061804NevadaArchive.htmll

NEVADA:
There are no incentives in Nevada, other than a reduction in the hotel tax after 30
days. There is, however, a directory of production resources on the website.

Film office
Nevada Contacts

Nevada Film Office, Las Vegas Office
555 E. Washington Ave., Suite 5400
Las Vegas, NV 89101
Phone: 877-NEV-FILM (877-638-3456) or 702-486-2711
Hotline: 702-486-2727
Fax: 702-486-2712
Email: lvnfo@bizopp.state.nv.us

Nevada Film Office, Reno/Tahoe Office
108 East Proctor Street,
Carson City, NV 89701-4240
Phone: 800-336-1600 or 775-687-1814
Hotline: 775-687-4901
Fax: 775-687-4497
E-mail: ccnfo@bizopp.state.nv.us

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MovieMaker 2004 "Top 10 Cities for Moviemakers" - Our fourth annual ranking of the best places in the US to live and make movies (Movie Maker Mag Website)
by James L. Menzies

From Production Update Magazine January 2004 - "The Southwest"
................................Nevada's filmmaking strengths include the film-friendly casinos of Reno, the alpine beauty of Lake Tahoe, and Charlie Geocaris' film-savvy wizardry. The Nevada Film Office is headquartered in Las Vegas with a branch location in Reno, and Geocaris brings a wealth of insight and experience to his post. The Chicago native earned a degree in cinema and photography at Southern Illinois University and freelanced in the film industry before joining the production division of the Chicago Film Office in 1984, where he was responsible for coordinating more than 300 motion pictures, thousands of commercials and for marketing Chicago as a film location throughout the world. He has headed the Nevada Film Office since 1998, and has re-shaped the state's approach to attracting filmmakers. The result: four consecutive years of record-breaking revenues and the highest filming activity levels in Nevada's history.

It's not surprising that Nevada is in the spotlight. "In southern Nevada," says Geocaris, "the most sought-after locations include the Strip and the Fremont Street Experience, for glitz, glamour, and neon. Then there's the Valley of Fire, for extraordinary rock formations, winding roads, and prehistoric and sci-fi environments." Jean Dry Lake and several other dry lakes offer immense stretches of barren and beautiful cracked dry earth (popular for car commercials and fashion and beauty shoots). Red Rock Canyon, with its striking rock-climbing areas, vistas and winding roads in the distance, is also popular.

Mount Charleston could double for British Columbia, with snow, chalets and pine forests, while Hoover Dam and Lake Mead are among the world's greatest man-made wonders. "We have numerous highways and roadways in and out of wilderness, desert, mountain, urban, and rural environments which lend to 'road movies,'" says Geocaris, "as well as commercials and music videos. We have desert, prairie, old mines, ghost towns and dilapidated buildings."

Northern Nevada's "classic" gambling towns are very popular in period movies and projects "that are contemporary but seeking something unique and specific, a different kind of look" says Geocaris. "In the northern part of the state, there's an entirely different visual effect due to climate and environment. It's high desert, with breathtaking lakes, Old West towns like the set of the Ponderosa, stone buildings, tree-lined grassy campuses, small towns of brick and mortar, fields and pastures, gold mines and rolling hills. These places, like Virginia City, are frozen in time. Northern Nevada has more climate change than southern, more winter activities and sports, and draws its own unique filmmakers."

An average of a dozen projects a week shoot in Nevada. "There are too many to name," says Geocaris, who drops a few names anyway: commercials for American Express, Microsoft, Kia, and Panasonic, movies including Hula Gods, Just the Two of Us, and Intolerable Cruelty, music videos from Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes, and sitcoms from Malcolm in the Middle to According to Jim. Then there are reality TV programs, like Extreme Dating and Single in the City, the Travel Channel and E!. "Our two TV series set in southern Nevada, CSI and Las Vegas, are in and out frequently," says Geocaris, noting that other TV programs like America's Most Wanted, Street Smarts, and Bravo's Celebrity Poker series have been in town. "We expect to see feature films pick up as we move into late fall and winter, and we have over 110 projects due in over the next few months."

Permits are generally free on public property, "unless you're talking about environmentally sensitive land, and then the permit fee is based on the size of the project and environmental impact," says Geocaris. "Still, it's generally still quite reasonable." The local production industry is growing due to an influx of experienced Hollywood locals moving to Nevada "as work in California diminishes," says Geocaris. "Our resident production community is a good cross section, with all the various elements necessary except for film cameras and film labs, which we hope to see resolved sometime soon."

Over the years, Geocaris has met some specific challenges; his office has found ten-year-old Elvises, located red dirt to match shots filmed elsewhere, and found air-lifting resources to hoist a baby grand antique piano for a music video. They've buried entire cars in the desert, found 250 pizzas at 3:00 a.m., gathered 50,000 cockroaches for a horror film, and coordinated permission to tie up a lane on the Strip, to close down a brand-new highway for two weeks, to blow windows out of buildings onto Las Vegas Boulevard, and to land helicopters on high-end resort roofs."We solve these needs," says Geocaris, "by utilizing a strong intergovernmental team of city, county, state, police, fire, and other entities that work as a well-coordinated network to streamline processes, reduce paperwork, debug problems and smooth out snags."
....................READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

FROM PRODUCTION UPDATE MAGAZINE JAN. 05 ISSUE:

Westward Ho!(Southwest That Is...)by Brooke Comer
The Southwest was once one big block, in the Hollywood mind. Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona all offered vast stretches of sandy desert.Today, things have changed. New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada each have a distinct identity, defined by tax incentive laws that attract filmmaking, and by marketing efforts which reveal the unique locations that each area has to offer. Phoenix is known for its film savvy kids. Tucson offers the look of the Wild West at Old Tucson Studios. New Mexico has spared no expense to make a name for itself attracting feature film work through tax incentives. Nevadaís film friendly casino hotels and ranches are known entities in every location scoutís file....................READ MORE