"Yellowstone" wants to film in Utah ... if it's cheap: Film tax incentive programs have become crucial to making television series here.

• Author: Dodson, Jack

WHEN BEGA METZNER first came to Moab in 1989 as a model for her mother's photo shoot, the city was still quite small. It was before "Thelma and Louise" helped spur a film tourism economy, before base-jumping social media influencers descended on the city, and before a surge of second-home owners created a crisis in housing.

Her parents bought a plot of land in the area, a spot she and her siblings would visit regularly with an Airstream parked on it. For the next 26 years, Metzner was in and out of Moab, often leaving to work in film production in New York or Los Angeles, where there was much more work for her in costume departments. Eventually, she had a child in Utah, a "Moab local" that would cement her connection to the city. In 2015, she decided to give up production work to stay and serve as the assistant film commissioner for the city, transitioning to government work. A few years later, when her boss resigned, she took over the commission for the city.

The area is famously stunning, and her job means she gets to introduce outsiders to it most of the time. She repeatedly argues there's nowhere else like it on the planet except maybe Jordan, the mountainous Arab country. "Pictures honestly don't do this place justice," she says. "We have incredible beauty shot roads winding up into our La Sal Mountains. We have beauty shot roads that go along the Colorado River in multiple directions with cliff faces on either side. We've got dirt roads that extend out into the desert with beautiful buttes in the distance. There are so many different things. And it's a lot of land."

Since the beginning of this year, Metzner has expanded her scope and has served as the director of the Moab to Monument Valley Film Commission, which oversees the entire region. And this year, Hollywood actor Kevin Costner has brought one of the biggest projects the area has ever seen.

BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME

Utah's film scene was most recently defined by Paramount's "Yellowstone," an immensely popular show starring Costner as the head of a Montana family fighting to keep their ranch. While the show takes place in Montana, about 80 percent of its first three seasons were filmed in Utah, due at least in part to the tax rebates offered by the state to large productions.

Based out of the Utah Film Studios in Park City, a large complex hosting three sound stages and a fleet of production offices, the Yellowstone crew made its permanent home in Utah. Pumping tens of millions of dollars...