Lights, camera, Arizona

Faith Hibbs-Clark is telling local actors to get rid of call blocking, be ready with color photos and check e-mail addresses regularly. She figures the silver screen is getting more golden in Arizona.

Thanks to tax incentives that begin Jan. 1, the Scottsdale resident and casting agent has been contracted for six films that will be produced in the state next year. While the number of films isn’t unusual, to have the deals so far in advance is, Hibbs-Clark said.

"That’s not typical, which would say to me there’s going to be a flood," she said of movies filmed in the state. "They’re making sure they secure me early because I think there’s a sense of a flood coming."

Arizona has had a long history in the film industry. Many early Westerns were filmed here and the state has been a location for features films, television series and commercials. But that changed about 5 years ago when production companies decided to do shoots in places with lower costs.

"Globalization happened," said Ken Chapa, program manager of Arizona Department of Commerce’s Film Office. "It’s the international markets, it’s the New Zealands, the Romanias, it’s a lot of the Eastern European countries. They caught on and their work force was willing to work for dirt cheap. In some cases, they’re willing to give incentive packages."

Kazakhstan paid a production company $30 million to film a movie about Genghis Kahn in that county, Chapa said. The nation required the filmmakers to train the locals in the industry and leave whatever offices and studios it built. It also asked the company to get the word out that Kazakhstan was a great film location.

"If you’re a director you’re not going to pass that up," Chapa said, adding Arizona also has a lot of competition from Canada.

"It’s Toronto, it’s Vancouver. It’s the whole country. They have a great tax incentive package. That big movie "Chicago" was filmed in Toronto. It’s crazy, man. They’re taking a lot of business away."

For "King Kong," New York City was recreated in New Zealand, he said.

Since Gov. Janet Napolitano’s signing ceremony in October to publicly kick off the state’s motion picture tax incentives, Chapa said several projects have come knocking on the film office’s door.

The legislation provides a transferable tax credit for motion picture production costs in Arizona. If companies spend $250,000 to $1 million in Arizona, they are eligible for a 10 percent income tax credit. If they spend more than $3 million, the tax credit jumps to 20 percent.

Production companies are exempt from sales and use taxes if they purchases machinery or equipment, rent hotels, cater food or construct buildings for their shoots. No company can receive for than $5 million in credits per production.

At least 25 percent of the production’s company’s employees must be Arizona residents to qualify for the credits. In 2008 and later, half the employees must be state residents.

The financial carrots are similar to what is being offered by other states, including New Mexico, which often competes with Arizona for shoots because of similar terrain. Utah also pulls some projects away from Arizona because of similar landscape.

"People want to film in Arizona," Chapa said. "The whole purpose of the bill is to get those Arizonans who rely on this industry to get them to move back here from the L.A.s or New Yorks because they had to leave."

A December 2004 analysis of the Arizona film and video industry shows it has a large impact on the economy. The industry had total wages of nearly $22 million in 2003 and it generated more than $107 million in direct activity in the state. The industry employed 612 people and was responsible for another 1,092 indirect or induced jobs in the state.

Hibbs-Clark said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, hurt the entertainment industry and the state’s Film Commission became the victim of budget cuts.

"They didn’t have enough money to market the state as a filming destination," she said, adding the agency became more like a service organization. "They are supposed to go out there and convince people to come here and shoot. They would answer calls when they came in rather than going out and soliciting them."