Massachusetts VFX Biz Gains Strength From Strong Incentives

variety.com:

Gregg Goldstein Let’s face it: Massachusetts is not well-known for its post-production facilities. While there are a few impressive Boston-based companies — including Soundtrack Group for ADR/sound, EditBar for editing, Color Refinery for color and Brickyard VFX for effects — their efforts are mainly focused on commercials projects.

Most features and series that film in the state head elsewhere for post.But that’s starting to change, thanks in large part to state tax incentives becoming permanent last year, and companies including Zero VFX emerging as leaders in New England.“When we started in 2010, people would look at you very strangely if you said, ‘We’re doing our effects in Boston,’ because there wasn’t a ton of talent here,” says Zero VFX co-founder Brian Drewes. “The incentive has really started allowing us to develop a base of great artists.” And to create groundbreaking work: he says Zero FX is now designing “synthetic photorealistic humans” for what he calls “the largest execution of this technique ever done in features.” There’s no standalone tax incentive for VFX companies, “but we are able to leverage a piece of it for visual effects,” Drewes says. “For productions shooting somewhere like Atlanta or Canada, if Zero gets a piece of the visual effects work or the whole movie, we get a 25% rebate on any of the salary costs that we incur within Massachusetts.

We extend that to our clients as a 25% discount for expected salary costs, so it functions as if it’s a VFX-only credit.”Drewes cites the launch of “The Equalizer” franchise in 2014 as a turning point in attracting VFX talent from Vancouver and L.A., with more “coming from the colleges, technological research and high-tech industries here.” (A third.