One of the biggest reasons production is down all over Texas is because of competition from New Mexico and Louisiana and several other states whose legislatures have aggressively courted film business with significant incentives.

From Joe O’Connell’s ‘Shot in Texas’ column:

…incentives were still the focus at a recent locations expo
in California.

“I [Janis Burklund of the Dallas Film Commission] can tell you the Michigan, New Mexico, Louisiana and Connecticut
booths were very busy,” she says of four states offering large
incentives – Michigan up to a 42 percent refund of in-state
expenditures. “It used to be you’d go to a location expo and people
actually talked to you about locations and crew. Now they walk up and
ask about your incentives.”

The Texas Legislature finally joined the film incentive scramble last
year, but with a paltry 5 percent, prospective projects are still
walking away. Look for film insiders, including the Texas Motion Picture Alliance, to seek an increase to 15 percent in the 2009 legislative session. That figure would still lag behind the big four but should help draw attention back to Texas’ solid film crews and diverse shooting locations.

Just wanting to hear some takes on this….