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Filmed in Florida? State's entertainment industry faces challenges

By Christopher Heath, WFTV.com and Kelly Healey
By Christopher Heath, WFTV.com and Kelly Healey
The Showtime series “On Becoming a God in Central Florida” is supposed to take place in the Orlando area. 
But there's a problem: The show is filmed in southern Louisiana.
Once a top destination for film and TV, Florida is no longer even in the top 10, with productions moving to states with incentives, which is something Florida phased out in 2016.
“It is heartbreaking to see the amount of production set in Florida that is shot somewhere else,” John Lux of Film Florida said. 

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Film Florida is the association representing the film and entertainment industry in the state. 
“In the last few years, there were more 70 projects that wanted to shoot in Florida but didn’t because we couldn’t compete, and we lost them,” Lux said.
Florida essentially scrapped its film incentives after a state study showed a poor return on investment. 
But a 2018 study of the program by Florida’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research found that “both the tax credit and the tax exemption programs have positive ROIs, although neither generates sufficient tax revenues to offset the cost of the programs.”

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While the state has moved away from incentives, Florida’s universities and colleges continue to lead the nation in graduates within the entertainment industry. Schools such as Orlando’s Full Sail University and the University of Central Florida are among the leaders in the field, even though most of the jobs have left the state.
“We know that every project that is outside the state that should be here is taking money out of the pockets of Floridians that should be working on these projects, and we're hurting the economy because we're not putting the money into the economy here," Lux said.
Hoping to address the disadvantage, State Sen. Joe Gruters (R–Sarasota) filed a bill in 2019 to establish a grant program to reward productions after they finish and show an economic impact. 
SB526 would have offered a grant to “certified film, television, and digital media projects that, among other requirements, employ Florida residents and spend at least 70% of their production days in Florida.” 

But the bill died in committee. The bill is expected to be reintroduced in 2020.

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