Financial Incentives for Film Production in Latin America
The Incentives Office and The Latin American Training Center – LATC
Film and television production companies seek locations that provide the best overall resources; the most important of these has now become financial/tax incentives, in addition to local crew base, infrastructure, work environment, community, regulatory considerations, amenities, and a hassle-free bureaucracy.
In response to the growing demand for expert production financial and legal services for audio-visual content production locations in Latin America and the Caribbean, The Incentives Office and LATC-Latin American Training Center are pleased to announce that they have combined forces to offer these services.
The business of production of film, TV programs, documentaries and other audiovisual content, including video clips and commercials, generates employment, high paying jobs in new sectors, tax receipts, and economic activity in general. In the US a television production spends approximately $85,000 a day on location for a 7 to 14-day shoot for a single episode. Feature films typically spend over $200,000 per day, and low budget productions and documentaries average $15,000 to $35,000 per day. Television commercials average between $50,000 and $100,000 per day, and still shoots run around $25,000 per day.
However, additional evidence indicates that for productions which are not location-specific – those that can only be shot on a specific location, as required by the script, i.e., the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio or the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco – the determining factor is financial incentives. Locations without meaningful financial incentives are not considered for budgeting or scouting. Since today’s production tax incentives can provide 20% to 35% of a production budget, both major studio and independent productions are increasingly relying on these “soft monies” for financing their productions.
The Incentives Office was created to help producers maximize their tax incentives or rebates by taking over the entire incentives process, including: advice on choosing the location, filing applications, tracking the project, assisting with accounting procedures, preparing final documentation, and helping receive the funds. The Incentives Office is a consulting company based in Los Angeles that works with producers, lenders, and governments to facilitate the incentives process. For producers, The Incentives Office administers the entire process, including location selection, consideration of tax credits or rebates, crew availability, comparative location costs, infrastructure and other production variables, as well as providing budget review with the line producer or UPM to maximize incentives.
The Incentives Office works with governments and film commissions to develop new production incentives, or improve incentives programs, regulations and legislation to make them more competitive, and publishes the industry-standard Guide to U.S. Production Incentives every quarter, plus monthly Updates and frequent Alerts.
In Latin America, since the early 1990’s a number of government programs based on fiscal incentives, subsidies, tax shelters, etc, have arisen and rapidly assumed an important role in encouraging production of audiovisual content, as well as distribution, exhibition and film project development. This trend is growing and taking on an even more prominent role as policymakers consider new mechanisms applicable to the globalized audiovisual context and the digital environment, and to attract more investment in these areas.
LATC – The Latin American Training Center has recently published a unique book aimed at consolidating up-to-date information on both fiscal incentives and co-production legislation and treaties in selected Latin American countries, as well as in Spain, Portugal, USA and Canada. “Fiscal Incentives for Audiovisual Production and Co-Production in Iberoamerica, Canada and the U.S.”
An initiative of LATC in conjunction with the Spanish group, Entidad de Gestión de Derechos de los Productores Audiovisuales (EGEDA), the publication is designed to meet the needs of producers and all those involved in the audiovisual production sector, including investors and lawyers, as well as university students and film industry professionals in general, to further the shared objective of expanding national film industries, advancing the collaborative nature of film production in the globalized audiovisual environment.
LATC is a media training and consulting firm based in Rio de Janeiro. In addition to organizing workshops for professional filmmakers, it offers seminars in intellectual property rights protection, as well as full-service consulting in specific audiovisual, fiscal incentive, co-production and legal areas. LATC maintains a Legal Services Network with attorneys specialized in audiovisual and intellectual property issues throughout the region. LATC is affiliated to: CILECT – Centre International de Liaison des Ecoles de Cinéma et de Télévision; IFTA FOUNDATION – Independent Film & Television Alliance; IFP – Independent Feature Project; NALIP – National Association of Latino Independent Producers; EGEDA – Entidad de Gestión de Derechos de los Productores Audiovisuales; FIA – Fundación para la Investigación del Audiovisual
Film Commissions, government agencies, states and municipalities, as well as producers of audiovisual content, may now access a new source for technical financial and legal services for audiovisual content production and production incentives in Latin America and the Caribbean, through the coordinated services provided by The Incentives Office and LATC-Latin American Training Center.
For further information contact:
Steve Solot
LATC
steve.latc@gmail.com
latamtrainingcenter.com
Jeff Begun
The Incentives Office
jeff@theincentivesoffice.com
www.theincentivesoffice.com