How Kentucky Aims to Become New Southern Production Hub

variety.com:

Todd Longwell When the Kentucky legislature made the commonwealth’s 30%-35% film and TV tax credit nonrefundable in 2018, it cast a pall over the careers of local industry pros including Louisville native Emily Blevins, who had racked up credits as a production manager or producer on a dozen Lifetime movies shot in the Bluegrass state.Although $428 million in credits had been approved under the old version of the incentive, which paid cash to productions for any credits they earned that were not eaten up by their tax bill, there was no guarantee the projects that had applied for the credits would actually shoot in Kentucky.

And once those approved projects were completed, the jobs would be gone, because Kentucky would no longer be able to compete against production hotbeds with stronger incentives such as Georgia, its neighbor to the south. “We were going to have to move or change our careers,” says Blevins.But Blevins stuck it out and was rewarded at the beginning of 2022 when, thanks to a concerted lobbying effort by her and other members of the local production community, a new version of Kentucky’s incentive went into effect.

It restored the refundability of the tax credits, bringing a wave of interest from outside producers.“All of us are so happy that we’re able to stay together and work again,” says Blevins, who’s serving as a senior production manager on the syndicated show “Relative Justice,” while drafting preliminary schedules and budgets for potential Kentucky productions on the side. “It’s like ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ There’s no place like home.”Selling producers on the physical beauty of her Kentucky home is not hard.