{"id":93087,"date":"2025-12-22T23:26:20","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T23:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/93087\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T23:26:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T23:26:20","slug":"pinellas-county-film-commission-hopes-to-add-more-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/93087\/","title":{"rendered":"Pinellas County Film Commission hopes to add more films"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Pinellas County officials appointed\u00a0Film Commissioner Dave Caputo<\/a>\u00a0to his post in October, and he is working to increase the number of films that represent the area for 2026.<\/p>\n

He currently administers an incentive program which saw a major downturn in projects after last year\u2019s hurricanes but is expected to bounce back in 2026, according to Visit St. Pete-Clearwater.<\/p>\n

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

Dave Caputo began his tenure as the Pinellas County Film Commissioner last month
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Caputo has more than 30 years of experience in the media production industry
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The film incentive program saw a major downturn in projects after last year\u2019s hurricanes, with only four qualifying for funds
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It’s expected to bounce back in fiscal year 2026, with 15 projects scheduled\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe incentive program is to make sure that we’re showing off the beautiful locations in Pinellas County,\u201d said Caputo. \u201cThis is really a tourism story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caputo began his tenure as film commissioner in October. Caputo moved to Pinellas County in 2018 and has more than 30 years of experience in the media production industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of my work has been in live television and pre-production television,\u201d\u00a0he\u00a0said. \u201cGood part of my crew\u00a0was actually in on-location work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fiscal year 2025, only four projects qualified for film incentive funds<\/a>, according to Visit St. Pete-Clearwater. Compare that to 2024, where there were 10. Caputo said 2026 looks much stronger, with 15 projects expected to qualify.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve seen a huge uptick in applications for our screen production incentive program, as well as permit applications,\u201d he said. \u201cWe’re looking forward to even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only six counties in Florida have a film incentive program. There is no statewide program. The 2026 budget for Pinellas County\u2019s film incentive program is $1.025 million. Film projects that show off the area can get up to a 20 percent rebate on their total expenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur screen production incentive program has a base incentive of 10 percent,\u201d said Caputo. \u201cThere’s an additional 10 percent uplift if we can have a determination that there is a significant amount of tourism impact from the production as well as obvious landmarks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Litewave Media founder Christian Cashmir<\/a> said that having a film incentive program has been very important for the industry. Cashmir qualified for incentive funds for the movie\u00a0Mother Nature and the Doomsday Prepper,\u00a0which was released earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a film commissioner that’s driving business here and cares about the filmmaking community is so essential,\u201d he said. \u201cWe found that just meeting with Dave, he really has a great vision for this area and we’re excited to have him here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last year,\u00a0Breaking Bad\u00a0creator Vince Gilligan filmed scenes with actor John Cena at the Litewave studios in St. Petersburg for the hit Apple TV show\u00a0Pluribus,\u00a0according to Cashmir. The episode aired earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor\u00a0Pluribus\u00a0we did one day of prep and one day of filming here on the green screen in the studio,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had a blast. Vince was here himself with a lot of the top key cast and crew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caputo said his goal is to build the St. Pete-Clearwater brand as a filming destination.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m very excited to be a part of the Visit St Pete-Clearwater team and really looking forward to kind of telling the story of Pinellas County,\u201d he said. \u201cAlso getting out there and creating a lot more awareness for our incentive program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Pinellas County officials appointed\u00a0Film Commissioner Dave Caputo\u00a0to his post in October, and he is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1595,1011,2031,274,36321,558,104,1190,2968,115,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,1316,835],"class_list":["post-93087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-arts-entertainment","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-local-business","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-tourism","tag-business","tag-entertainment","tag-human-interest","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-tourism","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93087","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=93087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}