‘Hollywood of the East’ is disappearing, and Wilmington along with it

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Video by Tierra Marsh
Story by Katie Rice
Graphics by Sarah Sharpe
Photos by Brian Batista

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina — Actress Maureen Mountcastle knows that talent is not everything. When it comes to the film industry, networking is key, and a trusting relationship with a casting director can take years to cultivate.

Over the past decade, Mountcastle has seen her network of Wilmington connections —directors, producers and casting agents — move to places like Atlanta to follow the money.

“I want to continue to work, and it’s just very, very difficult,” she said.

Mountcastle tries to remain optimistic, but she is at a crossroads in her career. She knows exactly who to blame for her inability to find local acting jobs — the North Carolina General Assembly.

The beginnings of “Wilmywood”

The film industry in Wilmington began through the efforts of producers Frank Capra Jr. and Dino De Laurentiis.

“Frank Capra was scouting locations for ‘Firestarter’ … he and Dino De Laurentiis decided they could have a full professional studio here,” said Barbara Rowe, the now-retired curator of the Cape Fear Museum, in an interview with WRAL in 2016.

“Firestarter” was filmed in Wilmington in 1983. Capra produced the film with De Laurentiis’ production company, and the two decided to stay in the area. De Laurentiis built the first movie studio in the area, the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group Studios, which would later become EUE/Screen Gems.

“Wilmington literally was the town that Dino De Laurentiis built,” said Jeff Goodwin, a Wilmington-based makeup and special effects artist. “In 1984, there was no downtown Wilmington. It was boarded up. … Once Dino came in, and the film came in, the money started coming in.”

In the years following the construction of the studio, Wilmington’s TV and film industry boomed. Between 1983 and 2015, 128 different major motion pictures filmed scenes in Wilmington, notably “Iron Man 3” and “The Conjuring.” From 1987 to 2017, 129 different TV series shot scenes in Wilmington locations, including “Dawson’s Creek,” “One Tree Hill” and “Under the Dome.”

But Wilmington’s film and TV industry has ground to a halt in the past couple of years. The most recent movie to film in Wilmington, the upcoming release “Bolden!” finished filming in 2015. “Good Behavior” was the only scripted TV show filmed in Wilmington in 2017.

Incentives and grants

In 2005, North Carolina began a film tax credit program for productions which filmed in- state. In 2012, North Carolina’s direct spending peaked around $340 million in 2012.

A study cited by the Greensboro News & Record showed the industry spent $1.3 billion in North Carolina between 2007 and 2012, and through the incentive program, the state paid $112 million to those production companies after audits. After the rebate, North Carolina earned a tax revenue of $58.3 million from film productions during that period.

In January 2015, the Republican majority of the General Assembly replaced the tax credit program with the North Carolina Film and Entertainment Grant, which provides fewer financial incentives to production companies.

The change to the grant program resulted in a reduction in productions in North Carolina, said Johnny Griffin, the director of the Wilmington Regional Film Commission.

“Productions look for incentives,” Griffin said. “It’s one of the first things they look for, and you’re either in consideration or not in consideration based on the amount of money they get.”

The grant program carries additional restrictions on the use of grant funds, like a minimum spending qualification — $1 million per episode average for TV series and $5 million for feature-length films — and includes a per-project cap of $9 million for TV series per season and $5 million for feature-length films.
Production companies have moved to states like Georgia, where the incentive programs are more generous and favorable.

Griffin is hopeful about the future of the grant program, in part because of the elimination of its sunset date, or planned end date, last October, which he thinks will attract more T.V. series. However, there are no projects currently in production in Wilmington, and Griffin said he said he does not see the program changing anytime soon.

“It’s just going to take time for us to sort of build that business up again,” he said.

Why the shift?

In an article in the News & Observer from May 2014, during the time the state legislature was considering overhauling the tax credit program, the representative of House District 79, Julia Howard, was quoted as saying the tax credit program was “not acceptable to the body” but did not comment further.

Howard and several other legislators declined to discuss the issue for this article.

House Democrat: “It’s a real shame.”

Democrat Deb Butler, the representative of House District 18 — which includes Wilmington — in the North Carolina House of Representatives, said the grant program is unsuccessful compared to the tax credit program, and she considers it the product of political mismanagement.

“Extraordinarily conservative Republican leadership took hold and for whatever reason decided to really target the film industry and to dismantle the program,” she said. “And it’s a real shame.”

Butler said the loss of productions in North Carolina is a terrible loss for the state economically.

“This is the very type of industry we want to lure,” she said. “We didn’t have to build infrastructure for them, we don’t have to build roads or put in new power sources or water or sewer lines. It didn’t require any expenditure on the part of the community. It was just a pure profit situation, and it was just fun.”

With the Republican leadership of the state unwilling to overhaul the grant program, Butler said she thinks it is unlikely to change. She is optimistic that this year’s midterm election will elect more Democrats to the legislature that will be sympathetic to the state’s film industry.

“I’m hopeful that when we have productive midterm elections and we have more balance, we’ll be able to put it back the way it was,” Butler said.

Industry viewpoints

For the remaining cast and crew members in Wilmington, the lull in productions has been debilitating.

“You can’t make ends meet with the work that’s here,” said Mountcastle, who has appeared in “One Tree Hill” and “Under the Dome.”

Mountcastle moved to Wilmington in 2007 when the film business was booming. She has seen the Wilmington industry plummet through the change in incentive programs, and is considering moving to Atlanta for work.

“The state has turned its back on an industry that I think has brought a lot of money (and) a lot of opportunities for a lot of people to work,” she said.

Craig Thieman, a director, said the loss of crew members as a result of the change in the film incentive program causes a ripple effect that makes it difficult for producers and directors to work in Wilmington.

“It gets harder and harder, especially with the crew base going, because a lot of what I learned was working with good crew members,” he said.

Thieman moved to Wilmington because he was a fan of Frank Capra, and Frank Capra Jr. was president of Screen Gems at the time. He was able to start projects in Wilmington soon after arriving.

“It was a really strong film industry and you had a lot of access to really talented people, because it’s a small community,” he said. “And that will come back. All of that will come back when the incentive structure changes.”

Thieman added that North Carolina needs to support aspiring and independent directors who do not have access to the benefits provided by the film incentive program. He has relocated to Los Angeles, but hopes to return to Wilmington for future projects. He just finished his first film, “Suicide for Beginners,” which was filmed in the state.

Others are skeptical about the future of the film industry in Wilmington. Makeup and special effects artist Goodwin started working in Wilmington in 1984, and though his work has taken him all over the world, he has always returned. Now, he thinks the industry is about to disintegrate beyond repair.

“What I made a career out of is going away, and I can’t even live in the state now,” he said. “Financially, it’s not worth living there anymore if that’s the way it’s going to be. And to be quite honest, in our state with the whole political goings-on with everything right now, I’m not sure I want to live in North Carolina anymore.”

What used to be a homegrown industry is relocating, Goodwin said, and he thinks it is time for him to leave with it.

“The state does not want us here, and they’ve done everything they can to get rid of us,” he said.

“We’re dust in the wind over here.”

 

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