"Las Vegas" Loves Our Tax and Tropical Incentives

Sunday's Honolulu Star-Bulletin featured an article about NBC's "Las Vegas"'s shoot on Oahu's North Shore last week. Hawaii will be featured in the first two episodes of the show's 4th season. Here are some other choice points from the article:

• The show hired 80 extras and 90 out of 100 crew members locally
• The show will actually spend more time shooting in Hawaii this season than in its title location of Las Vegas (the bulk is shot in a Culver City soundstage because the crazy Vegas casino environment is too tough to deal with)
• Hawaii-raised Kelly Hu, Kamehameha grad and former Miss Teen USA, came back home to play a powerful real-estate
• Producers said that they've been eyeing Hawaii since the first season, but it had always been prohibitively expensive...that is, until our new 15-20% production tax credit took effect. In fact, exec producer Gary Scott Thompson said, "The tax incentive did help us. That's the biggest reason we're here."
• The show shot primarily at Turtle Bay Resort but did a day at Waikiki Beach as well. (Incidentally, Fox's now-cancelled "North Shore" shot its pilot at Turtle Bay Resort, only to have to scrap the resort scenes when it got picked up because resort management felt the level of shooting required by a full series would negatively impact its guests. Resort scenes in the pilot were re-shot on a $1 million soundstage build at the Hawaii Film Studio, where the remainder of the series was also shot.)

>> High rollin’ ... in Hawaii? [Star-Bulletin, 8/6/06]

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