Las Vegas, NV. --The Nevada Film Office has released first quarter production activity information for the period July 1 to October 1, fiscal year 1999 - 2000. More than 250 film, television, music video and other multimedia productions have been actively involved with the Film Office during that 13-week period, including coordinating physical production within Nevada, preproduction and development of projects, scouting, and other services.

"In addition to being a central processing and facilitating service for all production in the State, the Nevada Film Office provides a multitude of special services and extensive attention to details," according to Lieutenant Governor Lorraine Hunt, the Chair of the Nevada Commission on Economic Development that oversees the Film Office. "For example, the Film Office has taken red soil samples in the desert and express shipped them to major studios to match the color of dirt in an existing shot. It's not unusual for them to help a production secure peculiar locations, work out problems with permits, equipment or crew, even assist with fact-finding to bring a longhorn steer from Utah into Nevada for a shoot or search out a 10 year-old Elvis impersonator for a documentary. They do it all."

Productions shooting in Nevada facilitated by the Film Office during the last three months have included:

Feature films such as Disney's "The Visitors," New Line Cinema's "A Leonard Cohen Afterworld," "Body Slam" from Warner Brothers, "Squelch" from 20th Century Fox, and independent projects such as "Deep End," "Rock" from Denmark, "Highway 395," "Lap Dance," and numerous others.

Television programs and series, specials, movies-of-the-week, and other projects such as Warner Brothers' "The Strip," DeLaurentis Productions' "Vegas Connection," Paramount's "Seven Days," "V.I.P." from UPN/Paramount, MADD TV, Cinemax, "Candid Camera," "The Tom Green Show," Discovery Channel, "Fanatic" and "Time Out" from MTV, "The Marriage Show," HBO Sports, HBO "Shock Video," NBC/King 5 Evening Magazine, ESPN, BBC, "The Real World," Fox Family Channel, and many more.

Commercials for Audi, Mazda, Intel, Ford, Dodge, Citibank, Jaguar, Chrysler, Wells Fargo, Marlboro (foreign market), Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Zurich Financial, Japanese products, sports drinks, RV's, Toyota, menÕs fashions, women's cosmetics, etc.

Music videos and promos for the performing groups and artists Cher, Geneva, Kundalina, Superstar, Turbulence, and other American, French, English, and Asian musicians, singers and performers.

Audio projects, student films, live events and still photography for numerous automobiles, Bloomberg, Chadwicks, the New Yorker, Italian GQ, Microsoft, Mondo, Muscle & Fitness and other diverse productions.

Service continues to be the foundation of the Nevada Film Office, with every request given attention. "Whether we're asked to assist in locating a 9' white concert grand piano to be airlifted for a music video or to provide liaison with people, places and resources for an $80 million feature film, we're right there," says Charles Geocaris, Director of the Nevada Film Office. "Our staff meets the ongoing needs of hundreds of productions, fielding requests and solv ing problems from the sublime to the ridiculous, as the saying goes. If it brings business and revenue to the state and job opportunities for our citizens, it's important to us. Every project, every time."

The NFO aggressively and proactively pursues production through a variety of marketing strategies which have resulted in statewide revenues for production increasing more than 56% over the previous fiscal year '98-'99, and the number of productions served more than doubling in that same time. "With the appointment of Charles Geocaris as The Nevada Film Office's Director in Spring of 1998, a new era began," adds Lieutenant Governor Hunt. "His revitalization of the Film Office combined with Nevada's energized commitment to film, television, and multimedia industries, has propelled production revenues from $51 million to over $79 million in just one fiscal year." These strategies include creation and distribution of an in-depth and high quality, high profile annual production directory distributed to specific industry decisionmakers nationally and internationally by the thousands of copies, an easily utilized and continually updated website that gets over 24,000 hits a month around the clock from across the U.S. and around the world, new advertising campaigns and placement to maximize every dollar spent, personal sales calls by the director and deputy director on studios, television networks, and prominent production companies, and active participation in industry-related events and tradeshows, as well as conducting an annual screenplay competition that generates Nevada-based production opportunities and projects.

In the works and under discussion with the Nevada Film Office are television series and programs, movies-of-the-week, specials, pilots, promotional spots and other projects from CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, UPN, HBO, MTV, and other networks, major feature films with stars like Sandra Bullock, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, and others, foreign films and television projects from around the world including Germany, Denmark, Japan and England.