By Alicia Welsh

Coming from a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, I never experienced the excitement of film crews rolling into town to start production on a new Hollywood blockbuster. After living in Pittsburgh for the past 5 years, I’ve become accustomed to production trailers on Fifth Ave, stories from friends of Russel Crowe sightings and news articles detailing rolling closures on the Parkway so movie crews can film a chase scene. Not only is Pittsburgh becoming an ever more popular destination for movie production, but smaller towns in the region are taking advantage of these economy-boosting opportunities. Most recently, the town of Weirton, West Virginia was the set of the new highly-anticipated sci-fi thriller produced by Steven Spielberg, ‘Super 8’.

Each time a movie crew rolls into town, they hire hundreds to thousands of local extras, spend money in the local restaurants, hotels, bars, grocery stores, gas stations,etc. which ultimately boosts the economy of the big cities like Pittsburgh as well as the small towns such as Weirton, WV. According to a recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the West Virginia Film Office estimates the economic impact of the month of filming in Weirton was between $13 and $14 million. With filming to start later this summer on the highly anticipated third installment of the ‘Batman’ series, casting directors are in need of thousands of extras to play citizens of Gotham City. People casted as extras will be paid $58 for an eight hour day plus over-time since filming usually lasts 12 hours per day. This is an interesting and unique working experience for those who are unemployed and looking for a way to earn extra money in between careers.

A major reason production companies seek to film their movies in our region is the tax credits the states give the companies as an enticement to film in the state. In 2007, West Virginia created a tax incentive program in order to encourage movies to film in the state. Ohio soon followed suit and created a very generous Motion Picture Tax Credit for production companies filming in the state. These incentives have made our region a desirable destination for several recent films, including the 2010 action-thriller, ‘Unstoppable’ was filmed in several locations around our region including, Bellaire, Martins Ferry and Steubenville, Ohio, Marshall and Brooke counties in West Virginia, the town of Tyrone in Blair County, PA and in Carnegie and Pittsburgh.

Whatever the reason production companies chose this region to shoot their movies, we hope they will continue to invest in the region.

For more information on current and past filmings in the region check out the following links:
http://www.weirtondailytimes.com/page/content.detail/id/564625/Super-8-film-release-sparks-comm---.html

2 New Movies to Film in Pittsburgh This Spring - WPXI

For more on the impact of films being filmed locally, check out this blog post.