What Does a Film Commissioner Do?

Welcome back to the Bulwark Coast of Hollywood. My name is Sunny I’m Culture Editor at the Bulwark. And I’m very pleased to be joined today by Tony Armor. Now Tony is the film commissioner, he is the Commissioner of the Dallas film and Creative Industries, unit here in Dallas, and I’m I’m as a Dallas resident as somebody who lives in Dallas. I’m very excited to get him on the show to talk about, you know, how cities and states get film productions to, you know, leave the cozy confines of, you know, California or New York and and head out into the rest of the country to shoot stuff.

So, Tony, thanks for being on the show today. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. No. Thank you for having me on. And you can just say film commissioner, Dallas film commission. That whole Dallas Creative industry’s thing is very confusing, and we’re going back to making it simple Dallas film commission.

Just the Dallas film commission. Alright. So let’s let’s introduce folks to you because you have a you have an interesting background here how you got into, the the world, the film, and, you know, the the the film commission side of things. So before before you started any of this, what were you doing?

Yeah. Well, it depends how far back we wanna Right? So, you know, I grew up in Toledo, Ohio, and then moving away from Toledo in the mid nineties moved to Florida. But growing up as a kid, I always loved movies. And like any kid growing up in the eighties, it was all of the amazing films that were in the eighties.

Raiders lost star and any of the Star Wars films and back to the future and that kind of stuff, just instilled a real passion for the industry. And then, you know, my dad always was watching old John Wayne movies and spaghetti westerns. And so I was watching, you know, black and white films and stuff back to the forties and the thirties and just loved all of it no matter the era or the decade that really just kinda got into it. So I always wanted to be in the industry, but you don’t ever think you can actually do that when you’re grown up in Toledo, Ohio, basically. And, you know, what really kind of, you know, got me kinda going was I took a filmmaking class in high school.

And at that time, we were shooting on super eight. So we just had this high school English teacher who loved movies and so taught as an elective this eight millimeter, you know, little film class. And I had stuff you learned there about shots and shot selection and stuff as a high school kid carried over into into being an adult. It was just so much fun and you get the bug at that point. And then you quit for a really long time.

And and for for the nine in the 90s, I was actually a district manager for a retail company called Afletic attic. So, you know, Rhine’s shoes and just, you know, tennis shoes and athletic apparel, that kind of thing, like a foot locker kind of place. And I had six stores in Florida, six stores in New Orleans. That company was bought by a bigger company called just for feet, and then just for feet ends up getting in some tax trouble with the IRS, and they filed bankruptcy. And they shut this whole thing down that, you know, athletic had been in business for thirty plus years and they did it.

And so I get the severance package in, like, two thousand And I’m like, oh, no. No. What am I gonna do? You know? And at that point, it was really decided.

Okay. If I ever really wanna try this film thing now is the time to do it. I was like, you know, thirty years old at the time or something like that. And you know, went back and was finishing my bachelor’s at the time as well. And then just said, alright, let’s figure it out.

Yeah. Alright. And then so you go to, you you actually made a film. Right? You actually, you you made a, a feature

Yeah. So, you know, so from, you know, from there, I use, you know, part of my severance package money and stuff, and I bought a really nice camera at the time of the Canon XO one mini camera, which was the top of the line and it looked super impressive because they had this huge lens on it, and it was a great camera body and everything. And so I got this really nice camera. I don’t know the hell I’m doing with it or how to really, you know, maximize using it. But, sir, figuring out what the first version of premier editing software at the time, like, premier one point o, essentially, and started shooting short films with friends and making commercials for Spanish language grocery stores, and I don’t speak Spanish.

And you’re still doing whatever I can do. And then at one point, you know, I said to a couple of friends. It’s like, why are we making these short phones? Let’s just make a feature. Doesn’t matter if we don’t we don’t have any money.

You know, I don’t have any money. But let’s just make a feature anyways. And at the time, company that I was part of that I was a part owner of was called surgical videos. And so my job was to film surgeries in personal injury cases for attorneys based like the attorneys would hire me at going to the operating room, film these surgeries. And so that’s what was paying the bills.

And so those are getting paid. That was going really well. And I was working, you know, from home and it gave me the ability to them. Okay. If we wanna make this movie, let’s just do it.

And so we did pre production Monday through Friday, shot weekends only over the course of probably four months. We also shot through four hurricanes. At the time. I think this was, you know, two thousand three or two thousand four when there were four back to back hurricanes that came through came through Florida, basically. And it worked out fine because, you know, there was like a rain scene.

So I was like, alright, wrap the garbage bedroom on camera, actors out in the rain. Let’s go. And, you know, you just you just did it. Our budget was six thousand dollars, and most of that went towards catering, you know, you get a bunch of stuff for free. You write your script around what do you you gonna be able to get for free.

And we just made this thing and ended up being, you know, sixteen shooting days or something like that, you know, sat down with, Derek Minor, who was, you know, a friend of mine at the time, we sat down. We, you know, went back and forth editing this thing. You know, I’m up till two in the morning editing, then he’s the next day up till two in the morning editing. And how many months it took us. We got this thing done.

And when it was done, it was terrible. You know, but at the same time, it was so much fun. You had such a great time making it and learn so much. As soon as we were done shooting it, we were like, oh, that was film school. If we could do the whole movie over again and start start over again, we know it would be better.

