Promoting Hollywood north.

• Author: Levi, Steve
• Position: Film production in Alaska, includes related article on how Hollywood experts view Alaska as film location

Promoting Hollywood North Private sector firms and the state's Division of Tourism aim to cast Alaska as a preferred film production location.

IT WAS A MIXED BAG. THE GOOD news: John Denver starred in a movie about a Bush pilot in Alaska. And the bad: All filming was done in Canada. Millions of dollars from film production once more eluded the Alaskan economy. Despite a mad rush to find new sources of income to bolster Alaska's economy, the state has failed to capitalize on a very realistic possibility-the movie industry.

A full-scale production such as Runaway Train pumps approximately $100,000 a day in cash into a local economy, benefiting the whole community. Production companies spend on a myriad of necessities, including hotel rooms, air transportation, accountants, attorneys, advertising, car and truck rentals, security services, catering, cleaning, fuel, couriers, recreation and all the necessary local production services. In Anchorage it's estimated each dollar spent turns over three times, making a one-week shoot worth $2.1 million to the local economy.

"A lot of Alaskans don't really think of the film industry as a money-maker," notes Mary Pignalberi, director of the Anchorage Office of the Division of Tourism and currently head of the Anchorage Film Office. "When you say movie-making, Alaskans think of the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood opening. What they don't see is all the money that is spent making the movie. Even though Alaska is currently a very small player in a very large game, we have been quite successful in attracting business north."

She cites as examples River Run Productions' recent filming of a $200,000 spot in Alaska, MCM Luggage employing the state as the setting for its winter catalog, and George Bohler Productions of Zurich, Switzerland, producing a travel destination film on Alaska for Swiss Air.

Pignalberi adds that film production "is an industry-a nonpolluting, renewable, income-generating, investment business that is bringing hard dollars into the Alaskan economy. My job is not to tell movie stars that Alaska is a great place to do business. My job is to get film companies to come north with their dollars."

Doug Sales, owner of the brokerage Pacific Interests and a real estate consultant for the Luxury Theatre chain, agrees with Pignalberi that Alaska is ripe for marketing as a film location. "There's a real fascination with Alaska (in the Lower 48) and we should be able to market an Alaskan product a...