California Filming Incentive Proved Successful

We have good news to report! It looks like California’s economy is picking up again in the film and television industries.

Ever since Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger introduced a new tax credit program for productions filmed in California last July, over 36 movies and television shows have already signed up to benefit from the state’s tax credit program. “Productions that were slated to film outside the state have shifted gears and are now shooting in California because of our film and television incentive,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. This influx of work will create about 150-200 jobs with each project filmed in the state.

No wonder California is now again heading the list of the Top 5 Filming Locations in North America!

Top Locations for Filmmaking in North America

Last month, Variety wrote an article listing the top places in the world that location managers, directors and other industry insiders voted as best locations for filmmaking. Reel-Scout is excited to share that our film office clients represent three of the Top 5 markets for filmmaking:  California (No. 1), New Mexico (No. 3), and Chicago (No. 4).

Some of the unique features that make California, New Mexico, and Chicago popular with the film and television production industries are:

California

• Deepest talent pool on/off camera.
• Largest, most technologically advanced production infrastructure and equipment globally.
• Varied outdoor filming locations: snowy mountains, beaches, vineyards, forests, deserts, hilly cities (San Francisco), palmy urban areas (Los Angeles), and of course the one and only Hollywood.
• 20-25% tax credits.

New Mexico

• Unusual sceneries and locations from white desert sands to woodsy mountains.
• 25% tax rebates.
• Rapid and steady growth of local studios such as Albuquerque Studios, Rio Grande Studios, and a new studio complex soon to be launched in Santa Fe.
• Large crew base.

Chicago

• Urban America: iconic downtown skyline, blend of traditional and modern architecture, Lake Michigan
• 30% tax credit
• Deep crew base
• Outstanding post facilities and equipment-rental companies

A few more of our clients receive Honorable Mentions:  for “Best Incentives” — Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina; for “Best Film-Office Support” — Connecticut and Utah; and for “Best Doubles for Locations” — Arizona.

Below is the complete list of “best places for filmmaking” according to industry pros:

Top 5 North American Locations

1. California
2. New York
3. New Mexico
4. Chicago
5. Louisiana

Top 5 International Locations

1. Morocco
2. France
3. Prague
4. Spain
5. United Kingdom

Honorable Mentions

• Best Visual Appeal – Croatia, Hawaii, Panama
• Best Incentives – Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina
• Best Film-Office Support – Connecticut, Utah, Vancouver
• Best Production Resources – Sydney, Montreal, Toronto
• Best Doubles for Other Locations – Buenos Aires, Iceland, Arizona

Congratulations to all Reel-Scout clients who made this much-coveted list!

To read the entire article, please click here.

Charlotte, a Mini-Mecca for Film, TV & Video Production Industries

Reel-Scout has always been proud and happy to call Charlotte our home. We’ve built our companies here. We’ve raised our families here. We love most every nook and cranny of this city and there are too many other places we’d rather be.  But putting aside all the personal reasons why we love Charlotte, did you know that the Charlotte region is also the setting of blockbuster movies such as Shallow Hal, Nell, Days of Thunder, Talladega Nights: the Balad of Ricky Bobby, and The Color Purple?

In addition to major movie studios, Charlotte has also lured many small independent films and television productions to its door, among that list are America’s Got Talent, Biography Channel, Dawson’s Creek, ESPN, Food Network, HGTV, History Channel, and Travel Channel to name a few. Major television networks – CBS (WBTV), ABC (WSOC-TV), NBC (WCBC-TV), FOX (WCCB-TV), The CW (WJZY-TV), and PBS (WTVI) – have long established offices in Charlotte, and commercial production companies are even more enamored with our city. Hundreds if not thousands of commercials have been staged and produced in Charlotte by companies such as Garage Films, Getty Images, Big Fish Films, and O Magazine.

But best of all, according to the latest report by News 14 Carolina, Charlotte’s and North Carolina’s revenues have increased exponentially not only from partnering with the film industry, but especially from working with video production and distribution companies. Based on a study by UNCC Professor John Connaughton available from the Charlotte Regional Partnership, this niche industry alone has helped Charlotte’s economy grow leaps and bounds in 2008, bringing in approximately $470 million for the city and creating over 2,400 jobs for Charlotte and its neighboring counties.

Why Charlotte?

Being long-term residents of Charlotte ourselves, we are not surprised about all this. But if you don’t live here nor have had a chance to visit Charlotte, you’re probably wondering why this small, genteel, historic Southern city can be such a magnet to the film, video and television industries. The reasons are simple:

1. “Intriguing Split Personality” – Not only is Charlotte a beautiful city located in a world-renowned film-friendly state, it has an ”intriguing split personality” that nurtures both modern downtown skyscrapers alongside charming, tree-lined Victorian neighborhoods. Prevention Magazine declared Charlotte the best “Walking City” in North Carolina while Self Magazine named Charlotte one of “Five Cities with Big Outdoor Appeal.”
   
