'Red Dawn' producer says films are good for business

Who needs California or New York when you have Michigan? Sure the winters are better on the west coast and the nightlife is dialed in at ten over in New York, but for a film production, Michigan has it all: Water, four seasons, rural, urban, and, more importantly, filming coupons (so to speak).

Excerpt:

It may surprise some people that filmmakers would want to shoot a movie in Michigan, instead of California or New York, though producers say the state's four seasons, great lakes and big city setting, make it an ideal location.  But the biggest incentive: Cash.  In April of last year, the state of Michigan enacted a special tax rebate of 42%, the largest in the country.  Since then, the Michigan Film Office says business is booming.  That means jobs--hundreds of them--both as part of making the films, or in supportive ways, such as set design, catering, or security. 

"I think there is a big financial impact that we have on any location we're in.  Whenever you bring in a couple hundred people with disposable income to a city, it's going to have an impact.  Our people go to restaurants, they go to bars, they go to grocery store, they go to the mall on the weekends.  They spend money and aside from that, we also employ people." says Tripp Vinson, Red Dawn's producer.  Jobs are something the city of Detroit desperately needs right now, as the auto industry winds down.  While Vinson wouldn't say exactly how much money is being saved by the tax incentive, he did admit that its in the millions.  

Michigan Film Office Director Janet Lockwood says that's a major draw. "In 2007 when we did not have any incentives worth mentioning we took in perhaps, with creative mathematics, 2-million dollars for feature films.  In 2008, in the 9 months that the incentives were in place, 125-million dollars"

Read the entire article here.