area reporters that “South Carolina provides an excellent diversity of locations as well as an experienced crew base, which allows us to comfortably shoot two pictures simultaneously.” 

George Clooney sans leather

The second Hyde Park film produced here in 2006 was Asylum, filmed throughout York County.  County officials were happy to land the project: “It provides meaningful employment for people throughout the region and is an economic boost to many of our small businesses,” said Bennish Brown, Executive Director of the Rock Hill/York County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Then came the new millennium, when lots of communities perked up and noticed something: films brought cash – and plenty of it. And the industry didn’t require things like new schools, sewer lines and roads. A town could lay in some food and labor- vs. a brand new highway – and reap millions in return.

If it’s true that money talks, then in Hollywood, where the typical film costs more than $60 million, money shouts. Around the year 2000, Louisiana and New Mexico started offering Hollywood bouquets of rebates, tax breaks and more. Romania’s very low wage and price structure snagged more than 100 days of Cold Mountain shooting away from SC.

And it hurt. In 2004, SC didn’t host a single film shoot; 2005 brought two. Many local crew members moved out of state to find work.

Then, a new wind blew through SC. Since July 2006, the state started offering productions a 20% cash rebate on all employee wages. They also offered a cash rebate of up to 30% on supplier expenditures for any production spending at least $1 million here. It worked; within weeks Asylum, Death Sentence and other productions landed on South Carolina’s fertile soil.

Chip Limehouse, a state legislator from Charleston, has garnered much appreciation from the state film community for his tireless work to create legislation that attracts productions. “We want film because it brings jobs that are high paying, with low or no impact. Plus, we graduate wonderful people from our state schools, and we want to help prevent brain drain as they move out.”

To that end, he’s been working hard with his fellow lawmakers, and industry leaders, to keep South Carolina on producers’ short lists.

Some worry that recent changes in legislation could hamper future production. The state was toying with the idea of trimming rebates paid to production companies, in a move designed to reward them for hiring local talent.

Cast of Army Wives, shot exclusively in Charleston region. (Copyright by Dan Littlejohn/ABC Studios.)

 

Presumably the state’s leadership saw such a change as ensuring that more in-state talent would be used. It may prove to be a gamble – or it may deliver big dividends for local talent.

“It’s a classic chicken and egg scenario. Local talent is nurtured when it has an opportunity to work. We just hope they’ll continue to come,” said one observer, who wished to remain anonymous.

If a handful of influential state legislators have their way, they will indeed continue to come. Senator Pro Tem Glenn McConnell has introduced S-667, a bill designed to fuel the momentum. “I think the evidence is overwhelming that our incentives have been a very powerful economic development tool,” he said.

McConnell added: We want to see South Carolina become even more competitive, and even more aggressive pursuing this industry. After all, it is clean, non polluting, it brings a multiplier effect to our communities, and it creates jobs.

“These incentives are doing precisely what they were designed to do. They are creating opportunity,” he noted. “We’ll fight to make them even stronger in the future.”

 

Kevin Bacon Strolling the streets of Columbia, S.C. in Death Sentence

 

 

Meanwhile, this decade’s dramatic increase in SC film production has been a boom – and a boon - to locally based production crews. Location manager Linda Lee says she believes the tight knit film community (“nobody hires anybody without a recommendation”) sees increases in local opportunity, and hopes that will help attract additional talent.

Indeed, there is sometimes more work than an individual location manager can do. When “The Patriot” came to South Carolina, producers hired four location scouts, plus their retinue of assistants. All of them required deep knowledge of local landscapes, historic homes and more. “But when there are no projects, that local talent goes away,” Lee said.

That cyclical nature has prompted the South Carolina Film Commission to establish the South Carolina Film Production Fund, which underwrites collaborative projects in film, video and multimedia between professionals in the motion picture and related industries and SC colleges and universities.

The concept is to link faculty and students from Trident Technical College, The University of South Carolina and Clemson University to independent producers and other professionals in a program that builds the knowledge pool and experience of in-state professionals.

Collaborative projects can be awarded up to $100,000 each – as long as the production uses South Carolina college students as interns, apprentices or actual employees. That’s hard cash in exchange for entry level jobs. And presumably, it helps bolster some of the seasoned talent here, too.

Y’all Come

It’s not only the governments who clamor for a piece of the action. Residents of South Carolina communities tend also to welcome production crews.

And why not? A typical movie production pours tens of thousands of dollars into local businesses. (Indeed, in a state the size of South Carolina, “local” might mean just about anybody in the state could benefit). Craft services alone can keep numerous local caterers and restaurants busy feeding cast and crew.

Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot” provided nearly $33 million to the state throughout its 153 days of filming here. That’s $33 million from a clean industry, which attracts talent, and attention, from afar.

But a $6 million production can be just as welcome.

Gospel Hill started filming in Rock Hill in June 2007, bringing Julia Stiles and Danny Glover and a Civil Rights-era story. South Carolina Film Commissioner, Jeff Monks, says the film makers will spend 30% to 50% of their budget in the state. “That’s a shot in the arm to the local economy,” he told the local newspaper.

But it goes beyond money, on a local level. Sometimes, the arrival of a film project also helps fuel civic pride. Dorene Watts, a City of Rock Hill employee, worked with Gospel Hill writers to generate some grassroots input on the filming. Through the MLK Task Force that Watts coordinates, she put out an all call for oral histories of the civil rights era. As a result, people started to speak up. “It’s been very exciting,” she said.

More recently, production on Lifetimes’ Army Wives, starring Catherine Bell and Kim Delaney, wrapped it’s first season in Charleston and has since become the network’s highest rated series in its 23 year history and now
has ordered eighteen more episodes for a new season.

“We’re thrilled that Army Wives will continue on Lifetime, where it’s broken ratings records and set new standards for quality in cable drama,” said Mark Pedowitz, president of ABC Studios.  “We’re grateful for the support of Lifetime and the State of South Carolina, where the series is produced, and look forward to working with both partners on season two.”

Warm welcomes are helpful, but there’s another attraction to filming in South Carolina communities.

 “The attraction is that South Carolina can look like a lot of different places,” says Lee, who recently worked on a TV movie that turned SC backdrops into a wide variety of scenes. “It’s attractive to producers to focus all the shooting in one place. So we went to Lady’s Island to film the jungle scenes that represented Gabon, Africa, and we turned a Charleston set into a Boston hospital. That’s a powerful draw­­,” she adds.

And what happens when the shoot is wrapped? Industry insiders note that a “made in South Carolina” moniker on any film becomes a powerful p.r. tool.

Sometimes, producers fall for the place – hard.  Charleston legislator Limehouse notes that while South Carolina’s incentives tend to be the first attractor to film producers, they are merely the beginning of the story.

“They come because the incentives are competitive,” said Limehouse. ”But once they’re here, a lot of these film crew people want to buy homes. They decide to retire here. They bring future productions back.  The place just speaks for itself. The bottom line is it’s all good!”