But and then after that, it was really like, Oh, I made a feature film and didn’t read not realizing it’s really hard to make a feature film and not everybody does it or can do it. And so people started saying, Hey, will you help me produce my film? Will you, come on board and do this project with me, whether it’s shorts and features? And then really from that film, You know, I didn’t wanna move to LA. I just bought a townhouse, had a girlfriend and a dog.

I guess I was like, I don’t wanna move to LA. Everybody was asking, when you move in LA? When you move in LA? I I didn’t want to. And so, again, said to my friend, Derek, I said, Hey, you wanna start a film festival.

And he was like, okay. Sure. I was like, again, we don’t wanna wait a year. Let’s let’s do it in six months. Let’s just plan this thing.

And my background, very entrepreneurial, running businesses, you know, as a district manager for, you know, six years. And so I’m managing a hundred fifty people and twelve locations and millions of dollars in business. So I had a background running business as I was organized. I knew how to get stuff done. And it was really that background in business that enabled me to then produce, because producing is managing, and then start this film festival as I just took the same approach to running any business, you’d be organized and write budgets and put things together.

And so we created the sunscreen film festival founded it and two thousand five had the first festival in two thousand six. And then here we are. Nineteen years later, we have our nineteenth annual festival coming up at the, the end of April in Saint Pete, Florida.

Yeah. Alright. And then from there, you you get into the the film commission business, the film commission, you know, side of things. So how how did that happen? How did you how did you kinda move over into into that after starting the film festival and making some contacts.

Yeah. So, you know, our our first festival, like I said, was two thousand six inch And when, you know, when you start doing that, we were the first film festival in the Tampa area. There was, like, the Tampa gay and lesbian and, like, Tampa Jewish film festival had been around for a long time, but there was no just film festival that wasn’t like a non niche film festival in the entire Tampa area. So we’re the first one. And so people are like, oh my god, we have a film festival now, and we did that first one And it was just a weekend, and it was sold out audiences, scanning room only in this large gallery.

And then it just started to grow and grow and grow, and people started flying into town. Our third year at Jonathan Last at the film festival, people were like, how the hell did you get John travolta to show up for your little third year film festival in Florida? And we just started gaining this note ID. And because of that, then I started getting really well known in the community and working with other people and working on my own projects, whether they’re shorts or documentaries or whatever else. And so I get to be known within the community and everybody, you know, like that, Dallas is very similar in that It’s a big market, but when you talk about the film community, it’s it’s not that big, like kind of everybody knows everybody sort of thing.

So everybody knew me. You know, I’m doing I’m doing my thing. And people were calling me for stuff anyways that they would normally call the film commission for. Hey, I need this location for something that I’m shooting. I’d be like, oh, you know, you need to talk to you need to talk to so and so.

And, you know, just being embedded like that, I called the film commissioner’s office in, I don’t know, January of twenty fourteen or something and was basically I don’t even remember what I called her office for. She said, hey, I’m retiring in March, by the way. And I just jokingly said, what do I have to do to get your job? And she said, well, if you apply, you would probably be the one to get it. I was like, alright.

That sounds that sounds pretty good, you know. Cause be, you know, my what I’ve done for a career was my surgical videos company had my own company that I founded in two thousand two, but you’re freelance. Right? Like you’re hustling. You know, I worked Right.

I worked for myself for fourteen years basically. And so you’re just constantly hustle for that next job, that next job, that next job. And the idea of like, oh, man, I get a paycheck every two weeks. And I I I get insurance and all that other fun stuff. This this sounds amazing.

And so I applied for the job And, and I got it. And I put, you know, I was well prepared. I put together a PowerPoint. This is what I would do with the position. This is what I think, you know, should happen.

Which is the same thing I did in Dallas, before I got this job. And, and I I got hired, started in, in June of twenty fourteen. And then, you know, did that for, almost, almost nine years.

And, alright. So then you you come over over here to Dallas. What what was it that made you wanna jump, from Florida to Texas? I mean, it’s, you know, it’s not a not a big distance geographic quickly, but it is, you know, there’s a cultural cultural change there.

It’s Yeah. It’s honestly, it there’s not that much of a cultural change,

frankly. Yeah. No.

Or in Texas is pretty similar when it comes to a lot of it when it a lot of things. We got amazing. We got amazing beaches and great weather in Florida. And what I’ve discovered for a big part of the area trapping weather in Dallas. So, you know, that was the biggest that was the biggest change for me.

But really what it was, I I wasn’t interested in leaving the, my, my office there. I love my job. And I was, you know, I’ve lived in Clearwater for twenty eight years at home there. Build a life, friends, family, and everything there, wasn’t interested in in leaving at all. And Dallas was doing a national search and they had a a national search firm that was looking for a new film commissioner because the Dallas film commissioner retired.

So I guess, let’s find the next film commissioner that’s retiring, you know, somewhere. And and so they’re doing a national search because, the Dallas film commissioner retired, And really, I was I was recommended to the search firm by someone else. And they said, you really need to talk to Tony Armor. It was, I believe, it was, Katie Pryder who’s the Baton Rouge film commissioner. They’re like, you need, you need to talk to Tony.

