Proposed budget cuts for Oklahoma could gut state's film industry

A 2008 film graduate of New York University, Candace Lee, 25, recently moved back to her hometown of Tulsa, where she's writing screenplays and developing her producing skills for faith-based Impact Productions.

Shryock and Lee are among hundreds of Oklahomans who are worried about the future of the growing film industry in the state and, consequently, their careers here.

As part of $250 million in proposed budget cuts statewide, state legislators soon may yell “cut” to a $5 million annual incentive program that offers qualified filmmakers up to 35 percent rebates on state expenditures — 37 percent if productions include songs by Oklahoma artists. Senate Bill 1435 would repeal the rebates immediately upon passage, while SB 1623 would phase them out over two years.

Proponents — including Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Mazzei, R-Tulsa — believe the cuts are necessary to help lower personal income taxes, while Shryock, Lee and other industry observers say lawmakers need to look at the big picture.

For fiscal year 2012 alone, the rebates are responsible for more than 500 jobs and $38 million in economic stimulus, according to analysis conducted by Oklahoma City University's Meinders School of Business for the Oklahoma Film and Music Office of the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department.

Much like a small business, the program is in its infancy and needs time to grow, said Shryock, who last year worked on feature films whose producers were lured here by the rebate. Those include “Yellow,” a film shot in Shawnee and surrounding towns about a chemically-dependent woman who returns to her Oklahoma hometown and stars Ray Liotta, and “Cherokee Word for Water,” a Tahlequah-shot film about Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation.

“We're manufacturing a widget that can expand to a global market and come back to Oklahoma,” he said. “I consider that a tremendous investment.”

Lee said she was “pleasantly surprised” to find creative local work, which includes the film “A Christmas Snow,” whose Tulsan producer Tracy Trost has qualified for rebates.

“Before they even scout locations, producers look for what incentives states offer,” said Lee, who's said she's seen the growth momentum from films drawn by incentives. Forty-six states have them, with Michigan offering filmmakers rebates of 50 cents on every $1 spent there.

Among other things, the rebates, Trost said, have helped him attract and afford bigger-named talent, such as Lou Gossett Jr. (the sergeant in “Officer and a Gentleman”), who stars in his 2011 film “The Lamp.”

The threats to the film rebate program couldn't come at a worse time, said Jill Simpson, state film and music office director. The state qualified six feature films for fiscal year 2012, she said, and one film alone prequalified for all of the 2013 rebate money.