The Eastern Kentucky Film Commission (EKFC) is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to preparing Eastern Kentucky to become a premier location for film and content productions from around the world to choose as the backdrop for everything from smaller budget, independent production to big budget films throughout the course of an aggressive plan to establish educational and training production facilities capable of servicing productions of all sizes, creating potentially thousands of jobs for Eastern Kentucky, and most importantly… keeping the money productions spend in our state… in our state for the generational benefit of Eastern Kentuckians.
Our Services
The EKFC is a place for productions of all sizes to begin their journey of bringing their production to life in Eastern Kentucky. Offering services to both the production industry-at-large as well as services for the region ensures that the Eastern Kentucky region will maximize benefits on both sides of the equation helping productions earn the ceiling of available tax incentives
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We are a nonprofit organization, which means that many of our services are free to producers as well as individuals interested in a career in the production industry.
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We help productions navigate the State of Kentucky’s tax incentive program to ensure productions are maximizing their incentive and getting to put more of their budget on the screen.
We help productions with the permitting process to speed things up a bit.
We help productions with locations, logistics, securing local police/EMT when necessary, and more.
We help productions find and engage with local crew.
We help productions find office space and accommodations.
We are working on, and are close to deploying, phase one of our online resource guide that will include a local directory of available crew, location information, our guide to the Kentucky tax incentive, our guide to working with local vendors, and more.
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We are developing fully certified educational programs for individuals interested in learning and mastering various departments on common film and production sets like grip/electric, production design, budgeting & scheduling, camera department, hair & makeup, wardrobe, props, and armorers, to name a few.
We are also developing a facility that will serve as a functional and working facility and also set up as a training facility
We have approached award-winninig and working department heads and currently working on workshop intensives that will speed up the qualifying time and get you working with, and learning from some of the top professionals at the height of their game.
We have established relationships within the sales and distribution side of the business and are here to offer assistance to Kentucky-based filmmakers about how to get their projects sold.
We offer screenwriting classes.
We offer workshops on producing, line producing, and general above-the-line roles crucial to the successful completion of any production.
Our Philosophy
The EKFC shares many things with organizations within the entertainment industry commonly referred to as mini-major studios with the noticeable difference of operating as a nonprofit organization with the single minded goal of establishing the Eastern Kentucky region of the United States as a premiere location for productions of all budget sizes.
We believe that all of the resources required by productions around the world are already here, in the Bluegrass, and have simply not yet been realized.
Quite simply, the EKFC will train professionals in the creative fields associated with filmmaking while creating its own content with proceeds going to further the EKFC’s agenda and offering those professionals who go through the EKFC certification programs and who work on EKFC productions ownership stake in the content as a way of earning longer term royalties, residuals and other payments from their efforts.