And so talk to the search firm, and they were like, yeah, you’re interested. And I’m like, I’m always interested in looking at opportunities. I think one of my flaws is I rarely say no. I always wanna say yes. And make things happen, whatever whatever that is in business and all that, you know, I’m just, like, I’m excited to do stuff.

And, and, and I work a lot, but I enjoy it. And so I, you know, put resume together sent the resume off because I had an updated resume in a long time because I didn’t need to. I had a job. Like, yeah, sure. You know, we’ll just have a conversation.

Send it off at those, you know, initial prescreenings with the search firm, then they set up a, you know, a Zoom interview with with Dallas here, went through that whole process. And they wanted to, fly me to Dallas for an interview. And I was like, nah, that’s alright. It’s like, I’m not gonna take the job. So I don’t want you to waste your money, fly me in, and put me in a hotel and things like that.

I was like, you know, I know, I I wouldn’t feel right. Having to do that and me say no. And they’re like, okay. We appreciate that, but why don’t you just come to Dallas anyways. Just let us bring in and let’s just just come to Dallas.

And I was like, alright. Sure. If that’s what you want, you know. And even though and, like, at the time, it wasn’t something that I wanted to do, My personnel and being the way it is, I’m not gonna go into something unprepared. But I put together a seventeen page PowerPoint presentation for a strategic plan for the Dallas film commission said, this is what you should do.

Whether you hire me or not, I think this is a plan for the Dallas film commission, what you can do to move forward if that’s a strategic plan. And, they really liked it. And I was I was barely back from the airport from my from my trip, and they offered me a job. And I was like, oh, wow. Now I got a decision to make.

And looking at Dallas, one of the things that I looked at here was obviously a big market. Right? And there’s a lot happening here, and it’s really continuing to grow. But there was nothing. I didn’t see anything happening in the industry.

I was like, why isn’t Dallas Atlanta. Why isn’t it bigger than Albuquerque, New Mexico? Why isn’t it as big as some, you know, New Orleans, Louisiana Yes. Stateville incentives have a a big factor in that. You have to have that.

But this is Dallas. Right? Like the outside impression that I had of Dallas is doubts. You know, when I would travel in and I would be at the Canne film festival somewhere Ron DeSantis someone, you know, where where are you from? And I was like, oh, commissioner for St.

P. Clearwater. Like, where where is that? They’re like, I know Orlando and Miami. Like, oh, it’s on the Gulf of Mexico side.

They have Bay Area, and you have to explain it. When you say Dallas, people are like, oh, Dallas. Like, it’s a globally recognized brand name of the city. Right? Even though it’s so much bigger than that, you know, there’s so much more to Dallas than just the city of Dallas.

It is encompasses the entire area. And so to me, I’m like, why isn’t this more. There’s an opportunity to really build something here. And I felt like I had maxed out in Florida. There’s no there’s no more that I could do with that office.

State of Florida did not have a film incentive and is never gonna have a film incentive again in my prediction. It could be twenty, thirty years before that potentially happened. And all the infrastructure has really disappeared because of that. And so, you know, I developed a great local incentive program, I was doing a lot of things. I had eighteen feature films shooting twenty twenty two.

And those were all, you know, Hall Martail films, lifetime channel small films, indie films, which is great. I love that. That’s my background. I, you know, have great relationships in that. But what what more can I do?

Is this an opportunity to work with, the Warner Brothers, the Sony, the Lions Gates, the studios, Netflix, and work with bigger budget productions and really, you know, maximize an area. So what I saw in Dallas was opportunity. It seemed underdeveloped and it was a huge opportunity to grow this market locally and then grow personally myself in the industry as well. And that’s That’s the that’s wide.

Yeah. No. I mean, that’s the that’s everyone’s goal. Right? I wanna I wanna make your business bigger.

I wanna make my my, you know, career yet or that works for everyone. Alright. So let’s let’s talk about the actual job of a film commissioner. Right? Let’s talk about, like, the the the the component pieces of what you do.

Because from from the outside looking in, when I when I think film commissioner, I think two big things. The first is attracting the, the productions to come in the first place. And we can talk about incentives and the different structures of all those and how different states do it in a second. I I would love to talk about that. I wanna I wanna I I find it really in interesting because I’m a nerd.

But the, but the other part of it is once they get here, you know, helping helping the productions actually do the do the production, helping them find the right locations, helping them find the right staff and and team to make to make the movie, you know, from local local guys who are who are around. So let’s let’s tackle that second part first. So when you when you You have somebody who’s like, alright. We’re coming we’re coming to Dallas. We’re gonna make the movie here.

But we need a we need, a gaffer. We need somebody who can shoot this picture. How does that work? Like, how do you coordinate with them to to help make that happen?

Yeah. That’s you know, a lot of that is actually the fairly easy part of the job. You know, once somebody is committed to coming and they’re coming, and then you’re helping them with the logistics, whether it’s locations, crew, whatever it is, like, To me, that’s that’s the easy part. One, we have a low we have a crew and location database on the website. It’s like, oh, you need a gaffer.

You literally go to the website, search gaffer and here’s a list of the gaffers in the in the Dallas area. Right? And that’s anybody can add their information to that. So if you are working locally, and you wanna have it add yourself to the crew database, go to the website, add yourself to the database. We get an email that says so and so has added their information.

