Film Industry Returns to New York
By Dakin Campbell

Adam Lukens dreamed of a career in film. Six months ago, the Vermont native chased it down in New York.

Lukens, 25, is one of 100,000 New Yorkers in the film and television industry, many of whom have come to New York — not Hollywood — in pursuit of work. As movies, television shows and commercial shooting have increased, the promise of jobs continues to draw workers to the city.

Photo by Rodrigo Campos

Adam Lukens unloads production equipment on 125 Street in Harlem.

Watch a recent transplant explain the draw of New York's film industry.

A movie producer discusses the history of film in New York in this video.

Take a behind the scenes trip inside Kaufman Studios, the oldest studio in New York.

GRAPH: Production days in New York compared to Los Angeles.

“There is plenty of work,” said Lukens, a lighting technician. “And everyone is psyched about it.”

Spurred by city and state tax incentives, New York’s film and TV industry grew by $1.5 billion and added 10,000 jobs in 2005, according to the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting.  The entertainment industry has injected more than $5 billion annually into the city’s economy, a growth that has insiders talking like leading men and women again.

For years, New York hosted television shows and movies including “Sesame Street,” “The Cosby show,” “When Harry Met Sally” and “The Godfather III.” But for the past decade, the city has played second fiddle to other locations. Los Angeles, Louisiana, Canada and Mexico lured productions and movie
stars with attractive incentives.

In response, Governor George Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and industry leaders across the state and city created the “Made in New York” incentive program in 2004. Designed to allow productions that “should be in New York to stay in New York,” the program eased production costs, said Hal Rosenbluth, the president of Kaufman Astoria Studios.

“We knew the tax incentives wouldn’t make New York the cheapest game in town,” Rosenbluth said. “But they had to be enough to narrow the financial gap to allow New York’s competitive advantages to come into play.”

One such advantage is the depth of talent in the city’s actors, production crews and support services. Rosenbluth said there are at least a dozen great “first teams," production crews skilled enough to work on high-budget movies with the best in the industry.

It is this dynamic in which Lukens finds himself. As more and more productions come to the city they hire the top people, leaving steady, yet creative, work for those with less experience.

“I’m often the third or fourth call,” Lukens said, adding that he’d like to be at the top of the list for positions in a production crew.

If the industry continues the way it is going, he may not have to wait long. The number of location days shot in New York City jumped to 31,570 in 2005, a 35 percent increase from the year before, according to city officials.

The increase in production days correlates to a growth in the number of movies and television shows shot on location in the city. Television pilots filmed in the city increased from one or two per year to 15 in 2005, and the number of films increased 39 percent in two years to a total of 250 movies shot in 2005.

These include such high-budget films as “The Producers” with Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane and Will Ferrell, “The Devil Wears Prada” with Meryl Streep, “Pride and Glory” with Ed Norton, Colin Farrell and Nick Nolte, and additionally, much smaller, independent films.

The “Made in New York” program has reached the $25 million that was set aside for each of the first two years. On May 1, the New York Daily News reported that Gov. Pataki had agreed to an increase of $60 million per year for the 2006-07 state budget and beyond.

“Now it is all about managing growth,” Rosenbluth said.

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