Does Dallas Get the Picture?

J.R. EWING, CALL YOUR OFFICE. Selling the Dallas area to Hollywood moviemakers has been a tough job for the Dallas -Fort Worth Regional Film Commission, a one-man, nonprofit operation. Commission director Roger Burke seeks out scripts and budgets from producers and then tries to pitch the area as an ideal locale to shoot either specific scenes or an entire picture.

But despite having much to offer-the Studios at Las Colinas, numerous production facilities, both urban and rural landscapes, one of the largest contingents of Screen Actor’s Guild members and a hotel tax exemptio]n-Dallas-Fort Worth landed only four major feature films in fiscal 1995- including Carried Away, starring Dennis Hopper, and A Promise to Carolyn, a CBS movie-of-the-week with Delta Burke and Swoosie Kurtz. Other Texas cities, among them Houston and San Antonio, spend more to attract filmmakers and get more show biz in return.

That may be changing. The Dallas city council recently approved a $100,000 grant to the commission for 1996, a fourfold increase over last year. While most film commissions are funded by a single city, Dallas-Fort Worth’s must solicit cash from 32 different sources-a consortium of cities, convention bureaus, chambers of commerce, and corporations. (Irving, however, gives no money; the city supports its own film commission with $250,000 annually.) The budget boost from Dallas made fund raising easier; some contributors had been hesitant to give, believing Dallas was not paying its fair share.

This year’s total budget is $221,000, almost double last year’s. “Dallas is more competitive now than we have ever been,” says Burke. The money, which is being used to hire additional personnel and upgrade equipment, has allowed the region to be more aggressive in seeking out feature films. Less than two months after its approval, three motion pictures began shooting here, among them The Curse of Inferno, starring Pauly Shore, and Lilydale, a Showtime cable movie with Sam Elliot, Sam Shepherd, and Mary Stuart Masterson. Television and movie production in Dallas generated $40 million in direct expenditures last year, creating an estimated $134 million in total economic impact to the area. With that kind of money on the line, it’s good that the city seems to be get ting the picture.