We look at it, make sure you’re a legitimate human being, and then, you know, click yes, and then boom, you’re in the database. And so what we do, because we try not to we we don’t give any preferential treatment to any you know, one individual or company or anything like that. So we’ll say, hey, here’s database with a lot of different people. Here are some great location managers, line producers, people you can talk to that know the local market. We always always try and say, I did this in Florida, and this is what I do here is, like, work with a local production company, work with a local producer who knows the talent, who knows everybody who can make it easier for you.

And that is our job to a certain extent, but They also need that person that’s gonna be on the production, who that’s their job as well. Right? And so, you know, we’re just sharing that information at that point, like, here’s some information. When it when it comes to locations, you know, that can be a little bit different. That is and that’s one knowledge gap that I have is being new to Dallas.

I don’t know the location like like I did in Florida. Like in Florida, somebody would say something, I’d be like, oh, you know what? There’s this great little park that the back corner in the park has this particular look to it that you could do this, this, and this in. I’m still learning that in Dallas. And so I’m leaning on, you know, the people that worked for me in my office previously.

It was Andrew, who was there, who left to go to Austin film Commission, and now Austin who’s there who are from the market and can help with that kind of thing. But then we have a, you know, location database on the website where you can search locations. And as I’m here, I’m building relationships with different people and learning about the different locations that are around and, you know, what the resources that they have to offer and, you know, what can be shot at different areas. And being a producer and a director and filmmaker myself, I have different approach, I think, than a lot of other film commissioners because I look at things from a production perspective, like, how would I shoot this, or what is necessary to be able to shoot this particular thing. And so I try to lean on my background as a filmmaker to be able to help with, when it comes to locations and crew and sort of the logistical side of stuff well.

Yeah. Alright. So let’s let’s talk about the the money side of things because obviously, you know, this is any production is looking to save money. However, they can Yep. They can save money.

And that is what you know, the the the film subsidies that states and and cities, and other locales bandy about are about. It’s like, hey, come here. You can you can save x amount money, you know, whatever. So how does alright. First part is how does Dallas’s or how does Texas’s film credit system work.

Yep. And then how does that compare to the rest of the country? I I because I think these are two important things that people need to understand for how these different systems work.

Yeah. So I’ll give a little little bit of background, a little bit of explanation, lead into that and kinda talk about it. So there close to forty states in the US that have some sort of film incentive program. And you can actually go to entertainment partners, which is just e p dot com, cast and crew wrap book. These are resources where they’ll have a map of the US.

You can click on the state and it tells you exactly what the incentives are for those states, and they keep a database running of that so that industry people can find that information. And as far as film commissions go from state down to regional level, we rely on those incentives to attract productions. There are three reasons any production comes to an area. It’s incentives first, crew second, sound stages, third. Incentives, of course, that’s obvious.

You’re getting free money for your production. So wherever you’re gonna get the most money, it makes the most sense. Crew, you wanna have crew that is a good talented crew base that you can hire because you don’t wanna have to fly ring because that really negates your incentive if you have to fly seventy five people in and then paid for airfare and hotel and redeem and all that kind of stuff you want your crew to live locally. And then sound safe. Stage is really more more so for larger projects.

Anything TV series wise, anything, you know, seven million or more film wise, you know, you’re gonna be shooting on stages. Smaller independent films, you know, shoot primarily on location. Which is when they’re where that location aspect comes in where you’re really trying to find location. But any anything you see in a film and television that is an interior set for the most part always on a stage just because it’s easier to manage and and easier to do. So those are the three things they look at with incentives being number one.

So how does Texas stack up It’s it’s better than, say, Florida that has no incentive, but it’s not as good as it could be. So, for example, the way tax incentives in general work and the way taxes incentives work. So there’s a variety. There’s tax credits, and then there’s cash rebates. So a tax credit, for example, state of Georgia, if you are a business in the state of Georgia, you owe business every year.

Right? And by giving tax credits to a, say, say, a film production, what that film production does, is they sell that tax credit to a business that then reduces their taxes. Give me a little complex, but you get a million dollar tax credit You’ve got some business that owes a couple million dollars in taxes. They’re gonna give you nine hundred thousand dollars or eight hundred thousand dollars for your tax credit instead of that million. And then they’ve just saved a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand dollars on their business taxes.

So that’s kind of how that that’s a super simple wide explanation. About how a tax credit works. What filmmakers want and what Texas has that is positive is a cash rebate. You shoot. We do an audit that shows how much you spend.

You get your money. We just send you a check. In the tax credit, process. You have to sell the tax credit to somebody else. Right.

You’re taking a discount on it and so on and so forth. But cash rebates say to Texas, you shoot. Boom. Here’s a check. That also makes it easier for investors because the first thing an investor wants to see is what’s your tax credit, what’s your cash rebate, because that’s where they know they’re gonna start getting their money back.

Right away. So Texas is great from that perspective of it being a cash rebate. Texas is twenty percent for anything three point five million dollars or more that is an in state spend. So anything is spent in the state. If you’re hiring an actor from LA, New York, Florida, anywhere else, they do not count towards that three point five million dollar spend.

If you’re below three point five, if you’re between one and three point five, it’s ten percent. If you’re below a million, it’s five percent. And there is an additional two and a half percent bump that you can get if you are shooting in an under developed area. So if you’re not in a city, you know, like Dallas, or if you’re in a certain region of Dallas, there is a region of Dallas that does qualify. So, for example, where south side studios is in South Dallas, that falls into an underdeveloped zone.

