How Palm Springs and other desert cities are trying to lure Hollywood money
Xochitl Pena
Hollywood has long been known as the place where stars are born and films are made.
Over the years though, with states across the country ramping up their film incentive programs, more and more movies and TV shows are being made outside of California, in states like Georgia, Louisiana and New York, creating fierce competition. That's why California has had to fight back with increased incentives of its own, usually in the form of tax breaks, to keep productions here.
And as those incentives have worked and more films are being made in California, the trickle-down effect is that regions within California, like the Coachella Valley, are also creating incentives to vie for those projects and the jobs and economic growth that comes with them.
In the desert – a microcosm of what’s being played out across the country – the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau, which bills the region as “a film-friendly resort oasis,” just launched an incentive program on Nov. 2 with the goal of encouraging media production across the Coachella Valley.
“Here we are, we are two hours from Hollywood and we’ve got incredible scenery here and incredible backdrop. We’ve got nine cities with very diverse experiences from Coachella, Mecca, the east valley to the west valley to Desert Hot Springs and everything in between. And we just felt like it was time for us to step up,” said Scott White, president and CEO of Greater Palm Springs Convention & Visitors Bureau.
The visitors bureau, which represents the valley’s nine cities, has committed a total of $100,000 a year for the program in a cash rebate of up to $5,000 per project. To be eligible for the rebate, projects must spend a minimum of $25,000 in permits, lodging and meals in the valley. The funding comes from the tourism and business improvement district (TBID), paid for by hotels with 50 rooms and larger, and is split up between the East Valley and the West Valley. Scripted television and feature films, in addition to unscripted TV, commercials and still photography, are eligible for the program.
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“Although it’s not a lot of money compared to what other states have around the country and even countries like Canada and so forth, we felt like it was enough to get us started to see what would be the interest level. Will it generate interest in the destination? Will it drive some incremental production into the valley,” said White.
At the end of the day, the film incentive is really to create jobs, he said. And in the desert, known as a resort destination, the way to do that is fill up the hotels.
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“Every community in California is going after the film business for the most part, in some way, shape or form. And we certainly have been as well. I think some cities are more proactive than others, like Palm Springs has been more proactive than some of the other cities,” added White.
Palm Springs and other desert cities
Palm Springs used to offer a monetary film incentive from 2013 to 2016. The program was quite similar to the visitors bureau in that it also provided a $5,000 rebate to production that spent at least $25,000 in the city.
James Canfield, the executive director of the Palm Springs Convention Center and Bureau of Tourism which oversaw the program in Palm Springs, said they handed out nine grants during that time, which generated about $300,000 in direct spending.
The overall economic benefit though, was much more than that, he said. And there is a plan to work with the city and PS Resorts, a promotional organization made up of Palm Springs hotels, to revive the program.
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"It was a program that was set up for a specific period of time and it just ended," said Canfield, of why it was discontinued.
“We definitely saw a benefit to it and especially now with the Convention and Visitors Bureau having a program, we would be able to combine the two grants,” he said.
Filmmaker Sean Hoessli received one of those grants from Palm Springs for his movie “Palm Swings,” which just had a digital release and will be available on Showtime in December.
His low-budget movie cost about $200,000 to make and the rebate helped offset the cost of hotel rooms and location fees, Hoessli said. The cast and crew all stayed at Skylark Hotel on North Palm Canyon Drive, which gets its share of screen time as the location for a raucous swinger party. They also stayed at the hotel during the summer, a time when some hotels struggle to fill rooms.
"We are also promoting Palm Springs to a very young, hip audience and this film will go worldwide and it's a chance to get exposure for Palm Springs all across the world. So I feel like they got a very good investment for $5,000,” said Hoessli during a previous interview with The Desert Sun.
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Since Palm Springs no longer has its film incentive program, the only film incentive rebate program currently available is the one offered by the valley-wide visitors bureau.
“Anything in the area of appealing to the film industry is good. We can use all the help we can get,” said Levi Vincent, executive director of the Greater Palm Springs Film Alliance and Film Office, which helps facilitate film projects in the desert and provide resources.
