Filming on public land.

• Author: Bullinger, Cara M.
• Position: Utah's struggle to maintain the environment yet encourage the film industry use of public land

Filming on Public Land

The issue of public land use is just as explosive for Utah as the proposed abortion law. Film commissioners have much to say about the impact of wilderness/environmental activists on the industry. Much filming occurs in Utah's national parks and public lands.

Bette Stanton, director of the Moab film commission, said, "Down here, it's an everyday battle with environmentalists. They put a lot of pressure on the BLM here to go overboard on environmental assessments - even for just film shooting. By doing so, they create such a workload for local agencies that it puts a hold on filming permits for sites that have never been submitted for approval before. The film companies have to pay for an archeological survey.

Kanab, once known as Utah's Little Hollywood, faces the challenge of having its most appealing scenery on public land. Dennis Judd, head of the Kanab Film Commission gives one example of how wilderness policy made one film company turn away from Utah. "The company filming |Rambo IV' found exactly what they were looking for near Kanab - they found landscape that looked like Afganistan. But because it was a wilderness study area, they couldn't get a permit - it might have taken up to a year to get, if they could get it. They said they would have spent $1 million here - they needed wranglers, carpenters, and 300 horses. But, they had to opt for Yuma, Arizona and Israel instead.

"Projects like that could bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars to our economy. Film crews need lumber, carpenters, extras, teamsters, motels, cowboys, livestock, and Indian guides. It could be big business down here with year-round jobs if we could knock out the red tape."

Stanton observed that film crews are very sensitive about the environment. They need to be - it's an investment in future location shots. Stanton gave the example of how after filming a big car chase scene, the "Thelma and Louise" film crew restored the area and left it with more vegetation than it had before...