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D.C. officials are trying to woo a production company to make the District its home, and they’re using a gutted television studio space at Mount Vernon Square to do it. More than a dozen film industry executives and those with connections to the industry on Wednesday toured the former home of Atlantic Video, which includes two soundstages, space for postproduction edit suites and executive offices.
At-large D.C. Councilman Vincent Orange, who helped facilitate the tour, said he hopes the property can woo filmmakers who say they can’t film in the District because it doesn’t have a soundstage.
“We’re marketing it in the sense of, we want you to make D.C. your home and we’re hoping to create a public-private partnership,” Orange told The Washington Examiner, referring to offering a film incentive tax break to an interested production.
He said the space could become like a smaller version of Steiner Studios in New York City, which is 310,000 square feet and has been home to ABC’s series “Pan Am.”
Chris Tavlarides, an independent producer, said he was impressed with the space and that having a nearby soundstage for on-set filming and postproduction makes an “enormous” difference when filming on location.
“It really makes it cost-prohibitive if you don’t have it,” he said.
But even with a ready-to-go studio space in a prime downtown location, the city has only part of what it needs to lure in more film projects. Other states have a dedicated tax to fund their multimillion-dollar film incentive funds, which producers can use to get tax breaks if they spend enough time and money filming within that state.
But D.C.’s film incentive fund is essentially empty, and the city does not have a dedicated funding source for it.
“This [space] is very significant, but they’re going to look at the bigger picture,” said Jeff Fried, a sports and entertainment attorney. Fried plans on showing the space to two California-based movie producers, including Jamie Foxx, and a television producer.
Mayor Vincent Gray has proposed a 5 percent tax on movie theater concessions to help boost the city’s film incentive fund. But its introduction was met with opposition, and the bill has lingered in committee without a hearing.
Fried said D.C.’s draw as the nation’s capital carries enough cachet that the District’s incentives might not have to be equal to competitors’.
“You’d be surprised — actors, filmmakers, they’re human beings,” Fried said.
