Several film projects made in central Ohio or by area filmmakers had their Ohio premieres this weekend at the Yellow Springs Mini Film Festival.
Those included the feature-length drama, "Union County," a documentary looking at the aftermath of the East Palestine train derailment and toxic chemical spill, and a TV pilot filmed in Columbus that follows a young filmmaker trying to make it big in Ohio.
Central Ohio is keeping up the filmmaking momentum.
Columbus Film Commissioner John Daugherty joined WOSU's Allie Vugrincic to talk about the Columbus film industry.
Allie Vugrincic: So, when I spoke with you a few years ago about Columbus' film scene, people were mostly making commercials here. Are there more narrative projects being made in central Ohio now?
John Daugherty: Oh, absolutely. There were two feature films shot simultaneously in the past month or so. They just wrapped and both of those feature films applied for and received the Ohio Motion Picture Tax Credit. That's the state level incentive. And one of the things that producers, directors, etc. ask when they're looking to film in your region is, you know, 'Hey, what's your incentive?' And, 'How deep is your crew?' Meaning, how many crew people do you have and how many projects can you support at one time? And this is the first time that films of this size shot simultaneously. And we were able to support them. I did a follow-up with the larger of the two projects, and they were great in praising the crew here in Columbus. Those are the sort of things that help grow the industry here.
Allie Vugrincic: You mentioned those state tax credits that are available to incentivize filming in Ohio, but we actually have some local incentives for projects that film mostly in Franklin County, right?
John Daugherty: Yes, we have the state's first and only local incentive. It's a 10% cash back incentive. It works a lot like the state incentive, but it is stackable with the state incentives. So, the state incentive is a 30% rebate. With the local incentive, it's a lower threshold of $150,000. At the state level, you have to spend at least $300,000. At the local incentives, you have to film, I believe it's 50% of your locations have to be within Franklin and the surrounding county and 75% of your crew have to be from Franklin and surrounding counties.
Allie Vugrincic: Do you have a gauge on how many people are working in the central Ohio film industry right now?
John Daughterty: You know, with the commercial industry that goes on here, there's easily hundreds of people in the region that work. And, you know, when there's larger projects in the Cleveland and Cincinnati area, they'll pull people from Columbus and vice versa.
Allie Vugrincic: Speaking of those other cities in Ohio, there was a lot of hype a few years ago when James Gunn's "Superman" filmed in Cleveland. Cincinnati has also gotten some bigger projects. Are there any efforts to collaborate with other Ohio cities to lure more films here or split the filming between two places?
John Daugherty: You know, we have no problem collaborating and bringing projects in. The Ohio Film Office, you know, their primary job is to administer the tax credit, right, that's it. They don't proactively go out and advertise or market Ohio as a filmmaking destination. They leave that up to the individual film commissions, which is fine. Other states aren't like that. Other states really, really market themselves at the state level for projects. But yeah, we amongst the film commissions in the state are fine with working together. Even though we're kind of competing over that same pot of money for the tax incentive, we know that growing the industry as a whole in the state, and I'm a firm believer in this, really, you know, grows each region as well.
Allie Vugrincic: Looking forward, do we have any more big narrative projects or even animation projects in the works right now in Franklin County?
John Daugherty: Yes, we do, as a matter of fact. There is a series called "The Blueprint" series, which has received both the state and local incentive. They just held rehearsals out in L.A. a couple of weeks ago. They're supposed to be coming this way probably in May and (are) going to be filming several episodes here. There's some larger animation projects. A studio called Colossal, which is based just north of Columbus — they're doing a really big anime project with a large studio called Angel Studios. There's another series, a kids series, that's filming right now. We just scouted for a large series that would film this fall. They were gonna shoot their project up in Maine. It takes place up in Maine. But after coming here, they saw what we had to offer, you know, areas like German Village, and the Columbus City Schools who've been really open to filming in some of their school buildings. We've convinced them to come and shoot most of their project here.
Allie Vugrincic: That's a lot going on in Columbus.
John Daughtery: Yeah, there is. It's picking up, so we're excited.
