California Film Office Updates Film Incentive Regs

The California Film Commission has unveiled the full set of newly approved regulations for its expanded Film and TV Tax Credit Program. New procedures for applications, eligibility and audits are now detailed on the agency’s website, along with the CFC’s new project selection and “jobs ratio” ranking. The latter-most piece is perhaps the most sweeping change to the “old” credit program: instead of the lottery system, the 2.0 version of the selection process will include a formula that rewards projects that create more jobs.

The regulations were created by the CFC with input from the industry, then reviewed and approved by the Office of Administrative Law, which vets all agency regulations for the state. In addition to raising the annual credit cap from $100 million to $330 million, the overhauled program was expanded to include TV pilots, one-hour series for any distribution outlet, and high-budget studio features.

The entire set of guidelines can be downloaded here. The complete regulations can be found here.

The agency has also posted qualified expenditure charts and a handy jobs ratio calculator on its main site.

Other key features highlighted by the CFC in their announcement of the new regs:

• 5% “uplift” for non-independent productions with qualified production expenditures for visual effects, music scoring/track recording or filming outside the Los Angeles 30-mile zone.
• Category-specific competition – under the new program, different types of productions (e.g., TV, indie films, studio films, etc.) each have a dedicated fund of tax credits, so each project competes directly against comparable (or “like”) projects.
• An all-new, all-online application process

The agency also gave more detail on summer application dates below. A winter application period for all project types has yet to be announced.

• $55.2 million in tax credits available for New TV series, TV pilots, MOWs, and Mini-series for any distribution transmission
• $27.6 million in credits available for Relocating TV Series

July 13-25, 2015: Independent Projects and all Feature Films:

• $40.25 million in tax credits available for feature films
• $5.75 million available for independent projects

Have incentives questions for California or any other state? Please contact our Media Services incentives specialist at [email protected] or check out our interactive map here. You can also do a side-by-side comparison of up to four states or regions.