Facing a severe budget crunch, the state last year slashed its annual budget for the incentives to $180 million—down from $222 million spent in 2014. The 19% reduction triggered a 75% loss of jobs for union film crews, Deadline reports. But Cory Parker, business agent for New Orleans film workers union IATSE Local 478, tells the publication that things are improving.
“We were down quite a bit, but we are seeing a bit of an uptick,” he says. “Since April, it’s gone up quite a bit. It took us up to 65% of our members who are working. We do have a lot of shows talking about coming. It’s looking like a promising fall. Our phones are starting to ring again. Our fingers are crossed, and hopefully we’ll be back to business as usual soon.”
Parker says that much of the downturn is due to the misconception that Louisiana’s incentives program is dead.
“It all stems from that misconception,” he says. “Producers are realizing that it makes sense to come back to Louisiana. They’re going to realize what they’re missing out on. We’re here, and we’re ready to go to work. The incentives program is alive, and we’re getting momentum from that.”
Louisiana’s filming loss comes at a time when several other states are increasing their incentives to keep or attract filmmakers. California tripled its incentives program in 2014 to $330 million, Ohio will double its program to $40 million in September, and Pennsylvania recently raised its by $5 million to $65 million.
Even so, Louisiana’s program is still nearly twice what California’s was only a year ago, and more than half of what the Golden State’s is now. Louisiana had also suspended its buy-back of the tax credits—at 85% of face value—for one year, but that suspension ended this month.
Deadline has the full story. Read a recent Business Report cover story on the state of the local film industry.
