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It’s no secret that with the collapse of the housing market, many furniture stores have been hurting for customers lately.

So when a set decorator for a new HBO political satire, “VEEP,” wanted the Kellogg Collection in Baltimore to supply furniture, rugs and other items for a shoot at a Baltimore-area home last year, Paige Hebert was more than a little excited.

“It really had a great impact on our year,” said Hebert, manager of the Baltimore store. “Everyone in our industry has been affected by the down market. It was exciting to be a part of something like that.”

With the state’s boost in film production tax incentives last year and its proximity to the nation’s capital, Maryland’s film industry is returning to its prominence of the mid-2000s, when the HBO dramatic series “The Wire” was shot and Hollywood movies such as “Syriana” and “The Wedding Crashers” shot scenes within the state.

Legislators approved a bill last year that boosted film incentives to $7.5 million this fiscal year — up from just $1 million in fiscal 2011. Officials credit that boost with helping land three major projects: HBO’s “VEEP,” starring former “Seinfeld” actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus; “Game Change,” another HBO production starring Julianne Moore, Ed Harris and Woody Harrelson; and political thriller “House of Cards,” starring Kevin Spacey in Netflix’s first original dramatic program.

For those three projects alone, the economic impact was estimated by state officials at more than $125 million. That approaches the high point of $158 million in economic impact for all film production in Maryland in fiscal 2006 and about doubles the $66 million impact in fiscal ’05.

No one will ever mistake Hollywood, Md., for Hollywood, Calif. Nevertheless, “we’ve had a very busy eight to 12 months,” said Jack Gerbes, director of the Maryland Film Office, which is under the state Department of Business and Economic Development.

Then there are the smaller videos and commercials that are not accounted for in the economic impact analysis.

“They don’t have to go through us,” said Gerbes, who began his career at the Maryland Film Office in 1991 as the location manager and has worked on more than 60 feature films. “We are a great resource for them, however.”

Maryland, especially Baltimore, has become a less expensive, more easily accessed fill-in for Washington, D.C., he said. Baltimore sites such as its city hall and War Memorial Plaza have played leading roles as Washington landmarks.

“Logistically, producers find it easier and less expensive in Maryland than Washington, D.C.,” Gerbes said. “D.C. does not have the incentives that Maryland does, and that makes a difference.”

Added Patrick Burn, a location manager who is managing “House of Cards” and is a Montgomery County resident: “Right now, there is almost a Cold War between states on who has the best tax incentives.”

Rise and decline of incentive program

Maryland established its first substantial financial incentive for film production in 2005, allowing rebates for qualified employees’ wages, although a sales tax exemption had started in 1999, according to a 2010 report by Baltimore economic and policy consulting firm Sage Policy Group. Two years later, the program changed to offer credits of 25 percent of the direct costs while filming.

The amount of credits rose from $4 million in fiscal 2006 to almost $7 million in 2007 and 2008. The program dropped to $3.5 million in 2009 and $1 million by 2011.

In 2009, Pennsylvania had a $42 million program that attracted 19 feature films with budgets of more than $5 million, according to a report by Maryland’s Film Production Workgroup, set up by state legislators to review such incentives nationally. New Jersey’s $10 million program attracted five feature films with budgets of more than $5 million. That year, Maryland landed no such projects.

Maryland‘s production rebate program “has proven to be successful when sufficiently funded,” Sage said. A DBED report in late 2009 said that Maryland had awarded $15.4 million in rebates to that point, resulting in $90.4 million in direct expenditures and an economic impact of more than $196 million for just those projects.

That included hiring 12,557 actors and extras in Maryland and 2,665 crew members. Nationally, jobs in the film industry paid 77 percent more — $80,531 versus $45,589 — than the average job in 2008, according to Sage. For every direct Maryland film industry job, the industry supports an additional 1.26 jobs.

From lights to landscapers

Some 4,079 Maryland companies and contractors gained business through those projects, according to the DBED report. Such productions reverberate in the local economy beyond the infrastructure of skilled labor and local talent that has been developed in the state through the years, Gerbes said.

An average film production does business with more than 500 Maryland vendors, according to the Maryland Film Industry Coalition, an alliance of business leaders, labor unions, educational institutions and government entities that led efforts last year to boost tax incentives. The law passed last year not only boosted funds but changed the program from essentially a grant program to one that allows qualified film companies to claim credits against state income taxes.

Furniture, paint, lumber, and lighting companies are among those that benefit. There is the impact to tourism through film, such as weddings being booked at The Inn at Perry Cabin by fans of “The Wedding Crashers.”

For “True Lies,” Burn hired landscapers and horticulturalists to adapt a house in Chevy Chase for the 1994 movie. Caterers, traffic control companies and car rental businesses are others that benefit, he said.

A production such as “House of Cards” can have as much as $200,000 a day in direct expenditures with vendors, Burn said.

R&R Lighting in Silver Spring has supplied lighting for numerous movies and television shows, along with presidential inaugurations and political conventions, since Bernard and Eleanor Robertson founded the business in 1963.

“My parents started with just a few lights,” said Bill Robertson, a vice president in the family business who has worked in the production of more than 15 feature films starring the likes of Jimmy Stewart and Jack Lemmon. Among the funniest actors he worked with was Vincent Price, who starred in numerous horror films, he said.

“You wouldn’t think of him as being funny if you didn’t know him,” Robertson said.

R&R, which has its own studio where commercials and magazine photos are shot, has seven employees on the lighting side and five in a separate video production unit, Voxcam.

“My father helped other companies get around in the business,” Robertson said.

Missing out

With nearby states offering more incentives, Maryland has missed out on some key projects. From 2004 to 2007, projects whose producers considered filming in the state but went elsewhere had budgets totaling $508 million, according to DBED figures.

That included movies that would be natural for Maryland. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story set in Baltimore with a $150 million budget, was rewritten for Louisiana. Disney’s “Annapolis,” with a $20 million budget, went to Philadelphia.

“Maryland has lost a substantial volume of this kind of production activity to other states with larger incentive budgets in recent years,” Sage reported.

“House of Cards” still is determining locations, Gerbes said. The series is scheduled to have 13 hour-long episodes in the first season, with production estimated to have an economic impact of $75 million and creating more than 2,000 jobs for crews, actors and others.

Spacey, who won an Academy Award for his role in the movie “American Beauty,” also will produce the series with director David Fincher, whose “Curious Case of Benjamin Button” has grossed more than double that film’s $150 million budget. Filming is by Media Rights Capital of Los Angeles.

HBO’s “Game Change” is slated to premiere March 10, with “VEEP” planned for April 22.

kshay@gazette.net

Movie wars

In recent years, Maryland has competed for, and lost out on, some multimillion-dollar movie projects. Those include the following:

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” $150 million budget, filmed in Louisiana, which paid $27.1 million in incentives.

“Annapolis,” $20 million budget, filmed in Pennsylvania, which offered $2 million to $3 million in incentives.

“The Lovely Bones,” $65 million budget, filmed in Pennsylvania.

Sources: Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, Maryland Department of Legislative Services