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Intern’s capstone: council briefed on becoming a Film Friendly Texas community
Summary
An intern and staff briefed the council on an ordinance establishing guidelines and a film liaison to pursue Film Friendly Texas designation; staff said required steps are complete except adopting the local ordinance.
Rayleigh (Riley) Derrick, an intern at Texarkana City Hall, briefed the council Monday on a proposal to adopt enforceable guidelines that would enable Texarkana to become a Film Friendly Texas (FFTX) designated community.
Derrick said she and Brooke Stone attended the FFTX workshop on April 10 and submitted photographs of local locations such as Swanger Park, Perot Theatre, Lake Wright Patman and the Texarkana Public Library to promote the city to location scouts. She described the ordinance as a set of enforceable guidelines for production crews, and described required municipal steps: attending the FFTX workshop, designating a film-liaison and adopting local guidelines.
Derrick summarized typical production needs and local economic benefits, noting film crews can range from "50 to 500 crew members," and estimating hotel-occupancy-tax revenue for a small, 50-person production at a $119 nightly rate: about $733.50 per night and roughly $69,615 over a 90-day shoot in hotel-occupancy tax revenue alone. She said proposed local filming hours would be Monday–Friday 7 a.m.–9 p.m. and weekends 8 a.m.–8 p.m., and that production crews would be required to clean up and avoid disturbing nearby residents.
Brooke Stone was identified by staff as the proposed film-liaison. The council was told the final step to secure the Film Friendly Texas designation is to adopt local ordinance language; staff said all other requirements have been met and the ordinance remains to be adopted at a future meeting.
