Florida homes provide good backdrop for commercials
By Pankaj Ladhar of Manos • Alwine P.L.
Florida provides a great commercial filming industry, especially in areas that look like anywhere in America. In other words, houses that have no palm trees but have luscious lawns even during the winter months provide great location shoots for smaller contractors. Before a firm can shoot in a location, it must have permission from the owners of the property, or a lawsuit could ensue.
Most large film companies that use big-name actors and actresses generally create the scenes, but it could be cheaper for the smaller film studios to rent a home that fits their needs. The home the film studio chooses must look like it could be located anywhere in America — the area should have oak trees, sunshine and even brick-lined roads.
Florida also provides a lot of technical expertise, on camera talent and diverse landscape, which makes the area more compelling for commercials and other films. If a film needs a variety of scenes, the film studio can go from “Anywhere America” to the tropics in a short time. Film studios can find location backdrops for any scene from Africa to a small town in the Midwest to South Louisiana.
Records at the Florida Film Commission show that several hundred film and television projects and 140 commercials have been filmed in Florida since 2010. These numbers do not include filming projects that do not require permits or create an impact on public property. Since spring of 2011, 97 of the permitted projects were commercials.
According to a film commissioner, snow and other bad spring weather pushed the filming industry to look for Florida locations. A scene for Indiana’s Hoosier Lottery was filmed at Lake Louisa in Clermont, Florida. A commercial for a Michigan online newspaper was filmed in three Florida cities.
Source: Orlando Sentinel, “Winter Garden a rising star in Orlando area’s TV commercial business,” Stephen Hudak, April 12, 2012