Detert to Push Hard for Florida Filmmaking

Todays News

As state Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, gears up for her last regular session in Tallahassee, she says film will be one of her personal top priorities. But she does plan on taking a different approach this year, one that learns from “past mistakes” and which seeks to encourage filmmakers to headquarter permanently in the Sunshine State. “Film should be an indigenous industry in the state of Florida,” Detert said. “I don’t think you should fly in here and make a movie, get paid and fly back to Los Angeles. We should do more to recruit the film industry as a permanent industry in our state.”

Desert made the remarks to Sarasota City Commissioners Monday night as she briefed them on upcoming issues in the Legislature. The Venice Republican has been one of the state’s most vocal champions for film, but in the last two sessions saw film incentives legislation she sponsored eventually die. Along the way, she has made enemies with the Koch Brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity political committee, but she remains convinced a bigger film industry in Florida means jobs in a variety of sectors.

She notes the industry has been especially kind to the Sarasota area, where Ringling College of Art and Design just broke ground on a production facility. From familiar film work for actors and camera techs to indirectly supported industries like caterers, florists and a host of other work, a production can spread a substantial amount of wealth in a region. And while the average annual pay for jobs created by companies receiving state incentives runs around $44,000, that figure for the film industry is around $70,000. “It makes perfect sense to me.” 

But Detert wants more than incentives. In a “film reform package” she plans to introduce in session this year, she is expected to call for a substantial shift in operations for the Florida Film Commission, moving it out from the Department of Economic Opportunity and instead putting it under the auspices of Enterprise Florida. Among other changes, that would mean relocating the agency to Orlando. “I want to see an empowered film commissioner, and one who has a passion for the industry, who reaches our and brings film into Florida,” Detert says.

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