Who needs Hollywood when you can make movies right here in central Ohio?
A film production company is betting big on the region, with plans to spend more than $20 million to turn an existing facility in Dublin into a state-of-the-art studio for motion pictures, television and commercials.
Fallback Studios aims to help grow Ohio's film industry, currently valued at around $300 million, to $3 billion in the next five years.
Kevin Kale is CEO and chairman of Fallback Studios.
Rand: First, tell us a bit about your company and how you got started.
Kale: Myself and a couple of our partners have been in the industry for 12 years, 40 years and over 15 years. And I think one of the things we recognized, all of us being from Ohio and most of us being from Columbus, is we wanted to create an opportunity for the industry to grow in the state of Ohio. The industry's roughly $300 million and we believe that we can grow this over five years to $3 billion.
Rand: The city of Dublin recently approved a $240,000 incentives package for your company. How much did that factor into your decision to set up shop in Dublin?
Kale: We've been very pleased and excited with how welcoming the City of Dublin has been. I like to say they kind of rolled out the red carpet for us, and that's been a blessing for us. And the incentive package was significant. I think all incentives that come into what we're trying to accomplish here are all very important. The Ohio film tax credits, as well, into this. So yeah, I would say that they did a great job in putting this incentive package together for us, and it factored in heavily in our decision to go to Dublin.
Rand: Are there any other more intangible things about Ohio that appeal to you as filmmakers?
Kale: There are several things that Ohio offers. You know, we have four seasons for filmmakers to come in here. We have Great Lakes, we have rivers, we have rolling hills, we have flat farmland. We have major metropolitan cities and great architecture, great urban areas. So, we feel Ohio is an untapped market. Now, mind you, there are productions that do come here and film. We just want to see that grow and grow significantly.
Rand: Tell us about the technology you're going to have at your fingertips and the kind of films you'll be able to shoot there at your Dublin facility.
Kale: Our focus is to make this facility and the soundstages as technologically advanced as possible and be really on par with other soundstages around the country. A good example of that is the volume wall that incorporates artificial intelligence into it, which gives us the ability to produce movies in a virtual world. And then AI is built around that to really create environments that you can film features, TV series, commercials, music videos. The uses of it cut across different aspects of both entertainment and media.
