{"id":175398,"date":"2026-03-02T20:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T20:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/175398\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T20:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T20:15:07","slug":"orange-county-plans-to-open-film-incentive-applications-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/175398\/","title":{"rendered":"Orange County plans to open film incentive applications soon"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Filmmakers in Orange County are getting ready for the county\u2019s Film Incentive Program<\/a> to launch soon.<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

Orange County staff say they plan to open applications for the Film Incentive Program beginning in March\u00a0
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The program will include two incentives:\u00a0Television Commercial Production and Television, and a focus on Film Production
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Filmmakers say they are glad the county is creating the program to help the local film industry and economy
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Once it launches, staff say they expect to keep the application window open for about three weeks<\/p>\n

Roseann Harrington, Chief of Staff to Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, says the goal is to open applications in early March, and once they launch, it\u2019ll be open for about three weeks.<\/p>\n

Orange County’s Film Incentive Program\u00a0is a performance-based marketing initiative that puts our region center stage as a premiere destination for film and television production.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In May 2024, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners formed the Film Incentive Working Group to revitalize Orlando’s local film industry and boost tourism into local art exhibits.<\/p>\n

Composed of industry professionals, educators, and labor representatives, the group recommended creating a film incentive program to promote tourism through the wide-reaching exposure of film and television productions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Film Incentive Program will include two incentive areas of interest: television commercial production and television and film production.<\/p>\n

For commercial production, requirements include a $250,000 minimum spending with a maximum of $50,000 in incentives.<\/p>\n

The television and film production requires a minimum of $400,000 in spending, with reimbursements capped at $1 million.<\/p>\n

Some requirements promote tourism \u2014 like spending at least 25 nights in local hotels and good visuals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe good thing about this program is it\u2019s going to highlight all parts of Orange County,\u201d said Harrington.<\/p>\n

At least five local film-industry graduates must be part of the production too.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we saw was that we have 3,000 film program graduates a year, and half of them are leaving here as soon as they graduate because there\u2019s just no work,\u201d explained Harrington. \u201cSo we\u2019re feeding the film industry in Georgia, Louisiana, and other places, and we said, ‘Well, why are we doing that? We need to keep or retain our talent here.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, county commissioners approved allocating $25 million<\/a> over five years for the program.<\/p>\n

The money comes from Tourist Development Tax revenue, beginning in 2026. Harrington says while they will benefit mostly from hotel stays, other businesses \u2014 such as makeup artists and rental companies \u2014 will have to be booked too. Staff and administration work will be supported by the County’s General Fund.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This comes 10 years after the state ended its film incentive program. When Florida\u2019s ended, other cities \u2014 like Tampa and Miami \u2014 created their own programs. The state\u2019s incentives were tax credits based on production, while Orange County plans to disperse funds in two phases: half upon completion of the project, the other half when it airs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first round of incentives with Florida in the ’90s, I thought this was going to be the place to be, the whole Hollywood East thing, so that brought me to town,\u201d said Michael Finn.<\/p>\n

Finn is a first assistant director working at Chapman\/Leonard Studios in Orlando. He moved from New York and had to adjust when the state\u2019s program ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cI missed a lot of my life here because I had to travel for work, so if we got incentives back in town, that would be good for the crew base so they can work where they live,\u201d said Finn.<\/p>\n

Others, like film location manager Juan Ortiz, started locally at Valencia College. Both men support the county\u2019s efforts to revitalize the film industry through its incentive program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have the production knowledge from movies, from TV, right here in Orlando and that\u2019s a really important part of it, and I guess ultimately I wish we could get back to that,\u201d said Ortiz. \u201cThat would be beautiful, because the talent\u2019s here and people want to live here and producers want to film here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ortiz, along with other filmmakers, are ready for the action to begin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m out there working, I know that the city has my back, the county has my back,\u201d said Ortiz.<\/p>\n

Requirements for the application are available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Filmmakers in Orange County are getting ready for the county\u2019s Film Incentive Program to launch soon.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[274,558,1015,2204,2287,115,1053,1335,768,139,141,140,278,2032,835],"class_list":["post-175398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-top-stories","tag-business","tag-emma-delamo","tag-instagram-n13","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-orange","tag-orange-county","tag-orange-county-fl","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-top-stories","tag-trending-topics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}