So if you shoot at that studio, you can get seven and a half, twelve and a half, or twenty two and a half percent. That twenty two and a half percent is actually pretty competitive because you start looking at a state like a Georgia or whatever that’s twenty five, thirty percent. But then you gotta sell that tax credit and start chopping it up a little bit. It ends up being much smaller and then a cash rebate makes a difference. So that’s what Texas has.

And it’s okay. The problem is it doesn’t incentivize above the line. When I say above the line, you’d look at a budget on a on a on a film project above the line is director, producers, actors below the line is Gaffer’s grips catering, construction, drivers, all that kind of stuff, basically. And so there’s a line of demarcation. Right?

And so if your director, your actors are coming in from out of town, you don’t get any money back for them. Others states, you do, Ohio, you do Louisie, I need to do. George, everybody else basically says, yes, you can get money back just for the overall budget of the spend. Doesn’t matter if they’re Texas residents and businesses in Texas or not. And so so that limits production’s coming here.

So production is looking at me like, not gonna get as much money, so I’m gonna go somewhere else. Right.

That’s interesting because I it that that’s a that’s an interesting demarcation because I had always kind of assumed that for instance, there was a story going around about, Kevin Cossner’s new movie, Horizon. The he’s making these two westerns, and there was, some some ninety million dollars that was spent in Utah or something. And I assumed that that was debt did not include salaries and that sort of thing, but I guess maybe it it does.

It does. And usually what they’ll do is they’ll put a cap like, how much, you know, you could spend, like, on a on an actor or something like that. Cause if you have an actor who’s getting, like, a twenty million dollar payday, you know, they don’t want thirty percent of that to be paid by a state incentive. So they’ll put a cap on it and say, okay, there’s a million dollar cap on Okay. After whatever it might be.

And so so, yeah, that’s why, you know, that’s why that’s shooting in Utah instead of Texas or something like that because you are getting, you know, the above line talent you know, credit. My my one major complaint with the Texas incentive, and I’m not afraid to say this publicly said it. And I’ll continue I’ll continue to say it because I wanted to change is that it’s not the same across the board. Every other state’s the same across the board. It’s twenty five percent.

You can bump up to thirty whatever it is. Texas is at five, ten, twenty. It should be twenty. No matter if you’re a two hundred fifty thousand dollar project, a two hundred and fifty million dollar project. Make it twenty across the board.

And here’s why that’s important. I’ve turned away at least a dozen films from coming to shoot in Dallas because they would only get ten percent. It doesn’t make a difference on their budget. They need something more. What having those smaller films does, whether it’s a five hundred thousand dollar film or a two million dollar film, is it builds your industry You are training, young, and new crew and talent on how to work on a production, but then they can work on those bigger productions when they come to town.

You’re developing a local industry and you’re giving, you know, Texas filmmakers, Dallas filmmakers that opportunity to hone their craft and learn their skills and and make films. And this does not incentivize that at all. It does not help build an industry. And the reason that they have that scaled kind of thing is the state of Texas is the one who does the audit on all the paperwork to make sure you spend what you spend and say you’re gonna you’re gonna do. And it’s the same work to do a two million dollar film as a twenty million dollar film.

So so they don’t. You know, maybe they don’t have the manpower. You know, but there’s an easy way to fix that problem. Most other states require a third party audio or you just the production has to pay another accountant that’s approved by the state to through the audio. And then you don’t have to worry about the states manpower.

So and it’s not written into law that this has to be five ten twenty. That is just the policy that they have. They can change that anytime they want they want to change that. So that’s why I’m vocal about saying it should be changed. It should be twenty percent.

Across the board. I know, you know, it’s like, well, this is about jobs. You get more jobs from a twenty million dollar project. Well, how many jobs have come from these dozen two million dollar projects that I’ve turned away that not shooting at all. You know?

You’re you’re gonna get more people working even on smaller projects than say one big project. So that’s that’s what I wanna see happens. It changed to the same percentage across the board, and you’ll see a lot more production coming to the area. And you’ll see a lot more coming to Dallas because I can bring those in all long and I have those relationships. Soon as I took the job, people were calling me and saying, Hey, you’re in Dallas now.

I wanna come shoot there. What do you what works for me to do?

Yeah. Well, that’s alright. So let let me let me pull back slightly, and, and look at the how the process of what gets approved works because my my understanding, is that Texas has a two hundred million dollar pod. Is that right? Basically?

Yeah.

So, yeah, so there’s So what the what the state does is every two years during legislative session, the program exists. They just have to allocate funding to it. And so this past session, They voted to put two hundred million dollars into that bucket. And then the entire industry went on strike. But there are still some productions that are shooting now, obviously, table share in is shooting a lot of stuff, and we can all thank him for basically getting the two hundred million dollars because he’s the really big reason why, you know, that, that funding has come to, come to Texas.

Alright. Alright. So there’s the two hundred million dollars, and then that gets divvied up by the state. But how when you say when you say, you know, I’ve had to I’ve had to turn smaller productions because they’ll only get ten percent. Who makes the call on which productions get the incentive and which don’t.

I what what’s that what’s that process?

