Tax Breaks for Tinseltown (II)
March 15th, 2005 | by Craig |It looks like the the tax breaks for Tinseltown that I talked about this past summer are step closer to becoming reality.
I’m not going to rehash my take on it, but I just wanted to share this with you:
Rep. Jill Cohenour, D-East Helena, said the plan could be a particular boon for sparsely populated and economically struggling eastern Montana because the landscape offers the kind of wide open spaces that filmmakers often want.
I found that quote interesting, so I checked this page at the Montana Film Office site. It has some PDF documents that detail film locations for the past few years.
Number of productions in Eastern Montana? Well, I didn’t sit and count them all, but I would say that it’s a pretty safe bet that 90% of them are in Western Montana, and the remaining 10% are no further east than Billings.
Yup, that Eastern Montana scenery is in high demand, alright.
7 Responses to “Tax Breaks for Tinseltown (II)”
By T.L. Hines on Mar 15, 2005 | Reply
Actually, the last major feature filmed in Montana was almost entirely shot in … Fort Peck. Yes, Fort Peck. It was “Northfork,” made by the Polish brothers and starring Daryl Hannah, James Woods and others. A visually spectacular film, even if it was a bit too artsy to find a wide American audience (Fellini would have loved it).
Believe it or not, one of the most desired settings–especially among filmmakers shooting historical dramas–is open fields without utility poles or lines. Hey, Eastern Montana has that. Still, as you surmise, most of the action tends to center around places like Billings, the Flathead Valley, Livingston and the like. The Beartooth Highway and Glacier’s Going-to-the-Sun Road are big with car companies shooting commercials, and Lewistown has a train line that’s made a number of appearances on film–if you ever saw Travolta’s Broken Arrow, the closing scenes were shot there.
By Craig on Mar 16, 2005 | Reply
I haven’t seen Northfork, but I’ve wanted to, since my former next-door neighbor Duel Farnes was in it.
By Gman on Mar 16, 2005 | Reply
The governor offers tax breaks to tinsletown while he and his party take it to the businesses that really create jobs and wealth in MT.
Northfork was a very interesting movie. It’s the kind of movie that you should watch with some friends so you can discuss it afterwards. I didn’t quite get it. Does anyone have a sense of what it was about? I can only speculate.
By Nathan on Mar 17, 2005 | Reply
Hey, don’t be dissin’ the scenery of my old stomping grounds! Why, we have lots of beautiful scenery!
Like…like…
…like…
Okay, go ahead and keep dissin’
By JimLang on Mar 18, 2005 | Reply
Gman, maybe you’d like to give some examples of some businesses that are being hurt by Schweitzer?
And in what way?
By starbird on Mar 20, 2005 | Reply
Why dont those in hollywood pay more taxes? if their so interested the homeless then they should be willing to pay taxes for their care why dont BARBRA STREISAN,MARTIN SHEEN,SEAN PENN,JOHNNY DEPP, and all those other campassionate hollywood liberals open up their estates to the homeless?
By JimLang on Mar 20, 2005 | Reply
Starbird, why the obsession with Barbara Striesand and the other folks you mentioned? Is she even still alive? How closely do you follow the latest Barbara Streisand news and why?