Colorado’s film commission can point to some big “gets” in promoting the effectiveness of its incentive program, but it should not overextend itself.
The film incentive program is out of money and pledging rebates to projects in advance of its next round of funding in July.
That’s never a good idea, as was pointed out by Colorado Economic Commission Director Denise Brown in a meeting last week.
If this keeps occurring, the office will find itself farther and father behind. “You need to go to the legislature to get more funds,” she told the film commission.
The film incentive program has had some successes, though. In September, acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino agreed to shoot a film in Telluride. And two films that received incentives were selected to be shown at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
A 2011 University of Colorado Leeds School of Business analysis of the film incentive program said every dollar invested would yield $5 of production spending and $10 in economic activity. Such studies should usually be taken with a grain of salt, but Donald Zuckerman, commissioner of the Colorado Office of Film Television & Media, said in 2013 that investing $3 million resulted in $21 million in post-production spending.
Gov. John Hickenlooper has touted the program and has proposed funding it at $5 million next year, which is the same amount it got from lawmakers last July.
But the film commission shouldn’t be pledging money it literally doesn’t have. If the film industry wants incentives, it should have to get in line at the Capitol with everyone else.
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