He would have liked to see more than just lodging, meals and permit expenditures count toward the $25,000 in spending for the reimbursement.
“It doesn’t go as far as it should,” he said. “I loved the Palm Springs incentive. It included all incidentals.”
The full-service Riverside County Film Commission, launched in 2015 to issue permits in addition to promote the region, does however, waive its permit fees to encourage projects. It presides over all Riverside County buildings such as the Larson Justice Center or fairgrounds in Indio, and all unincorporated communities in the county such as Cabazon, Bermuda Dunes, Thousand Palms, Indio Hills, Sky Valley, North Palm Springs and Thermal.
So any film production that wants to shoot in those areas can do so for free.
The bulk of the county’s film business however, does occur in the Coachella Valley, with most of it in Palm Springs, which has long been a popular place to film reality TV and still photography because of its wealth of picturesque resorts, homes and landscapes.
READ MORE:Film on the rise in Palm Springs, Riverside County
According to the Riverside County Film Commission, the economic impact from film production in 2015 was $9 million across the valley with $6.3 million coming from Palm Springs. In 2016, the impact across the desert was $10.8 million with $6.8 million generated in Palm Springs.
Spread the wealth
The film industry can fill hotel rooms and generate revenue, which is why so many states have become competitive and why within those states, regions are ramping up their incentives.
To promote the local incentives, representatives from the Riverside Film Commission and Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau attended the American Film Market held in Santa Monica Nov. 1 through Wednesday. The event serves as a launching pad for movies, where people in the film industry and related businesses gather to network, buys films, sell films and get financing.
“We actually got a lot of traffic. We got a lot of people stopping by,” said Michelle Rodriguez, the film liaison with Film Oasis, part of the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“People were pretty excited to hear about a new one. More often they hear about one being cancelled,” she said of film incentive programs.
After California ramped up its film and television tax credit program in 2015, increasing program funding from $100 million to $330 million per fiscal year, the state gained 38 feature film projects and 50 TV projects. And many of those projects shot outside the Los Angeles 30-mile zone received an additional 5 percent tax credit on top of their base 20 percent tax credit.
Shooting outside Los Angeles helps spread the wealth to other regions in the state, including the desert. According to the California Film Commission progress report released in September, when productions film on-location outside the Los Angeles area, they typically spend between $50,000 and $100,000 per day which benefits everything from hotels to small businesses.
For example, according to the progress report, during the first two years of the new state program, “Twin Peaks” which was issued a $2.5 million incentive, shot in Riverside County, including Palm Springs, generating $89,000 in total local spending.
According to a USA Today Network database, the first national database that shows how much each film and show received in tax breaks and incentives, a couple of movies that received the tax incentive filmed in the desert as well, helping create jobs and spread spending.
“A Star is Born” starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, set to be released in 2018, was filmed in Los Angeles and Santa Clarita, but also had a few scenes shot in the desert earlier this year during the two Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival weekends and at the Stagecoach county music festival. It had $34 million in qualified expenditures and was issued a $7 million incentive. The film created 174 jobs.
“We worked closely with ‘A Star is Born.’ We issued a permit for Dillon Road and a Tire shop on Indian Canyon just outside of Palm Springs. They also filmed at the Polo Grounds in Indio and the Convention Center in Palm Springs,” said Stephanie Stethem, a film commissioner with Riverside County Film Commission.
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As an incentive, the county film commission also waives all permit fees, waives transient occupancy tax at participating hotels and provides free use of county-owned properties for projects lasting 10 days or less. A film or TV project could technically take advantage of all three incentive programs – state, county and the visitors bureau valley-wide program.
Bettina Breckenfeld, another commissioner with the Riverside County Film Commission, at the AFM, said the new incentive has been a hit with production companies.
“A few have already mentioned moving their production from other areas to Riverside County, with the incentive being the catalyst for these conversations,” she said via e-mail. “Greater Palm Springs' program has been a great addition to what we and the State already offer.”
Xochitl Peña is the Vibe & Style Columnist at The Desert Sun and can be reached at xochitl.pena@thedesertsun.com or at (760) 778-4647.
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