Money matters draw movie-makers to Steel City

A father and a son walking through the harsh conditions of a desert wasteland, a Chicago-like… A father and a son walking through the harsh conditions of a desert wasteland, a Chicago-like city with a dark and sinister underworld — the Pittsburgh featured in films is an ever-changing landscape.

“It can stand in for anywhere east of the Mississippi, but at the same time has character of its own,” Pitt in Hollywood adviser Carl Kurlander said.

Pittsburgh is experiencing a cinematic renaissance, as major film productions once again seek the advantages of the city’s movie industry with movies like “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Zach and Miri Make a Porno,” “The Road” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” What brings Hollywood filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Tony Scott to Pittsburgh isn’t just its status as a livable city, but its status as a city with a vibrant film infrastructure.

Film productions have come to Pittsburgh since the days of the steel mills, but historically, the influx of Hollywood productions has been a more measured occurrence.

“It comes and goes,” said Brady Lewis, director of education for Pittsburgh Filmmakers. “We had a big boom in the early 1990s that lasted for a few years. There was almost nothing for a while, and now there’s something going on again.”

That first boom occurred after a series of strikes in New York City made movies more expensive to produce there. With Pittsburgh as a cost-efficient alternative in the Northeast, Hollywood started to take interest. In an effort to realize that interest, the Pittsburgh Film Office spun off from the Greater Pittsburgh Office of Promotion to help bring filmmakers to the area.

“From around 1990 to 1993 we had a new influx of productions,” Jessica Conner, the Film Office’s assistant director, said. “There was a need for one group to oversee things while those productions were here.”

The nonprofit Film Office has continued to help orchestrate movie productions ever since. A major boost for the industry locally came after the introduction of Pennsylvania’s Film Tax Credit in 2007, which offers a 25 percent tax credit for films that “spend at least 60 percent of their production budget in the Commonwealth.” Before the tax credit went into effect, even Pittsburgh zombie legend George Romero was forced to shoot elsewhere.

“Romero had made films here all his life,” Kurlander noted. “But he couldn’t shoot ‘Land of the Dead’ [2005] in Pittsburgh because of the cost, so he ended up shooting it in Canada.” Notable for its favorable tax incentives, Canada has long attracted productions from the United States.

“During the late ’90s, movies were flocking to Canada due to their tax incentives and government rebates,” said Mike Matesic, president of entertainment labor union International Alliance of Theaterical Stage Employees Local 489. The union represents film crew positions from construction to video playback in Pittsburgh and has seen the change firsthand since the tax credit was instituted.

“In 2006 our union had just over 100 members,” Matesic said. “In the first three years [after the credit] it grew to well over 300 members … We’re working steady because of the tax credit.” And they’re not the only ones benefiting from the recent surge.

From Gavin O’Conner’s “Warrior” to Patrick Lussier’s “My Bloody Valentine 3-D,” filmmakers have looked to the Pittsburgh area as an economical solution to the expensive process of movie-making, and accordingly, the city’s brought in more than $100 million in the last year alone for the city.

As with many state-funded programs, government officials considered putting the $75 million budget for the incentive on the chopping block after last year’s budget deficit.

Gov. Tom Corbett signaled his support for the budget proposal this past March, noting that the film industries in Pennsylvania’s cities “need a government that knows enough not to shout, ‘Cut,’ in the middle of production.”

Pointing to its importance — the tax credit has provided around 4,000 jobs around the state according to a legislative study — legislators renewed the program.

“Films are brought here today for different reasons,” Conner said, “but first and foremost is the film tax credit.” Though not all films use the credit, like “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Although tax incentives are part of what makes Pittsburgh an economical place to make a movie, those “different reasons” within the city also play a major role in celluloid centurions bringing their visions to the world’s movie screens.

“Way back [in 1991], movies came to Pittsburgh because of our locations, lower rates and our crews,” Matesic said.

Nancy Mosser, a casting director who has worked in Pittsburgh for 20 years, reflected on the continuing draw those attractions provide for filmmakers.

“They’re coming here for the same reason that they shot films here in the ’90s,” Mosser said. “The crews are really really good. They can do three movies here at once and still have enough experienced crew people to handle it.”

As an educator at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Lewis is a part of one of the reasons Pittsburgh is at the top of many producers’ lists: for the body of trained professionals available in the city.

“For 40 years, people have been getting training at Filmmakers,” he said. “Most of the pool of people who work in the industry here have to come through here in some way or another earlier in their career.” Institutions like Filmmakers, the entertainment union Local 489 and more recent introductions like Kurlander’s Steeltown Entertainment Project have helped to maintain the base of trained professionals that once worked with Mister Rogers and George Romero.

“A lot of productions will come in with their pages or their production designers, but they hire the entire art department locally,” Conner said. “We have a crew here that’s able to work on these productions and provide that backup when needed.” The art department decides the aesthetics of the film like how the buildings will work in the background.

Those art departments might be asked to evoke Pittsburgh, but they also might be asked to represent somewhere else entirely. That variable aesthetic is an advantage. Western Pennsylvania became a barren land for “The Road” and mimicked Chicago in “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Lewis cited another reason for Pittsburgh’s popularity with on-location productions: “When you shoot on location, you do a lot of modification to make sure what you’re shooting looks how you want it to,” Lewis said. “That’s something Pittsburgh has as a location. It can look like a lot of different places.”

The city of Gotham in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman” series, for example, has been generally constructed around the look of Chicago. For the purposes of filming “The Dark Knight Rises,” the abundant urban architecture around Pittsburgh was adapted and incorporated into that world.

Although Pittsburgh is adept at playing other cities, it has gladly found itself typecast as Pittsburgh. In addition to “Batman,” movies set around the city — “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “Steel Town” — also have been produced here. Kennywood played a fictionalized version of itself, complete with a Pitt reference, in “Adventureland,” written by Pittsburgh Filmmakers alumnus Greg Mottola. Director Kevin Smith represented Monroeville’s zombie heritage on the hockey jerseys of “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” — his second film made in the city after 1999’s “Dogma.”

Pittsburgh’s movie infrastructure ultimately brings filmmakers to the area. Whether it’s for tax incentives, experienced crew members or the urban aesthetics, filmmakers head here to make movies now more than ever. According to the Pittsburgh Film Office, they’re creating economic benefits for the area in both measureable and inquantifiable ways.

Conner said that since the film office opened in 1990, film production companies have spent $560 million in the region. Last year, the  area took in about $100 million and she estimates there will be more this year because of “The Dark Knight.”Beyond what’s quantifiable by the city, film productions stimulate the economy in numerous other ways.

“We don’t track numbers for people going out after work and grabbing a beer, or when a family comes in and goes to the zoo or go to the mall to buy a birthday present,” Conner said. “We don’t track that, but you have to figure a film like ‘DKR’ has over 400 crew members who have days off and spend their money locally.”

The livability of Pittsburgh has continued to pull productions from the entertainment behemoth even 20 years after New York City ushered in Pittsburgh’s last film boom.

“Even just the general cost of being in Pittsburgh is better than bringing your crew to New York,” Lewis said. Mosser praised Pittsburgh as a place great for more than just movie-making — apparently filmmakers love it too.

“I’m happy that I get to do this kind of work in Pittsburgh,” she said. “I didn’t have to move to New York or L.A. I can still work in a pretty small city that’s friendly and easy to get around in, but I can work on major feature films in the process. I get to do that work right here.”