That is the that is the state of Texas film office in Austin. And on their website, they have basically a an inquiry form. Hey, I’m interested in applying for the incentive. Fill out form with a little bit of info. It’s a short little thing.

Send it off. They will reply back and say, Yes. This looks like a project that we would give money to. You should definitely apply. And then they work with that production and get them the application.

Or they would say, no, don’t bother. No one has told me that, you know, that they’ve said, no, don’t bother. But I believe, you know, the reason that they do that is so that they have the ability to turn away something if they want to. I think that is, a legislative thing of protection that, you know, politicians wanted so that if something really bad wants to shoot Texas, they can say no. What have this in the note to?

I don’t know. I heard I’ve heard that they turned down getting money to Robert Rodriguez Machete at one point. That’s just, I don’t know if that’s a rumor or confirmed, but that’s what I was told. So they want the ability to say no, but from what I understand, they haven’t said no a lot, if that makes any sense.

No. That that makes sense. And but this this leads to a second question. And this is more of a politics question than a policy question, I guess. But what do they what are they do they want to say no to, movies that they think will make Texas look bad?

I mean, I, like, I I just look at this from a, you know, a a general first amendment sort of thing where I know the Supreme Court gets very touchy once you start saying, Well, you can do this and you can’t do this and we’re we’re judging this based on content. How does that is is that what the the worry is or is it something else? No.

It doesn’t I mean, clearly. It’s I can say that at all. But I think but I think that is probably, again, I’m not speaking for them, but that is probably part of Right? Like, they can look at, like, yeah, this is gonna make us look bad. Let’s find a way to say, no.

So, you know, I I mean, there are clear things, like, obviously no porn shoot is gonna rush for a tax incentive in the in the state of Texas. Not that they do anywhere else. I don’t think I don’t think those projects get incentives anyways. But, again, I think it’s just they want the ability to say no, what the criteria is. I think that’s mysterious.

So that they, so that they don’t have to explain themselves.

There’s so there’s some plausible deniability built in is the

I believe so. Yes. But there’s, I mean, you think there’s been a lot of stuff. You know, we had two seasons of Queen of the South, which is, you know, you know, drugs and guns and, you know, that kind of stuff shot in Dallas a couple years ago. So clearly, it’s not, you know, they’re not trying to be they’re not trying to be content police and say, you can’t film this year because we disagree with your content.

I think it’s still very broad and very wide open. And if it if it does prove that it has gonna have a good economic impact, on the state, then yes, it will be, it will be approved.

Yeah. Okay. So let’s let’s talk about actually shooting in Dallas because you know, we one of the things, you mentioned was Southside studios here in Dallas, which, I believe is under being renovated right now is is gonna be ready for folks to come shoot at soon. What’s what’s what’s going on there?

Yeah. So September, we are hopeful for September. Construction will start as soon as permitting is done, but, the city of Dallas permitting is notoriously slow, apparently. And I think it was like November, December, they applied, you know, they got all the permitting stuff ready to go and still not ready yet. I think by the time it’s all said and done, the permitting may take equal to or almost longer than it actually takes to do the construction.

So,

yeah, always fun.

Thanks. Thank you, government. But once that is done, it’s gonna be a a top notch facility. Right now, for the past, fifteen years or so. It’s old dirty warehouse space and it’s been used as sound stages because it’s really the only large open space that could be used as that in Dallas, sixty five thousand square feet, you know, tall ceilings, lots of space.

And so a lot of productions have shot there in the Dallas TV series reboot. You know, there have been few things. I mentioned the two seasons going to the south, cruel summer, I think, did a season there. So a lot of stuff is out there over the years, but it’s been sporadic. It’s by train tracks.

It’s by a noisy road. It’s not soundproof. You know, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, buildings are getting new roofs. It’s gonna be soundproofed up to, you know, soundstage, caliber soundproofing, then it needs to have its, you know, electrical grids, new green rooms and offices, a brand new LED wall for, you know, being able to do, you know, virtual production kind of stuff.

So it’s gonna be a top notch facility once it’s complete. Ron DeSantis construction can get started. So, you know, we’re looking at again that five or six months after construction time frame. So really excited because that’s gonna be a crown jewel of bringing production to Dallas. Incentives.

Great. You got the state incentives. Oh, now you’ve got this top notch soundstage facility as well. A mile from downtown where you’ve got all the hotels where people will you’ll be able to put up, you know, cast and crew and stuff. So it really is a perfect perfect location and a perfect situation to, to build that out.

And Dallas does have a pretty decent, commercial production organization. Right? I mean, lots of lots of people are shooting commercials in here, pretty regularly.

Yeah. I know, actually Lots of crew. Dallas is spectacular when it comes to the commercial industry. There’s a lot of national, regional, anything commercial we’re not talking about just broadcast television. You know, it’s any kind of digital media, all that, anything that’s shot like that.

So it’s it’s a very strong business. There’s a lot of people that are employed here because of that, and that’s what keeps the crew employed and strong in the in the DFW market. It was actually very similar in Florida, even though Florida didn’t have the state incentive We have a really strong commercial production industry there because the weather’s great. And so you can shoot rear round year round, and you’d have productions coming in from all over the country to shoot Florida in the winter months and March and everything else. So it’s always, you know, Dallas and Florida very similar from that respect in that commercial that commercial market.

