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Previously:

• Del Norte Supes Ask About Return On Investment, Will Consider Direct Contribution To Film Commission

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Two weeks after Cassandra Hesseltine convinced them that the Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission was worth a $15,000 contribution, county supervisors were still concerned about a return on investment.

On Tuesday, county supervisors unanimously voted to make that contribution to the film commission via the Del Norte County Visitors Bureau. The visitors bureau would then contribute whatever funding its board decides it can afford.

“To me as your executive director of both the chamber and visitors bureau, it’s not a big enough deal as far as whether we cut the check or you cut the check,” Cindy Vosburg told the Board of Supervisors. “It’s just a matter of another piece of work that we did. What is important is we do have a good return on investment and accountability.”

On April 9, Hesseltine, whose office is the movie world’s link to the North Coast, told supervisors that directly and indirectly Del Norte County sees more of a return on investment than Humboldt County.

Dividing the $135,000 contribution Del Norte has given to the film commission since its inception in 2011-2012 by the roughly $1.4 million in direct dollars that has come from movies, music videos, commercials and other productions, Hesseltine said -- in terms of direct dollars, Del Norte’s return on investment was 936 percent.

As for indirect benefits to the community, which include crews visiting local hotels, restaurants and attractions, about $4.1 million has come to Del Norte County since it began contributing to the film commission, Hesseltine said. As a result, its return on investment in indirect dollars is 2,956 percent, she said.

Humboldt County, which has contributed $8 million to the film commission since 2011-2012, has seen a 543 percent return on investment in direct dollars and 1,802 percent in indirect dollars.
According to Hesseltine, Humboldt County has received $11.5 million in indirect dollars as a result of the film commission’s work and $34 million in indirect benefits.

“They’ve given us more money and they’ve received more money, but in the end their percentage is lower,” she said.

Hesseltine’s presentation earlier this month was in response to a concern District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard raised on Feb. 26 when she asked for “something more equivalent to $25,000” for the film commission.

Hesseltine had said this could be in addition to the funding the film commission receives from the Visitors Bureau, which was about $10,000 this year. That additional contribution would allow the organization to better represent Del Norte County, she said, and is necessary due to inflation driving costs up.

“Between all the funders in Humboldt County [we get] about $390,000,” she said. “Right now, Del Norte is doing about .02 percent of our funding.”

Howard had asked for a comparison between Humboldt County’s return on investment and Del Norte’s. Apart from the Netflix film Bird Box in 2018, the dollars the county contributes via the Visitors Bureau hadn’t yielded the returns he and his colleagues wanted to see, he said.

On April 9, Hesseltine said it was difficult to make a comparison to how much of a return on investment individual communities in Humboldt County received. For example, though the crew with Disney’s 2018 film, A Wrinkle In Time, stayed in Arcata they filmed in Eureka and Trinidad, she said.

Bird Box filmed in Del Norte County, but had an engineer brought up from Humboldt County for the scenes on the Smith River, Hesseltine said.

She also said differentiating between how much spending film productions do in Crescent City versus the unincorporated areas of Del Norte County is also difficult. Sandra Bullock, who starred in Bird Box, for example, stayed at a ranch outside Crescent City, Hesseltine said.

Film tourism was also something that had been difficult to quantify. The Humboldt-Del Norte Film Commission’s Redwood Coast Museum of Cinema, its Map of the Movies app and the Forest Moon Festival is making that easier, Hesseltine said.

“There’s a lot more film tourism, which historically can surpass the amount of dollars from filming that comes in,” she said. “The fact that you had Return of the Jedi here — that is 40 years of bringing tourists here that have been spending dollars.”

On Tuesday, Vosburg said since 2007, the Visitors Bureau’s contribution to the film commission has ranged from $7,000 to $13,000. The exact amount depends on the board’s priorities, she said. Last year they decreased its contribution because they weren’t seeing a big return on films and production permits to Del Norte County.

Vosburg said she and the Visitors Bureau is also trying to get the film commission to build a better library of Del Norte County photos along with more ideas of what Del Norte can offer versus what the region can offer.

“We don’t have the same resources Humboldt County has,” Vosburg said. “A film crew can come up from LA, save two hours and have more lodging facilities and redwoods, so what do we have to offer? That’s [why] we want Cassandra and the film commission to do a better library with better pictures and better ideas…. What makes us stand apart from Humboldt County?”

Vosburg said she liked the idea of Hesseltine having to be accountable to Del Norte County and the Del Norte County Visitors Bureau for funding. Either way, Vosburg said, it might lead to the film commission being more “proactive with Del Norte County.”

Del Norte County allocates $115,000 annually to the Crescent City-Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau, with $94,340 going to the Visitors Bureau and $22,000 to help the chamber run its visitors center.

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