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In Michael Kosser's 2006 book How Nashville Became Music City U.S.A., the author asks: 'Why, of all the cities around America that took their turn to shine in the world of popular music, did Nashville survive while Chicago, Detroit, and Memphis, for example, became anachronisms?” His answer is music to the ears of anyone who appreciates the power and importance of great storytelling (or, as it's known in the entertainment industry, content creation). 'Show business may indeed be about stars,” says Kosser, 'but Music Row is about songs.”
Flash-forward a decade and Nashville's hit-making health and vitality remain stronger than everbut almost exclusively in the field of music. Film? Not so much. This is where our content creation success story stops dead in its tracks. This month, the Nashville Film Festival celebrates the movie business with a 10-day showcase of both established and emerging talent. And yet, despite the efforts of countless creative and energetic individualsincluding everyone involved in bringing that festival to life as well as those who have spent years fighting to expand Nashville into a center of film, television, and interactive media content creation that could rival Los Angeles and New Yorkthis town remains unable to capitalize on its culture of creativity and build a 'Media Row” to match its legendary Music Row. What's missing? The cash.
incentives
Nashville native Laray Mayfield is a Los Angeles–based casting director at the top of her field; she's worked for more than 15 years with esteemed director David Fincher on landmark films from Fight Club to The Social Network to last year's Oscar-nominated breakout hit Gone Girl. Speaking with candor and passion, Mayfield quickly identifies what she sees as the single biggest impediment to Nashville's progress in the film and TV fields:
'We will never get our fair share of the film and TV production business without a competitive incentive program,” she says.
Mayfield is referring to the tax rebates and various other incentives designed to lure film and TV production dollars and jobs into states all over the country, including Mississippi, Georgia, and New Mexico. One of the biggest titles on the casting director's résumé, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, was filmed in Louisiana, where tax incentives have created one of the biggest film and TV production centers in the country. According to the Louisiana Economic Development office, 18 of the big-budget feature films released in 2013 were produced in the state. To put that in perspective, only 15 were produced in California. Even with success stories coming out of several states in the southern region of the U.S., Tennessee has still resisted putting any meaningful incentives in place. (We requested interviews with the Tennessee and Memphis film commissioners; neither would speak on the record for this story, deeming the topic too controversial.)
As CEO of the Christian entertainment firm Provident Films, Terry Hemmings has deep roots in the Nashville gospel music community, and he's one of the key local leaders fighting hard to make sure that Nashville doesn't miss this potentially limited-time opportunity to expand beyond its music base. But two recent film projects that he's worked on, War Room and Woodlawn, were filmed out of state simply because of the tax incentives that were offered in North Carolina and Alabama.
'The tax incentives are often the difference between getting the film made or not getting the film made,” notes Hemmings, who describes the critical importance of incentives as 'the low-hanging fruit that is in front of every film producer.” He stresses that, in his view, 'turning the corner here is not going to come from any one thing but perhaps eight to 10 different things, such as the tax incentives and getting the musicians' union to consider new ways to help attract more scoring sessions.”
The good news is that Hemmings feels that certain things required to turn that corner are already firmly in place and paying off. 'Nashville is a great place to live and raise a family,” he says. 'I know there are several cast members of [the show Nashville] who have chosen to live here, and some of them are building homes right now. Los Angeles is only four hours away, and there are five flights a day. And there's no state income tax.”
Meanwhile, producer Charlie Lico, whose CL Entertainment created the hit animated film Hoodwinked, has already taken action. Instead of waiting around for the state or municipal agencies to implement those incentives, CL has partnered with the Nashville-based Hardy Howl Films to finance a slate of features with Nashville as the firm's home.
