N. Carolina Governor Proposes $1 Million Film Training Program

from: FilmWorksLA.com

If you are one of the lucky Californians taken along on a production shooting in North Carolina, your luck may be about to run out.  According to one media outlet in North Carolina, the state’s film incentive “caused a big problem” for the state — too much work to go around!

In an attempt to make sure more of the work goes to NC state residents rather than imported labor from California and New York, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue is backing a $1 million training program:

We have so many productions underway, it’s getting tough to find local crew members to work on set. Since… 2010, 25 productions have taken advantage of [local incentives]. Many of those have filmed in the state at the same time… We need more crew members, and we need them quickly. That’s why the governor has included $1 million in her proposed budget to create a workforce training program at Cape Fear Community College and in Winston-Salem.

According to Governor Perdue, the new five-to-ten-week training program will make North Carolina “unique”, because it will be “the only state in America that can promise [film & TV productions] a tailored, trained workforce to do whatever is unusual or necessary to make their production… successful and get it in the can on time.”

With all due respect to Governor Perdue, Film Works begs to differ. There’s already a place in the U.S. where generations of experienced, highly-trained film crew members have made their careers, and where world-class industry training programs draw in students from all over.

That place is California, and we love that it’s our home.

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