2. 25% Film Incentive – Starting January 1, 2010, productions spending over $250,000 in North Carolina will receive a 25% tax credit on in-state purchases for good and services – not to exceed a credit of $7.5M per project.
3. Accommodation Tax Refund – When staying in North Carolina, productions receive a refund and cessation of taxes on rental accommodations of 90 days or more.
4. Uniquely Talented Labor Force – Charlotte has been well known for its extremely talented pool of film and production professionals. For a list of Charlotte’s 2009 Film Production Directory, download here.

The folks at Reel-Scout are proud to call Charlotte home and have no doubt that Charlotte will continue to be a popular place for production of all kinds.  If you’re ever in town, come visit us and we will give you a personal tour so you can see for yourself what the big fuss is all about!

Reel-Scout Profiled in P3Update Magazine

P3Update Magazine recently features Reel-Scout in their October 2009 issue.

Here’s a quick recap:

Reel-Scout provides services for film offices and location scouts/managers. “For the film office, as a web-based, SaaS [Software as a Service] offering, Reel-Scout makes it easy for film offices to manage their locations, — and their contacts, projects and local crew as well — because they can do so from anywhere in the world,” says Ed Henegar, president of Reel-Scout. “Foundationally, Reel-Scout is a digital library and it allows film offices, very quickly, to send out customized location packages to the location scouts and managers they are working with on any given production. For the location scout/manager, Reel-Scout’s location packages require no add-in software, simply a browser. There are no images to download, so these location packages are easily accessible from anywhere the scout/manager is working.”

Reel-Scout is currently in the process of developing a national database of locations. “Given that we work with over 30 U.S. state film offices and another 20 or so city or regional offices, we have a good bit of the U.S. covered, especially given that a good number of our states are big ones, geographically speaking,” Henegar says.

Download a PDF snapshot of the article here.

SmarterStats® Traffic Reports

The following is a condensed description of commonly used reporting terminology. For more details, please visit the SmarterStats Help Guide.

7-Day Snapshot

SmarterStats default home page gives a snap-shot of the past 7 days activity:

• Views and Visits – The number of page views that have happened on a daily basis along with the number of visits.
• Bandwidth Usage (KB) – The total amount of bandwidth used per day.
• Top Pages – The top 10 pages that have been hit on your site in the last 7 days.
• Top Referrers – The top 10 sites that referred people to your site. It is not unusual to see your own domain near the top of the list.
• Search Engines – The top 5 search engines that referred people to your site.
• Top Search Phrases – The top 10 search phrases that referred people to your site.

Glossary of Terms Used

In alphabetical order:

• Page – The basic building blocks of any website. A website generally contains a collection of different pages that are accessible and viewable via a web browser. By default, SmarterStats considers the following extensions to be pages: .ASP, .ASPX, .CFC, .CFM, .CFMX, .CFML, .CGI, .HTM, .HTML, .IDA, .IDC, .JHTM, .JHTML, .JSP, .JWS, .MHT, .MHTML, .MV, .PHP, .PHP3, .PHTM, .PHTML, .PL, .SHTM, .SHTML, .STM, .WML, .XDL, .XHTML, .XML.
• Page Views – A page view is a successful request for a file on your web site that is considered to be a page. These usually mean files with extensions such as .TXT, .ASP, .ASPX, .PHP, etc. Views generated as a result of an error (either a 400 or 500 level error) are not counted as actual views for your site, and are kept separate from successful views.
• Phrase - A phrase shows the entire search string text used by web users to get to your site.
• Platform – Platform represents the operating system that the web site visitor is using. Some typical platforms are Windows 2003 Server, Windows XP, and Mac OSX.
• Rank – Rank indicates the position of the item when ordered
• Referrer Host – The Referrer Host represents the web site from which visitors to your site came from. A value of “No Referrer” represents a visitor typing your web site directly into the browser, using a bookmark, or following a link from an email client.