In Lico's view, Nashville already has almost everything in place: There's the gospel music industry, it's the music publishing capital of the world, and an educated workforce is on hand to support the industrynot to mention the city's cost of living, quality of life, and overall creative depth. Echoing his peers, he says what's missing is 'a strategic, well-thought-out plan for film and cross-platform TV production. The City of Nashville needs to step it up and leverage its position now.”
infrastructure
Besides incentivesNashville desperately needs production infrastructure. As senior vice president of music at ABC, Dawn Soler is at the epicenter of the TV series Nashville, which has done more than any other film or TV project to promote positive awareness of the city. Consider the results of a recent survey conducted by the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau: Measuring the impact the show on tourists, the survey found that nearly one in five visitors who had seen Nashville said it was the 'motivating factor” in their decision to visit; 43 percent said the show made them more inclined to visit. Also, these tourists spent 23 percent more on their trip, stayed longer, and brought more people with them on average than those who had not seen the show. More than half of the show's fans were also 'very likely” to return within two years, compared with 36 percent of non-viewers. With 49 consecutive months of growth in hotel tax collections, it's clear that tourists are flocking to this city, and a widely seen hit show like Nashville (it airs in some 60 countries) serves as a virtual, worldwide billboard for Music City.
'The city is happy to have us and accommodates production needs,” Soler notes, 'but it lacks the strong production infrastructure that's required for a show of this magnitude.” She says that in addition to boosting the number of local TV and film productions, Nashville needs the community's support while it is still an 'It” city. There's tremendous potential for it to be a content creation hub, she continues, but 'the window of opportunity is now.”
Of course, a transition from Music Row to Media Row won't happen overnight. 'If tax incentives are put in place tomorrow, it's not going to be a gold rush,” says Nashville-based director Trey Fanjoy. 'And you don't want a gold rush. That just means people pilfer and then leave a ghost town behind. […] When and if we are able to get tax incentives in place, the attraction to film producers will be immediate, but the overall transformation of this town into a media capital will take years.”
investment
Before her election to the U.S. Congress, serving the 7th District in Tennessee, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn was the state's film and music commissioner. Blackburn believes that even more than the state's lack of a production incentives program, access to capital is the major obstacleand has been since at least the late '90s. She recalls that during her stint as commissioner, 'we put the focus on turning Tennessee from a location to a destination and focused on infrastructure and recruitment of companies.”
At the time of her tenure, one of the biggest reasons cited by opponents to tax incentives was the state's much-lauded absence of income taxesseen as a major lure to investments and high-net-worth individuals. To Blackburn, this 'isn't a valid excuse for not having film location incentives. The projects are short term and cash intensive, and the additional services required provide good paying jobs for hundreds who are not necessarily in the entertainment industry but work in hospitality, craft services, carpentry, logistics, and more.”
In her view, the bigger opportunity here lies in the city's roots as a content creation center. And the long-awaited leap to becoming a content capital will happen only when the cash arrives to take advantage of the city's bounty of benefits.
'Content is king in the entertainment industry and is also a primary U.S. export,” Blackburn says. 'Cisco estimates that we will have 50 billion mobile devices connected to broadband by the end of this decade. Ninety percent of all virtual content has been placed there over the last three years. The stats help illustrate there is an appetite for content, whether it is music, movies, TV shows, or games.”
With its rich history of content creation and current turn in the national spotlight, Nashville's chorus of voices urging local and state leaders to take a more active role in seizing these opportunities grows louder every day. But the decades of failure to move beyond music remains a stinging rebuke to those unrealized hopes and opportunities.
'I don't have a silver bullet for how you overcome the current obstacles, but I would think that working with state and local leaders to shift the emphasis to growing the infrastructure of the industry would be a good start,” Blackburn says. 'It should be made a priority because entertainment products enjoy an enormous global market and the need for quality content expands every day.”
Jim Toth, an industry transplant from L.A., is similarly optimistic. The motion picture talent agent at Creative Artists Agency recently bought a home in Oak Hill with his wife, actress Reese Witherspoon, and calls Nashville 'a culturally fertile city, not only in its country music roots but in attracting film, television, and an even wider array of musical talent as well as visual and culinary artists.” Citing the business growth at his own company, Toth reports that CAA has 'diversified beyond music with the addition of agents and executives from CAA Sports and CAA Marketing. The city's heritage is proud and its future is bright.”
Steven Gaydos is the VP and executive editor at Variety. Anastasia Brown is a music supervisor with Format Entertainment.