HALIFAX — Key players in the Nova Scotia film and television industry are banding together to lobby the provincial government in an effort to have the tax credit raised.

On Aug. 27, Premier Rodney MacDonald was invited onto the set of the Tom Selleck MOW Jesse Stone: Thin Ice by producer Steven Brandman to meet with the producers and star and see for himself how many locals the production employs.

‘Unfortunately, probably sooner than anybody here had imagined, a reevaluation’ is in order, says Thin Ice producer Steven Brandman, who hopes to sit down with MacDonald again soon.

Thin Ice is shooting in and around Halifax through September. It is the fifth installment of the popular series based on the Robert B. Parker novels, all of which have been made in Nova Scotia.

Brandman’s unique position as an L.A.-based producer who is also a landed immigrant in Canada — he spent part of his childhood in Toronto — gives him both a domestic and foreign perspective on the situation. He’s at forefront of the effort, along with the newly formed Nova Scotia Motion Picture Industry Association, which consists of production service providers, union representatives and local producers. The group will launch officially on Sept. 12.

The current tax credit is 35% of eligible Nova Scotia labor costs for Halifax-based productions, and 40% outside the city, with an extra 5% offered to ‘frequent fliers’ — companies on their third shoot or more within a two-year period. The credit was established in March 2005 after another industry-wide lobbying campaign.

Brandman would like to see the credit raised to 50% across the board, plus the extra 5% for regularly visiting filmmakers. ‘If they wanted to be really fancy about it, they’d take it another 5% higher, and then they’d be able to announce they [offer] the best tax credit in Canada,’ he notes.

With the recent slowdown in production, the strong Canadian dollar and competition from other provinces and U.S. states, Brandman has had to argue in favor of Nova Scotia more vehemently every time a new Jesse Stone production is in the works. ‘When you review the bottom line, the argument for the filmmaker, even if you wanted to come to a place like this, becomes moot if you cannot justify the savings,’ he says.

He is concerned that time is of the essence because of the looming work stoppage of the three key filmmaking labor unions in the U.S.

‘There’s currently a spike in production [elsewhere] because everyone is concerned these strikes will shut down the business for months, if not longer. Anybody that is not competitive at this moment in time will miss out on the work that will take us to an inevitable shutdown,’ says Brandman.