• Referrer URL – The Referrer URL represents the exact web page from which visitors to your site came from. A value of “No Referrer” represents a visitor typing your web site directly into the browser, using a bookmark, or following a link from an email client.
• Result Code – Result codes are returned by your web server, and indicate whether or not resources were successfully downloaded from your web site. Large numbers of 404 errors, for example, may indicate a problem with your web site links.
• Return Visitors – A return visit is counted when a computer that has already been to the site before returns for another visit.
• Return Visits – Return visits represent the times when previous visitors come back to the site again. A high percentage of return visits to total visits indicates that your web site is holding visitors’ attention.
• Search Engine – A search engine is a website whose primary function is providing a search engine for gathering and reporting information available on the Internet or a portion of the Internet
• Spider – A spider is an automated program that searches and indexes web sites, usually with the intent of providing information for search engines.
• Unique Visitors – A unique visitor represents any number of visits from the same computer. If a person returns to the site again, a visit is counted, but a unique visit is not.
• User Agent – The User Agent string is sent by browsers to identify themselves, the operating system they are running on, and installed browser extensions. There are countless varieties of user agent strings.
• Visit Length – The number of seconds that a visit lasts. On reports dealing with visit length, the average visit length is calculated and shown for all visits. Visits length assumes that the visitor stays several seconds after their last hit.
• Visits – Visits represent the total number of times people have visited your web site. A visit is counted whenever a web site user requests one or more files from the web server. If the user becomes idle for more than a certain amount of time (usually 20 minutes), a new visit is generated when they come back.
• Web Site Path (Path) – When a visitor moves from page to page within a site, they follow, or generate, a specific path for their movement. For example, a visitor enters your site via the Default.html page, clicks on a link to Product.html, then proceeds to Order.html, and they finally leave via Thank_you.html. Therefore, the path for this visit would look like: default.html/product.html/order.html/thank_you.html.

Dallas Film Commission Chooses Reel-Scout™

The Dallas Film Commission has chosen Reel-Scout™ as its location and project management solution. For the Dallas Film Office, Reel-Scout™ will provide a digital library, a contact and project management system, and its newly-released crew module. The Reel-Scout™ functionality will allow the office to refine current practices, to respond quickly to inquiries, and to replace an outdated crew management database.

Offer Locations Submission On-Line to the Public

We now have a new module for Reel-Scout that allows the public (homeowners, brokers, etc.) to submit location information and photos on-line from your film office website.  The module will be configure to your film office branding and from the link anyone can upload directly into your Reel-Scout™ system – no password or login required.  Once submitted and the location will in real-time display in your Reel-Scout™ system as “unapproved.”  You then have the choice of approving them (or not).  A few items worth noting:

• Only a limited set of fields are available for the public to enter values (e.g., site condition, ownership, category fields are not available) to allow for ease of entry and standardization by the film office.
• So that users are not indiscriminately uploading 100s of photos to your system, a maximum of 10 images are allowed for each location.  Also, a filesize cap of 1.00MB per file is enabled.  If you want to increase that per file limit, let us know.
• We are enforcing Captcha to ensure that there are no Internet predators, bots, or spam entering bogus locations to your system.
• “Contact Name” data is captured and will be appended to the General Notes field once submitted by the public user.
• Once a location record is submitted with photos, you’ll see a green plus sign next to the record to indicate that it’s a newly submitted location to Reel-Scout.  The location will need to be reviewed and approved to be made available in your public library but no conversion or re-uploading is required.

To see first hand how this module works, click here.  If you are interested in this module, please contact Ed Henegar at ed@reel-scout.com.

Minnesota Film & TV Board Selects Reel-Scout™

The Minnesota Film & TV Board has selected Reel-Scout™ as its location and project management solution. In doing so, the film office becomes the 34th state film office to choose Reel-Scout™.

For the Minnesota Film & TV Board, Reel-Scout™ will provide a digital library and a contact and project management system. The Reel-Scout™ functionality will allow the office to refine current practices and to respond quickly to inquiries.

Public Locations Search vs. Internal Locations Search

Did you know that the public locations search functionality and the internal locations search functionality are different?  As public, visitors can only select one category/subcategory combination to search at a time.  When the public visitor selects a main category, the relevant subcategories appear.  In addition,  [general] and “all” options appear with each category.  If [general] is selected, then the only the locations that were identified as [general] are returned.  When “all” is selected, then ALL locations (including those identified as [general] and any other subcategory) are returned.

On the internal search in Reel-Scout, the staff user has much more flexibility.  The internal search allows for multiple category/subcategory combinations to be selected, either by holding the SHIFT key or the CTRL key and clicking multiple values.  Therefore, having an “all” search within the internal search would be redundant.  Searching “all” subcategories in a category is achieved by simply holding the SHIFT key and selecting all the subcategory values.  The “all” search value would not work in this multi-valued selection box because if a staff user selects “all” and a related “subcategory” the system would not know how to return the records — ALL records or just the subcategory selected?  We hope that you find the multiple category combination searching functionality available to you on the internal search valuable.  We believe it provides the greatest flexibility for both searching on just [general] only as well as selecting all subcategories within a category.  Happy searching!

Alaska Film Office Chooses Reel-Scout™

The Alaska Film Office, desiring to capture the interest in Alaska generated by the state’s new film-incentive program, has chosen Reel-Scout™ as its location and project management solution. In doing so, the film office becomes the 33rd state film office to choose Reel-Scout™.

For the Alaska Film Office Reel-Scout™ will provide a digital library, a contact and project management system, and its newly-released crew module. The Reel-Scout™ functionality will allow the office to refine current practices, to respond quickly to inquiries, and to replace an outdated crew management database.