So that really does strengthen the crew base here, and you do have a lot of resources because of that, whether it’s, you know, grip and electric, companies or a vision that’s based here in Dallas. There’s there’s an amazing, you know, visual effects and post production and video game industry in Dallas that didn’t know existed before I got here. And it’s really it’s it really is a great strong area with amazing, amazingly talented people.

We met, a couple days ago at a nice little media round table and this is this is how this all came together. And one of the things you talked about that I was I was shocked by. I knew I knew that this existed and and was filmed around here, but I did not realize how big it was, is the chosen

Yeah.

Which is, filmed outside of Dallas kind of in the surrounding environments the the biblical epic slash TV show. What is the impact of that? Not just on the film industry in Dallas itself, but in in for every surrounding business around it, because I I find this find this fast it’s a huge production. Lots of people, tons of fans. You know, people are coming to work as extras for free.

It’s it’s a fascinating thing. How has that impacted the, the Dallas region?

Yeah. To me, that is an untold secret in the production industry in Dallas. So the chosen, like you mentioned, biblical, epic taking place in Jesus’ time with Jesus in the show, obviously, but doesn’t center on him a hundred percent of the time, you know, other characters and everything and a high production value. And it’s, you know, obviously a faith based production. And hundreds of countries around the world, hundreds of millions of people watching this show, and it’s shot thirty miles outside of Dallas.

And to me, that story has not been told yet. And I’m working to try and get an economic impact study done on just this show. Because as I have said during that roundtable, you know, for example, they did a feeding of the five thousand episode. Twelve thousand five hundred extras for this single episode that they did. And those people paid to be on the show, paid for their own travel to Dallas, paid for their own hotel rooms, their own food, they sold out every hotel in a twenty five mile radius.

And so clearly not everybody staying in Midlothian. So where they’re staying? They’re staying they’re staying in Dallas. They’re when they’re done filming, where are they hanging out? They’re hanging out in Dallas.

Their hotels are in They’re flying into DFW or Love Field. They’re coming to Dallas, and that’s twelve thousand people for one episode of this show. The show is, you know, spending forty million dollars per season. They just wrapped their fourth season. They just did a theatrical release for season that’ll then be coming out on CW Network and Amazon and Netflix and their app.

It’s seen globally. You know, they put all this money into infrastructure on this branch where they shoot the show. They’ve got a first century AD City built. Here, they’ve got two thirty thousand square stages, multiple eight thousand square foot stages, electric power. Like, this is a economic powerhouse that is know, the producers live in Dallas.

The talent lives in Dallas that is a Dallas show that is really spending hundreds of millions of dollars driving all kinds a business to the area. Nobody knows about it. Nobody’s talking about it. And so that’s, that’s something that I’m trying to push that narrative. And, like, look at the impact that this has that you don’t even know that it has on the area.

And to me, that’s really important.

Yeah. No. It’s, it’s fascinating And there was a there was a chosen con that was Yeah. Here in town, which, again, I, like, I kind of was vaguely aware of, and then, the the actual numbers are just crazy.

Yeah. Something like twenty five hundred people at this Joseph Con, you know, sold the thing out. And, you know, they’re doing one of these every year now. What’s growing so much. It’s out here in Dallas.

They have to go to Orlando because they’re gonna have, I think, already ten thousand people at the chosen con in Orlando next year. Ron DeSantis is this is this is money, this is economic impact, this is tourism impact, all on Dallas because of this, because of the show.

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Let’s see. You know, one of the things, one of the things that you guys do is organize local events with, folks coming into town doing, you know, screenings at the Texas theater, which is a a big one screen or, well, I guess, two screens, movie palace type place.

It is most famous. I think most people outside of town will know it as the place that Lee Harvey Oswald, went to, after after shooting

Yeah.

The president. But it and but it’s it’s, like, a little local landmark. It’s great theater. Tons of tons of people come in to do events and stuff there. How does I I when you’re when you’re reaching out to folks, being like, hey, you wanna come you wanna come to town.

When you reach out to your friend, Roger Deacon, you know, I want to say, hey, you know, come come do come do things here at the how does that what’s what what are you who are you looking to get? Who are you Yeah. Trying to attract?

And what what you called him, my friend, Rodney. We weren’t friends before he come in Dallas. We didn’t even didn’t even know, but I’d like to be able to say that now I’m friends with Roger Deakins. And may for maybe some of your fans that are listening don’t know who Roger Deakins is is automatically considered the greatest living cinematographer, or maybe greatest cinematographer in living or dead. I don’t know.

You know, he, amazing and just a a great a normal guy. And you could rattle off, name the coen Brothers film, you know, Fargo, big talk degredemption, no country for old men, sicario, James Bond, Skyfall, nineteen seventeen, blade runner twenty forty nine, mean, sixteen Oscar nominations, two Oscar wins, like, amazing. And I I give it a credit to, Andrew Villa who was working in my office at into my office. He, texted me. I was traveling.

And he said, hey, what do you think about the idea of asking Roger Deacon to Dallas? And I said, it’s awesome. Let’s do it. And he literally just DM them on Instagram and said, well, his wife actually is wife James. Because they’ve been going on book tours.

They’ve they’ve been traveling longer than q and a’s. And so this is something they were doing. It wasn’t just kind of like Blue. It was like, hey, would you like to how’d you like to come to Dallas? And so we put together a Zoom call, talking to their agent, you know, kinda went through the whole process and say, we’d like to bring you down through the And they were like, yeah, sounds great.

