Texas’ Film Friendly Program Aims to Connect State’s Vast Production Network

When a state’s gross domestic product is the second-largest nationally and ranks within the top 10 worldwide, its government must be innovative when it comes to keeping the population employed. For Texas, this means enticing productions to set up shop not just through the use of tax incentives and grants, but by devising innovative ways to support filmmakers as well.

Since Texas communities are spread across a vast landscape, the Film-Friendly Certified Community Program was developed in 2007 to metaphorically connect the state. Its goal was to lock in a blueprint of standardized filming guidelines while providing filmmakers with a contact to pave the way for them locally, thus creating a seamless process for productions.

San Antonio Film and Music commissioner Kimberly LeBlanc has worked with the Texas Film Commission for 13 years, seven of them helming the community program simultaneously with other responsibilities. By leveraging Texans’ competitive spirit, LeBlanc signed up the bulk of the currently certified areas, which number between 175 and 200.

“Friendly competition is at the heart of everything that Texas communities do,” says LeBlanc. “And, of course, while there is a sense of competition between communities, there’s also a great sense of collaboration.”

Key to the program is the realization that when one benefits, they all do. A production bolstering the local economy by filming in a particular town disseminates those spending dollars into the next, paying for lumber, food and lodging in the surrounding areas. The economic boost links the communities together.

Texas Film commissioner Stephanie Whallon concurs that Texans are competitive. She capitalized on that characteristic with the current statewide bingo game contest. “We’re doing a summer push to beef up our locations coverage,” she says. “We created a bingo card and [communities] are competing right now to see who can get bingo first.”

Squares on the card include a variety of useful filming spots for productions, such as laundromats, bookstores, cafes and office spaces. Cities take it upon themselves, too, to run their competitions. San Marcos held a “50 in 50” challenge when they became a Film-Friendly Certified Community. The local government encouraged everyone to submit a total of 50 locations for the statewide database in a 50-day timeframe.

Productions “usually come here wanting to be in a Metroplex,” says Whallon. “When they get a taste of what our community partners [offer with] resource[s] and support,
they don’t want to stay at the Metroplexes as much.”

Adriana Cruz, director of economic development and tourism, explains, “Texas is such a large state [that] economic development is truly a team sport, and the way that we’re able to be successful is with the assistance of our community partners.”

Becoming a Film-Friendly Certified Community includes workshop attendance where community leaders learn what they need to do in order to be successful with big productions. That can include everything from understanding how to coordinate street closures to planning ahead for restaurants to grasp demands like, say, an order of 300 breakfast tacos at once.

Another benefit to the program on a local level is to help communities see so-called blemishes as assets that can be a boon for productions. Not every show needs a pristine historic mansion with a predetermined “accessible or advisable filming location,” explains LeBlanc. A community’s resources may be the opposite of what they might typically promote.

By the end of this summer’s bingo game, Texas’ library of statewide resources will encompass a slew of new locations for filmmakers.

And the bingo competition prize? Social media glory — followed by more film productions and jobs statewide, if all goes as planned.