Ugly Betty Gets a Makeover

After filming its first two seasons in Hollywood, the hit ABC television comedy Ugly Betty is picking up stakes and heading east to where its fictional story is set, New York City. LA’s loss is the Big Apple’s gain but it took some savvy legislation in Albany to make it all happen.

Ugly Betty stars Emmy and Golden Globe Award winner America Ferrera as Betty Suarez, the intelligent, hardworking, yet decidedly unglamorous publishing assistant at the cute-throat fashion industry bible, Mode magazine. She and her family reside in Queens while each day she navigates the corporate jungle in Manhattan. Except in reality, it was all done on the sound stage and backlot of a studio in Hollywood.

Series creator Silvio Horta and Ferrera secretly longed to have the show shot in New York and now, thanks to film and television production tax credits recently signed into law by New York Governor David A. Paterson, they’ll get their wish. The NYS Governor’s Office for Motion Picture and Television Development now offers credits covering up to 30% of the cost of production and an additional 5% is also available from the New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting.

That’s the kind of incentive designed to give a shot in the arm to the local film industry and keep producers from traveling to places like Toronto, Canada to try to inexpensively recreate New York locations. As everyone knows, you can’t really fake New York even if you can make the movie more cheaply.

Regular viewers of shows like Sex and the City and the Law & Order franchise, know how this city is as much a character in those series as the actors themselves. Shooting Ugly Betty here will enable them to take advantage of real fashion industry locations unavailable anywhere else, upping the glamour quotient considerably. The show will reportedly use either Silvercup Studios in Long Island City (in the real borough of Queens) or Steiner Studios in Brooklyn, as its home base starting June 30.

Update: There are two sides to every story. My cousin who works in television production in Hollywood, sent me the text of an ad appearing in the trades, from the west coast-based crew of Ugly Betty who will be losing their jobs as a result of the move.

To Whom it Should Concern

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Members of the State Senate and State Assembly, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the Los Angeles City Council, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors:

We are writing to you because we just lost our jobs. We are the 300 plus members of the crew of the television show Ugly Betty. We were informed this Tuesday that the production of our show is moving to New York primarily because of the 35% tax incentives being offered by the state of New York. Instead of making good wages and paying our fair share of California state income tax, we will all be collecting Unemployment Benefits. In addition, we will certainly be cutting our spending back to the bone, which will not only cut back our sales tax contributions substantially, but it could end up costing the jobs of the people who provide services and products to us. Not only are these crew positions being lost; all of our local vendors are losing our business.

Our production buys: lumber, paint, wallpaper, cabinets, other building materials, office products, fabric, art supplies, computer equipment, food, beverages, flowers, film, makeup & hair products, wigs, insurance, jewelry, clothing, etc.

Our production rents: lighting equipment, sound equipment, video playback equipment, heavy machinery, office equipment, backdrops, costumes, furniture, scenery, props, soundstages, offices, parking facilities, cars, trucks, storage facilities, computers, camera equipment, grip equipment, editing equipment, drafting equipment, cell phones, computers, toilets, dumpsters, live plants, production trailers, tools, hardware, artwork, walkie talkies, etc.

Our production also uses the services of: dry cleaners, printers, location companies, Special Effects companies, utilities, caterers, payroll services, restaurants, security, Post Production Services, Clearance Houses, etc.

When we shoot on locations around Los Angeles we pay for permits; we pay homeowners & businesses for the use of their property, we hire police and fire department personnel, we pay for facility engineers, etc.

So, while the loss of our individual positions may be insignificant, the loss of this production is staggering. Now multiply this by all the other productions going to New York, New Mexico, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina and other states with incentives, not to mention Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Eastern Europe, etc. and the cost to the California state economy is monumental. We implore you to do everything in your power to level the playing field and bring our jobs back to California by enacting meaningful incentives to keep film and television production in our state.

Sincerely yours

The Crew of Ugly Betty