by Alan Svaldi, The Denver Post
Colorado is pulling back the curtains on two incentive programs it hopes are innovative enough to lure more film and television productions to the state.
“We fell out of the game because of our incentives,” said Donald Zuckerman, a former film producer who revamped the state’s incentives after he took over the Colorado Office of Film, Television & Media last year.
Incentives have gone from nice extras that producers used to plug budget shortfalls to necessary financial pillars that cover about 20 percent of production costs, said Jeff Steele, a film-finance expert in Los Angeles and Chicago.
The key attraction that states use is a refund or rebate of production expenses, in either cash or tax credits. Not unexpectedly, the states and countries that offer the most generous incentives with the fewest restrictions are winning the most new business.
New Mexico offers 25 percent, Louisiana up to 35 percent and Michigan up to 42 percent, which Colorado’s previous incentive of 10 percent couldn’t come close to matching.
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