Tasmania is hoping to attract more big-budget film and television productions to the state with a new $1 million incentive scheme.
The Island Screen Incentive will support more shows like Amazon Prime’s ‘Deadloch’ and the ABC’s ‘Bay of Fires’ in bringing their crews and productions to Tasmania, Minister for the Arts Madeleine Ogilvie said.
“Film production in Tasmania is pumping. Every dollar of money that the Tasmanian Government puts into screen brings us $10 back,” Ogilvie said.
“Screen Tasmania has projected that this $1 million program will deliver in excess of $15 million additional expenditure into the local economy, much of it in regional Tasmania and provide hundreds of job opportunities on film sets for Tasmanians.”
Screen Producers Australia CEO Matt Deaner said the set of ‘Bay of Fires’, currently filming on the West Coast, was “pumping” and “thriving”.
“In Zeehan and Queenstown you get this big explosion of activity amongst the community in terms of all the beds being filled in the motels in the middle of winter … the catering is all local, a lot of the people are walk on parts,” he said.
“Any time we place a production … we know that has a sort of a great halo effect and it really stimulates people, but it also energises them because there’s nothing better than having a whole heap of that activity.”
Deaner hopes the Island Screen program will be enough to lure the next big show to Tasmania.
“These are really great initiatives for production companies to be able to go to a commissioner like Netflix or Amazon or Disney or the ABC and SBS and say, look, this is a viable opportunity for us to be shooting in this state,” he said.
“When you put something on screen, we know that it enters the ether, it enters everyone’s heads and not just in this state, but also nationally, internationally. So that’s a really good opportunity to promote Tasmania.”
