COURTESY OF SOBINI FILMS74 WINTER 2019 MOVIEMAKER.COM
destroyed during the Mexican-American War.
Perhaps the biggest wonder about Santa Fe is
that a cultural treasure like this has a popula-
tion of only 83,000 souls.
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PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
Bolstered by a nearly 30-year-old
Film Office that serves Pittsburgh and
10 counties in Western Pennsylvania with high
enthusiasm, Steel City continues to be on an
upswing as a film production hub. Netflix was
in town shooting season two of Mindhunter
while the Tom Hanks-starring Mr. Rogers
film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood also
began filming in the fall. CBS All-Access also
recently chose Pittsburgh to film the pilot sea-
son of the rust-belt mystery series One Dollar.
“We’ve consistently been growing our crew
base while increasing the amount of produc-
tions that choose to work in our region,” says
Dawn M. Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh
Film Office. “I think those two—work and
crew—go hand in hand, given when there’s
more work there’s a need for more crew.” She
adds that the Pittsburgh region continues to
have sports teams and cultural institutions
that are top 10-worthy: “The area is also af-
fordable and is consistently ranked on every
top 10 list imaginable, whether it’s ‘the best
places to live,’ ‘the best places to start a busi-
ness,’ ‘the best places to raise children,’ or ‘the
best places to dine.’ ”
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CINCINNATI, OHIO
“One thing I always hear from clients
coming into town, with a sense of sur-
prise, is: People in Cincinnati are so nice!,” says
Kristen Erwin Schlotman, Executive Director
of Film Cincinnati, on how the city impresses
visitors with charm, and enthusiasm for cin-
ema. “Cincinnati knows how to embrace films
and how to be efficient, how to answer their
questions and make their experience the best
possible,” she adds. “Every single film company
that has come to Cincinnati to shoot has re-
turned for a second, third, fourth time, and so
on. This is a testament to how welcoming and
‘quality’ the people, crews, and talent are.”
Another testament is the work: At least 10
pictures have filmed here in the last four years.
Over the summer the Netflix action film
Point Blank, starring Anthony Mackie, filmed
here. Originally conceived as an L.A. story, the
script was rewritten to accommodate Cincin-
nati once it was chosen as a cost-friendly alter-
native. Bruce Willis returned to Queen City
in late summer for filming the action thriller
10 Minutes Gone downtown. Cast and crew
were spotted at the historic Guilford building
and had Fourth Street blocked for filming.
Cincinnati, described as an “open-air film set”
in last year’s list, is becoming booked.6
ASHLAND, OREGON
The smallest city on our list, with a pop-
ulation of 21,117, Ashland in Southern
Oregon punches far above its weight. It’s both
a picturesque filming location with attractions
like the 93-acre Lithia Park, which boasts ten-
nis courts, Japanese gardens, and an outdoor
music bandshell, and increasingly a home for
moviemakers and actors such as Repo Man
director Alex Cox and Friday the 13th star
Adrienne King. The flourishing community
of moviemakers includes Gary Lundgren,
who spent two years raising funds to film the
sports drama Calvin Marshall in Ashland.
“Ashland has always been welcoming—and
it’s perhaps even more so these days,” says
Lundgren. “When we made Calvin Marshall
in 2007, we employed quite a few first-timers
and promoted people within their depart-
ments. A lot of those people are still friends
of ours and have careers in bigger markets
now, like Portland or Atlanta.” He adds that
work in Ashland can be sporadic and making
a consistent living can be tricky, but “ambi-
tious people interested in moviemaking can
make contacts and eventually they’ll get some
experience if they are hard-working. On our
film Phoenix, Oregon this past summer, we
hired our regulars, but again we gave quite a
few young people paying jobs and their first
on-set experience.”7
KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE
Aside from being known as the city that
birthed Quentin Tarantino and lent his
L.A. crime sagas a Southern swagger, a hand-
ful of memorable films have lensed in
Knoxville, including the Jake Gyllenhaal-star-ring rocketry drama October Sky, 2004’s
Asia Argento-directed literary adaptation
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, as
well as Burt Reynolds’ semi-autobiographical
2017 swansong The Last Movie Star.
“Knoxville has long drawn in a sizeable pro-
duction community as home to some of the
most active reality TV production companies
in the business,” says Curt Willis, Director of
Visit Knoxville Film Office. “With a competi-
tive state film incentive program and a local
incentive program, scripted productions are
starting to take notice.” He adds that the year
was Knoxville’s busiest yet in feature film
production, and the Film Office was work-
ing to keep the momentum going. “The Visit
Knoxville Film Office works hard to ensure we
have elements in place that make Knoxville
attractive, and what we’re most proud of are
intangible incentives: Every moviemaker we
work with is impressed by the quality of the
crews and the support they find.”8
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
“Wild kindness” is what Kansas City
moviemaker Jill Gevargizian says one
can expect when shooting indie film in KC.
“It’s become tradition for my crew and me to
have meetings and wrap parties at a dive bar
that serves the best pizza, and they know us
well now and have offered to cater our next
shoot for free,” she says. “I’ve directed over a
dozen projects and I’ve only had to pay for a
couple of locations; most owners are eager
to help. I’m also a hairstylist and my clients
constantly offer their homes, businesses,
everything to be used in my films—KC people
think moviemaking is rad and they want to
help.” Gevargizian is to direct the feature film
Permanent Address, starring Brea Grant, and
hopes to shoot in Kansas City in 2019.