Dear (Ohio Senators and Members of Congress):
A broad coalition of Ohio small business vendors, labor unions, crew, actors, directors, producers, film commissions, and the thousands of creative professionals, technicians, and artists who power the film and television industry in our state support the creation of a U.S. federal production incentive for film and television productions.
Ohio has been in the motion picture industry for just under 130 years. This is an industry invented by an Ohioan and built by the leadership of Ohioans both in front of and behind the camera. The motion picture industry is not just part of Ohio’s cultural heritage—it is one of Ohio’s most powerful cultural exports to the world.
Ohio competes to attract production investment and local jobs against 100s of other regions. Ohio’s state-level production incentive has been essential in attracting production.
With more than forty countries around the world now stacking provincial and national production incentives to attract motion picture production away from the U.S., they have collectively become the filming location for the majority of global production – a dominant position the U.S. held firmly for over a century. The U.S.’s share of global production has fallen to less than 50% for the first time. We are the only major production nation without a national incentive program, and we are losing ground.
Now is the time to enact a federal production incentive that will supercharge Ohio’s state-level program and ensure the United States can compete on a level playing field. A federal production incentive would retrench jobs back to the U.S. and deliver billions of dollars in new investment into the American economy.
Each production puts Ohioans to work, from hundreds of local crew to hundreds of local small businesses. Along with every film and television production, careers and investment take root in our communities, building one motion picture after another–over 300 productions throughout Ohio in the last 17 years alone. The film and television industry supports 6,192 Ohio jobs[1], with $1.1 billion in economic output from 2009 to 2020[2], including behind the camera crew payroll and direct spending at local small business. The industry paid $84.5 million to 1,444 vendors in 2024[3], and since 2019, film and TV companies have paid an annual average of $88.9 million[4] to local Ohio vendors.
When a production films, the benefit lands on Main Street with the diner, the hardware store, the locksmith, the plumber, the dry cleaner, the security guard, the portable restroom company, the hotel, and hundreds of other Ohio businesses as well as the Ohioans who work there. And that direct spending is spread out into a wide range of communities because of the range of filming locations at which a single production films.
Ohio’s natural topographical beauty and unparalleled diversity of architecture have attracted a long and proud history of filmmaking. From classic films to recent productions, the entire world has seen our state in such films as The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Deer Hunter (1978), A Christmas Story (1983), Teachers (1984), Planes, Trains, & Automobiles (1987), Rain Man (1988), Major League (1989), Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Air Force One (1997), Traffic (2000), Unstoppable (2010), The Ides of March (2011), The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Carol (2015), Miles Ahead (2015), They, Them, Us (2022), A Man Called Otto (2023), The Bikeriders (2023), Shirley (2024), Superman (2025), and hundreds more.
Film and television production is an iconic American success story, driving tremendous economic activity, recording a positive balance of trade, supporting over two million American jobs and paying over $200 billion[5] in wages annually. The industry comprises 162,000 total businesses in all 50 states[6].
The promising news is that more than a half-trillion dollars in global production spending is expected in the next decade and a U.S. federal production incentive would immediately reverse the trend favoring foreign-based production and reinvigorate our great tradition of American storytelling and global cultural and economic leadership.
We urge Ohio Senators Husted & Moreno, and Ohio Representatives, in particular Representatives Carey and Miller on the House Ways & Means Committee, to press for the passage of a Federal Motion Picture Production Incentive.
Sincerely,
The Ohio Motion Picture Production Community
[1, 2] Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, using SIC to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) bridge for calendar year 2024
[3, 4] Olsberg SPI Economic Impact of the OMPTC 2009-2020
[5, 6] Vendor data from studios for calendar year 2024. Business data from Dun & Bradstreet by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)