Local Movie Star Discounts

Take note, and eat out more often if you know a movie's being filmed in Stamford or Greenwich!

Discounts give more reasons to film in state
By Peter Healy, Staff Writer
February 8, 2008

The Connecticut Film Center wants stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro to get discounts from local restaurants and merchants when they and their support staff film movies locally.

The center this week introduced the CFC Cast & Crew Card. All visiting cast and crew members filming in Connecticut can get the card, which offers product and service discounts from area businesses.

"It will get these casts and crew members to spend money at local establishments," the center's President and Founder Kevin Segalla said. "At any given time, we could have 750 to 1,500 cast and crew people in the area. Business owners see a bump in revenue and activity and filmmakers get a discount."

Six to seven movies will be filming in the area this spring, he said. Currently, "Confessions of a Shopaholic" is filming in Stamford and Norwalk. Segalla said the card is part of the center's comprehensive production concierge service, which aims to make filming more convenient in this area.

He said every production boosts the local economy because film crews and actors use hotels, gas stations, restaurants, retail stores and other businesses.

"This discount card will help to focus and energize the huge multiplier effect from the filmmaking industry's production dollars to ensure that local merchants get maximum benefit," Segalla added. "We have been getting a lot of requests for the card. We expect to give out 2,500 to 3,000 of them."

He said nearly 100 local businesses have entered the discount card program since it was first test-marketed last summer. Merchants include retailers, restaurants, fitness centers, car washes and dry cleaners. The businesses are in Stamford, Greenwich, Darien, Norwalk, Westport, Fairfield and New Haven.

Segalla said the card will augment Connecticut's 30 percent tax credit for film, television or digital animation productions in the state that cost more than $50,000.

Business leaders and merchants endorsed the card.

"We have seen a lot of film production activity in the greater Stamford area," said Jack Condlin, president and chief executive officer of the Stamford Chamber of Commerce and a commissioner with the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.

"The CFC discount card program is a terrific welcome sign for production companies with significant financial resources and helps keep those dollars with local merchants," Condlin said.

"We saw a clear increase in our business as a direct result of the CFC program," said Steve Montello, owner of the Stamford-based Property Group and a partner in the Grand and Saltwater Grille restaurants in Stamford. "It is starting to be repeat business because the same large studios are coming back with new movies in production."

The center provides services and facilities for the motion picture industry. Its clients include DreamWorks, Paramount, Walt Disney Co., Weinstein Co. and Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.

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