By Lisa J. Allen
Published March 24, 2011

S.C. filmmakers are concerned their time in the spotlight is fading.

When state lawmakers added a budget proviso in 2004 to boost wage rebates for film projects to 20% and supply rebates to 30% — both were previously set at 15% — the floodgates opened. By 2006, there were half a dozen films under way, generating $101 million for the state’s economy, according to the S.C. Film Commission.

The next year, the director of the state Commerce Department cut the wage incentives to 10% for nonresidents and added supplier restrictions. Productions fled elsewhere and, in 2007, the economic impact dwindled to $40 million.

In 2009, the number of productions was down to three: Lifetime TV series Army Wives and low-budget films Angel Camouflaged and Little Red Wagon. This year, Army Wives — which is now filming its fifth season in Charleston — is the only production going on.

To regain a stronghold in South Carolina, the industry needs enough work to keep film crews busy year-round, not just a few months a year, said Richard Futch, casting director of Army Wives and executive director of the Carolina Film Alliance advocacy group.

The year-to-year uncertainty causes some producers to shy away, Futch said. Filmmakers “need to know that they’ll have the same incentives year to year,” he said.

But a debate is raging over whether to have incentives at all, and at the center of it are reports released in 2008 that cast film incentives in vastly different light. A College of Charleston study said film incentives lose money for the state because film producers don’t replace, dollar-for-dollar, the tax money they receive.

A separate study by the University of South Carolina takes a broader approach and found that the spin-off spending and tax generation more than make up for the incentives, by a ratio of almost 4-to1.

It appears that Gov. Nikki Haley sides with the College of Charleston study.

“The governor believes having the film industry present in South Carolina is a great, feel-good thing for our state,” said Haley’s press secretary, Rob Godfrey. “However, as with every economic development situation, we have to look at it from a cost-benefit perspective, and if the incentives going forward cost the state more than they bring in — as they have in the past — then the governor won’t support them.”

Futch believes the College of Charleston study doesn’t present all of the financial benefits of the film industry.

“Until the governor is given all of the information and is given a full and thorough report, it isn’t going to help either side,” he said.

He thinks the Film Alliance can make inroads with Haley, saying, “We aren’t Hollywood types, we are from South Carolina.”

The incentives did get a temporary reprieve; they were included in the one-year budget proviso that emerged in February from the House Ways and Means Committee.

But the S.C. Film Commission lost its unspent incentives, said Greg Forster, spokesman for House Speaker Bobby Harrell, R-Charleston.

Wage carry-forwards will go to destination-specific marketing, and the unspent supply rebates will go toward administration of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism — where the S.C. Film Commission now resides.

Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, introduced bill S.49 in January to fix the wage and supply rebates at 20% and 30% for projects of at least $1 million. The bill would lend more permanence to the rebate percentages.

“My thinking on it is that we have been successful with this industry,” McConnell said, adding it’s a “clean,” desirable business that South Carolina should embrace. “It assists us in marketing South Carolina.”

“That’s why I’m doing this: to lock (the funding) in concrete,” he said. “I think this is a moneymaker for South Carolina. It’s a good business deal for the state. Boeing is a good deal for the state and filmmaking is a good deal for the state.”