From Dayton Daily News

By Dave Larsen, Staff Writer Updated 8:14 PM Saturday, May 21, 2011

Dayton area film professionals are seeing plenty of “action” despite a motion picture industry downturn that in recent years has seen independent film studios close, DVD revenues dry up and Hollywood ticket sales drop as much as 20 percent.

Nearly 20 motion pictures have been approved to shoot in Ohio using the state film tax credit enacted in 2009, creating jobs for Ohio production crew members, said Kristen Erwin, executive director of the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Film Commission.

“We’ve never had greater traffic of motion pictures, as well as television and commercial production,” Erwin said.

More than a dozen Dayton-area residents make their living as film professionals, said Eva Buttacavoli, director of FilmDayton, a nonprofit organization dedicated to building the region’s film community.

The group’s third annual FilmDayton Festival, featuring films with Miami Valley ties, continues today at The Neon movie theater in downtown Dayton.

Wright State University’s motion pictures program averages 50 to 60 students, said W. Stuart McDowell, chairman of the school’s Department of Theater Arts, Dance and Motion Pictures.

“Not too many of them are out flinging burgers in their mid-30s to support their film habit,” McDowell said. “They are able to tack on to some film project somewhere and do what they want to do.”

Wright State crew

More than half of Wright State’s film graduates pursue work in the independent sector, McDowell said.

About 10 people with ties to Wright State or Dayton are working as department heads on the feature film “The Philly Kid,” which started shooting this month in Baton Rouge, La.

“The Wright State kids, many of them live in Louisiana, which has the most stable tax incentive in the country right now,” said Karri O’Reilly, the Dayton-based line producer of “The Philly Kid” and a Wright State graduate.

Louisiana has generated nearly $3 billion since the state implemented its film tax incentive program in 2002, according to the Louisiana Office of Entertainment Industry Development.

State tax incentives, combined with the weak U.S. dollar, are the driving force behind domestic film production, O’Reilly said.

“For Ohio filmmakers it’s actually one of the best times we’ve had because we finally, after lagging greatly behind the rest of the country, have a film incentive that seems to be starting to catch some traction,” O’Reilly said.

Film tax credit

The Ohio Motion Picture Tax Incentive, totaling $30 million for fiscal years 2010 and 2011, provides a refundable tax credit up to 35 percent for productions that spend a minimum of $300,000 in the state.

In the last two years, production companies have spent more than $117 million making movies, television programs and commercials here, according to the Ohio Film Office. The tax credit has helped employ more than 9,200 Ohioans, resulting in crew wages of $30.7 million, said Ohio Department of Development spokeswoman Katie Sabatino.

“The Avengers,” a big-budget superhero film starring Robert Downey Jr., is projected to employ 4,425 Ohioans as part of its production crew and cast when it shoots this summer in Cleveland and Cincinnati.

An untitled movie starring Nickelodeon’s Victoria Justice will shoot this summer in Cleveland and is projected to employ about 545 Ohioans.

“The Ides of March,” the George Clooney film shot this spring in Cincinnati and Oxford, employed 409 Ohioans, including eight from Dayton.

A portion of “Unstoppable,” an action thriller starring Denzel Washington, was filmed in late 2009 in southeast Ohio and employed an Ohio cast and crew of 1,361.

Buttacavoli said the movie business is down as a whole, “but because Ohio is the hot, new really tax incentive-generous state in the film industry, we’ve come out better than even.”

Industry woes

Nationally, the independent film business is suffering from a “huge downturn,” said Michael Katchman, president of Rivercoast Media, a Cincinnati-based independent DVD distributor.

“We had quite a run, there’s no doubt about it, in the ’90s and even up until probably 2006 or 2007,” said Katchman, a Centerville native who has worked in sales, marketing and acquisition roles for Orion, MGM, Lionsgate and First Look studios.

Too many films flooded the market, forcing an industry contraction that saw the closing of such specialty film divisions as Fox Atomic and Warner Independent Pictures, as well as a consolidation of domestic indie film distribution.

Hollywood’s woes have continued. Movie attendance this spring was down 20 percent from the same period in 2010, representing the worst downturn in ticket sales in six years.

The Neon, a Dayton theater that specializes in independent and foreign films, reported record revenues in 2010. Manager Jonathan McNeal credited the success of such films as “Black Swan,” and “The King’s Speech,” as well as sales of beer and wine, for the Neon’s best year ever.

McNeal said Dayton’s independent film audience probably can’t support more than the Neon’s two screens. “We do well, but are certainly by no means close to capacity,” he said.