So we brought him in and did a series of events, of book signing and then screenings. Two, we did a Q and a and later on the twenty forty nine that lasted two hours, Roger answered every single question that anybody anybody asked. And we had something like, fourteen hundred people over a series of, you know, three or so days showing up for these events. And it was just it was amazing. So that was just that was like a no brainer.

And then you know, they were they’re so gracious and kind that they introduced introduces to Donald Moat, who’s an Oscar nominated Bafta, you know, nominated para makeup designer. We brought Donald to town, and so, you know, working on bringing more people like that to town to you know, just do these events and community building and network building. And, you know, we do free workshops at the Texas theater as well. And, there’s a there’s a big reason for that. One, it’s easier for me to meet a hundred people in a room at one time than it is to have a hundred separate coffee meeting get a lot of people reaching out saying that they wanted to coffee beans, but it’s also a great way to bring people together to network, to do community building, to provide educational resources for people in the industry locally.

I think all of those things are just as important as, you know, me traveling to a film festival, meeting filmmakers and trying to bring them into the areas. Like, what are you doing locally to build your industry and build community as well, and I find that to be, very important.

If you are a filmmaker looking to sell your book, Come to Dallas. We’ll we’ll get you we’ll get you an audience. We’ll we’ll move some move some product, that that think is a sure sure thing. You know, you mentioned, you mentioned programs, and educational programs. What role does the film commission have in helping you know, inspire the love of film and filmmaking in the next generation, you know, for for kids.

Yeah. That’s an interesting question. I think, you know, I see a film commission as more than just the the business side of it. Right? Like I explained, you know, doing these community kind of things.

I I think I think a lot of kids that love filmmaking sometimes comes from, you know, their, their family and their parents. You know, I don’t think my dad ever had aspirations or my mom to be in the film industry, but just watching movies with them and growing up and you kind of fall in love with that and then having that background of watching stuff from old Bulwark and white movies all the way up to. Like, I love the old universal horror films from the nineteen forties, you know, Wolfman, the original Wolfman, one of my one of my favorites. And I think of developing that appreciation that taught film as a as a college professor as well in, artists of Tampa and University of Tampa. And, like, I I think, you know, at that level, just kind of, again, sharing things about the history a lot of that people don’t know about.

And then once they learn about it, it makes them more passionate. How do you bring that to the youth? I’m not I’m not sure. I’m not sure if that’s my role, but I’m happy to try and help in different ways, you know, with that. And I speak on a lot of panels and podcasts and workshops.

And I’ll speak to high schools. I’ll speak to colleges, and I speak students. So I think just making yourself available to the community for those types of things is is is a good way to help.

Yeah. And you do have a a podcast. What is your, let’s plug the podcast. Let’s make sure, you know, folks folks

can listen to the podcast super super easy. If they just search Dallas film podcast on Spotify, Secret Podcast, whatever it might be, you should be able to find it. No problem. I’ve had some amazing guests, Roger Deacons, of course. And we have multiple episodes with Roger on there.

Some great other filmmakers on there, Orange Software, who was a cinematographer for the film, the creator, which I really enjoyed a lot. I really liked like that film quite a bit. And and a bunch of other guests as well, Donald, you know, we have hair and makeup design. We just did an episode with the gaffer of the holdovers. So, you know, Oscar nominated and now Oscar winning movie, you know, the holdovers, we talked to the gaffer for that particular film.

So kind of we’re doing stuff all across the board in the industry. And, and yeah, We’ve got about thirty episodes. We just launched it last year and continuing to roll along with that.

Alright. Well, that was, that was pretty much everything I wanted to ask. And, and and pick your brain about, I always like to close these interviews by asking if there’s anything I should have asked if you think there’s folk things folks should know about shooting in Dallas or just just film commission work in general, which I think is again super, underappreciated in terms of how the actual business of filmmaking happens, you know, how the actual business of deciding, we’re gonna shoot a thing here happens. Hopefully, folks know a little more about it after this. But if you think there’s anything else they should, what should Yeah.

I think, you know, the the important thing to know is that it’s more than one thing Right? Some people think it’s just help me find locations, help me find crew, what are the incentives. But it’s also the community building that we talked about. It’s workforce development. What can we do to help with workforce development to develop that crew so that when a production comes to town, there are people here.

It’s a lot of marketing and advertising. You know, how are you marketing yourself as a film commission, whether that’s going to these different trade shows or film festivals, or, you know, on social media, in what ways are you promoting yourself? So you it’s it’s it’s helping develop sound stage as an infrastructure too. Right? So it’s a lot of business development, it’s a lot of marketing, it’s a lot of workforce development, it’s community development.

Like you have to have, I think a lot of different skill sets combined together to really be an effective film commission. And so hopefully, hopefully I’m doing that well.

Alright, Tony. Thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

And once again, we’ve been, talking to Tony Armor who is the head of the Dallas film commission here. In town, very exciting to have him on. And you should go check out his podcast if you’re, if you are interested in learning more about what what he’s up to and and what we’re doing here. Alright. My name is Sunny Bunch.

Once again, I am the culture editor of the Bulwark and I will be back next week with another episode of the Bulwark Coast Hollywood. We’ll see you guys